Swan Lake
with Michelle Wiles and David Hallberg
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
June 16, 2004
by
Mindy Aloff
copyright
© 2004 by Mindy Aloff
published June 21, 2004
Michele
Wiles and David Hallberg have enjoyed a triumphant partnership in several
ballets this season, and their matinee of Swan Lake was attended
by many dance luminaries, among them Cynthia Gregory and Allegra Kent.
As individuals and as a pair, this greatly promising American ballerina
and premier danseur, still in their early 20s, offer much for balletgoers
to enjoy. They are both tall and blonde, with wonderful boy-and-girl-next-door
faces (well, in the case of Wiles, it’s as if Grace Kelly lived
next door) and bodies that are high-waisted and long-thighed; and both
possess beautifully arched feet that make poses and beaten jumps a joy
to behold. Both are virtuosos, especially in pirouettes of all kinds.
And both also demonstrate a remarkably educated sense of ballet style
and deportment, characterized by penetrating intelligence and, in Hallberg’s
case, a reserve well beyond his years.
However, prodigious stylistic refinement at a very early age can have
its down side, and in Swan Lake it proved something of an impediment
to communication. This couple’s four acts were, to my eye, full
of fine detail yet oddly stilted, as if they were more concerned with
meeting a preconceived template of correctness than with dancing a tragedy
of surprising love, betrayal, forgiveness, and transcendence through suicide.
Although it was clear that, as a couple, they had decided in advance on
an interpretation built on such nuances as the hummingbird entrechat quatres
in Odette’s Act II variation and Siegfried’s three different
ways of raising his arm to swear his love, now to Odette, now to Odile,
it didn’t seem as if either dancer had thought about what might
be necessary to project the story to the reaches of a 4,000-seat opera
house. For three of the acts, I sat in a seat in the middle of the orchestra
on the side; although I admired the dancing of both principals very much,
its effect was a little remote, and, in some respects, a little cold.
For the fourth act, I stood at the back of the orchestra and felt no warmth
from the stage at all. 
When
Hallberg’s Siegfried reached for her, he took a lunge, held his
back upright, and reached for her with his arms only; his chest and lower
back were not implicated in the gesture. He looked correct, and princely,
but in a generic way. Similarly, although Wiles’s Odette delivered
her mime monologue explaining her past with a delicacy worthy of Watteau,
she didn’t actually stand out from the other swans when she shared
the stage with them. She was a nice girl who dances beautiful ballet.
(Wiles seemed more comfortable with the flirtatious Odile, who is a less
complicated character. And, of course, her version of the 32 fouettés—triple-single-double
for the first 16—would make her stand out in a hurricane.)
One hopes that they will have more chances to perform these roles, and also to observe other partnerships performing them, both live and on film. This is only the threshold of potentially wonderful careers for two dancers who are already classicists to their bones.
Photos:
First, Michele Wiles and David Hallberg in Swan Lake. Photo by
Rosalie O'Connor.
Second, David Hallberg in Swan Lake. Photo by Rosalie O'Connor.
Originally
published:
www.danceviewtimes.com
Volume 2, Number 23
June 21, 2004
Copyright
©2004 by Mindy Aloff
revised June 21, 2004
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