When Mercutio finally collapsed and died at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, it was more heartbreaking than usual. Of course, this is how “Romeo and Juliet” unfolds. Romeo’s merry friend is stabbed by Tybalt, which causes Romeo to kill Tybalt, which leads to the lovers’ suicide. But the most tragic moment in this American Ballet Theater production was Mercutio’s death.
After that scene, there will be no more Jake Roxander.
Remember his name! The members of this corps de ballet shine brightly throughout the season, starting with outstanding performances with the company. Peasant pas de deux from “Giselle” Co-starring with Zimmi Coker, another shining corps dancer. (Why isn’t she a soloist? And how long until they’re headlining “Giselle?”) Performing Neapolitan dances with another up-and-coming talent, Jonathan Klein, in “Swan Lake,” Roxander was once again astonishing, leaping so high he seemed to float.
But Roxander’s biggest role this season, Mercutio, really showcased his explosive talent. He’s small, but he’s got greatness. His technique is formidable, with scrupulous precision, detailed epaulettes, multiple pirouettes (quadruples, sometimes he’s a quintuple), and brilliant climb and jump idiosyncrasies. But his dance goes beyond technique. With arched brows and a quick smile, Roxander awakens the story in his ballet with his inherent theatricality in any role. His walk is light. His hips have bounce. he is walking.
It served the final three weeks of the Ballet Theater’s summer season, which consisted of versions of the regular story ballet. Kenneth MacMillan’s moody, sepia-toned Romeo and Juliet (1965), as well as Kevin Mackenzie’s Giselle and Mackenzie’s version of Swan Lake were also performed. (The season kicked off with the New York premiere of another narrative ballet, Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate.)
What does American Ballet Theater stand for? Sometimes the answer seems to be less about ballet and more about its brand of theater. Storytelling tends to be musty in theater. “Swan Lake” is the most oppressive, with just a protracted fourth act.
With material so familiar (and sometimes banal), dancers are naturally under pressure to be truthful, perform well, and even transcend. All the while, the performance schedule and cast composition kept the lead roles thinly distributed. This year’s Met season was short (just over four weeks, down from eight weeks in 2019), but the ballet theater’s roster of principals is long (17). Most of the time, Principal performed big dance roles in one shot. It’s not easy to expect your body to move effortlessly on the cavernous stages of the MET when your mind is thinking “Don’t blow me away.”
But Roxander’s performance became a silver lining not only for Roxander, but for the future of ballet theater and the leadership of new artistic director Susan Jaffe, whose casting of a younger generation is not boring. Among them was the surprise appearance of corps de ballet member Fang-Chi Lee as the icy new Mirtha in “Giselle.” She supported the stage with a sense of tension. Willowy soloist Chloe Misseldin is eerie, alien-like, and constantly improving as another new Mirta, but her posture and leaps are heavenly, and she was also great on the Pas de Trois in Swan Lake.
In the same Pas de Trois of “Swan” and Pas de Deux of Peasants of “Giselle”, another recently promoted soloist, Park Sung-mi, stepped forward with her musicality and imagination, lightness and grace flowing from limbs that were nothing short of joy. Patrick Frenett, who played Hilarion in “Giselle,” gives a heartbreaking performance instead of a brash one-note act in the first act, and a swirling Darvish whose Willis (women who died before they were married) makes him dance to death in the second act.
I loved how Joseph Gorak got his revenge on Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet. A longtime soloist with one of the industry’s most elegant legs, he is leaving the company. Connor Holloway and Gabe Stone-Shear are also leaving the company, the company announced on Monday.
A veteran principal also provided a bright spot. Devon Teuscher, as Juliet, came on stage surprisingly lively, so naive and anguished that McMillan’s rendition looked as if it had been choreographed yesterday. The understated and elegant Teuscher, who played the standout Romeo in Alan Bell, found a way to incorporate acting into the subtle precision of dance that melts the virtuosity. In her “Giselle” she let her own character shine with her delicate gestures and powerful technique, but her Juliet was something else. She didn’t waste a moment. It was true.
Daniel Camargo is in his second season at the Met and continues to be an integral part of the ardent romantic lead. Dancing with Katherine Harlin in Giselle and Isabella Boylston in Swan Lake was phenomenal. His choices often feel as thoughtful and raw as the poignant final moments of Giselle, when he walks diagonally backwards and presses a flower to his chest. They fell to the floor like tears.
There was a taut tension in Boylston’s Odette, much like Odile’s glittering, thrilling performance in the ball scene in Swan Lake. Harlin, who skyrocketed his role with wild power, seemed a little lost at various points during the season. Her “Giselle” was her most expressive and accomplished work on stage, but “Swan Lake” lacked that fragrant, flowing intensity.
As Juliet, she was animated in the first act, more unrestrained and brazen than the others, but by the end there was more of a sense of character than emotion. She may have had chemistry problems. She seemed to bond more with her nurse (Luciana Paris) than with Romeo (Calvin Royale III). But she has room to grow in her role, and she has years to grow.
Story ballets like “Giselle” and “Swan Lake,” about love and women’s suffering, redemption and forgiveness, can sometimes feel more old-fashioned than romantic, especially when watched in such a sequence. In the name of love, a woman dies and becomes Willis. Women captured and turned into swans in the name of love can be set free if they find a loving man who loves them too.
But Cassandra Trenary, a wonderfully dramatic ballerina, has found a fresh, modern, and, for that matter, less problematic way of ‘Giselle”s insane scene. When Giselle finds out that her beloved Count Albrecht is engaged to someone else, she loses her sanity and dies of heartbreak. The whole village is there. It’s the 19th century version of finding out you’ve been tricked, lied to, or dumped on social media.
There was no stunned surprise on Trenary’s face. Instead, she went back in time and remembered the moment they shared. she turned around. Her devastated countenance and her shriveled body told a different story than her usual anguish.Her Gisele just wasn’t meant to be go gone crazy. she was angry with herself.
