A terrfic addition to his nasty domineering - a spewed puff of smoke to seal the Prince’s momentary frog spell - was added over the weekend.Two artists collaborating on a picture book is hardly news, but in the case of Firebird, which Putnam is publishing this month, the creative team is slightly unusual: it consists of an illustrator and a ballerina.
Rightfully, the Firebird’s real match is Kaschei, a bravura, scenery-chewing role for Roman Zhurbin (second and third casts). Thus the Maiden alone stood for romance, and ABT’s trove of soloists - Simone Messmer (first cast), Maria Riccetto (second) and Kristi Boone (third) - excelled here. In limiting the Firebird’s number of pas de deux with the Prince (she’s part of a flock in the opening and a pas de quatre member in the final lullaby), this ballet finally offered a cohesive bird that does not just resolve into an unattainable red-hot shadow of the Maiden. Too bad Ratmansky wasn’t onstage that night, for he deserved it too. With them, the audience’s standing ovation was absolutely spontaneous.
Cornejo masterfully sustained tension and contained his energy, thus giving even more force to Copeland’s abandoned, creaturely performance. Ratmansky’s revised storyline and forward-backward movement idiom finally emerged clearly with second cast leads Misty Copeland and Herman Cornejo, a hypnotizing pair. As the Prince with Boylston, Alexandre Hammoudi was regal and somewhat stiff. But Boylston - struggling for the right balance of attack - came off like a curious, Gaga-esque guest. In the first and third cast, neither Firebird transformed beyond human form, though the previously reviewed Natalia Osipova and Isabella Boylston both danced bravely. Performances varied a lot, and backstage tinkerings (the princesses’ wigs came and went) were ongoing. But on opening weekend at the Segerstrom Center, a number of ABT’s world-class dancers mixed poorly with the costumes and struggled with their mechanics. Igor Stravinsky’s sensational “Firebird” ballet demands a vivid design, and Simon Pastukh’s scorched, metallic forest (ignited by Wendell Harrington’s projections), along with Galina Solovyeva’s haute-goth costumes, deliver a strong pop vision to Alexei Ratmansky’s new ballet for American Ballet Theatre.
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