The premiere is over, and the nerves are settling down a bit. And it's a case of not to worry, because Ballet West looks wonderful in its whole variety program, and especially so in John Neumeier's smashing new ballet, "The Age of Anxiety." So bring on the lions (meaning the national critics), this company should be ready for them.
Neumeier's is an exciting American voice in choreography, one rather unfamiliar to Westerners, though he has choreographed widely in Great Britain and Europe. In fulfilling the company's Kennedy Center grant, he shows a gift rarely indulged these days - the ability to incorporate emotional states and plumb depths, as ballets did at mid-century, yet in a thoroughly modern idiom. Neumeier's work doesn't look like anyone else's. His movement is strong and beautiful, and this is a piece the likes of which Ballet West has not danced before.Principals Jane Wood, Robert Arbogast, Kristopher Payne and Jeffrey Rogers project their assigned emotional characteristics plausibly, reacting and interacting vitally. Their confrontation in a bar with their child-selves is touching, even eerie, evoking ghosts and visions.
Then the piece folds into its most striking section - the dream journey, with full corps masterfully deployed in small groups and en masse, dancing and whirling through a cold, isolated milieu, multiplied by a dark, slightly distorted mirror wall at the rear. In this scene, lighting by Joan Sullivan and always-effective sets and costumes by Zack Brown reach their zenith.
Raymond Van Mason supplies the comfort of the Colossal Dad in the Dirge, as he envelops each and all four characters in a slow dance of powerful, sinuous folding and unfolding, touching and disengaging. Next a lively dance for corps in '40s style, jumpy and jivey with tick-tock rhythms, evolves into a chaotic scene of pleasure gone mad.
The four find themselves in a park at dawn. Two lovers meet, embrace and run off; they watch, come to themselves and wander off to the four corners - nothing changed, yet strangely comforted.
Terence Kern vividly conducts the competent Utah Chamber Orchestra in the score, Leonard Bernstein's eminently danceable second symphony, with Jed Moss as the expressive pianist.
What need one say about "The Gilded Bat?" Only that it's far funnier the second time around. This romping spoof of ballet, with story, set and costume designs by the inimitable Edward Gorey, choreography by the equally inimitable Peter Anastos (he of Ballets Trocaderos fame), and eclectic score by Peter Golub, profits from the ultra-proper British accent of narrator John Hart.
Erin Leedom has added many airs and graces to her wistful Maude Splaytoes; Maggie Wright steals the scene as star of the Ballet Hochepot; and the snowshoed Eskimo hunters of "Oiseau de Glace" clomp ever more boorishly.
Divertimento No. 15, set to music of Mozart, is early Balanchine (1956), yet with full measure of his style, musicality and ability to lead dancers in fluid patterns almost as visible as if they were traced on stage. Solos by five ballerinas, a free-flowing minuet for women of the corps, mini pas de deux, and ensemble finale all contribute to a program opener of charm, ease and precision.
Judging from the sparse audience on opening night, there are still plenty of tickets for this show. Try it, you'll like it.