American Ballet Theater – Shostakovich’s Bright Stream. June 11, 2011.

Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center – Balcony (Seat F101, $43).

Conductor – Charles Barker; Zina – Veronika Part, Pyotr – Alexandre Hammoudi, Ballerina – Stella Abrera, Ballet Dancer – Cory Stearns, Dacha Man – Victor Barbee, Dacha Woman – Martine van Hamel, Galya the school girl – Gemma Bond, Milkmaid – Misty Copeland, Gavrilych inspector of quality – Roman Zhurbin.

Story. Zina and Pyotr are a married couple living on the Russian collective farm Bright Stream. A ballet troupe comes into town, and Zina discovers she and the ballerina were classmates at ballet school. Pyotr is taken with the ballerina. Meanwhile, an older Dacha couple come by and the man likes Zina while the woman likes the male ballet dancer. Zina and the ballet dancers decide to play a hoax; so we have Zina disguised as the ballerina to trick Pyotr; the ballerina as the ballet dancer to trick the Dacha woman; and the ballet dancer as Zina to trick the Dacha man. They all fall for the disguises. The Dacha man actually goes so far as to have a duel with the disguised ballerina. Everything eventually gets sorted out.

Early this afternoon Anne suggested that we go to Nyack to visit The Hopper House. We have been interested in this artist ever since our son gave us a print of his (Lighthouse at Portland Head) after we moved to our current house with a view of the Great Beds Lighthouse. We saw a couple of his paintings at the Chicago Art Institute, including The Nighthawks, and greatly enjoyed them. The exhibit concentrates on Hopper’s early years. While interesting, it contains only a few of his early works, many on loan from other museums (several from the Whitney in New York). The docents were quite friendly and helpful, and we did learn a few things about Hopper, including how his painting style changed over the years. The $15 admission fee is a bit on the high side, though.

We got done around 4 pm, and decided to head down to the City to see if we could buy discounted tickets for the evening’s ABT performance. Even though there were many seats available, half price tickets were not on offer. We got the cheap seats in the balcony. We did find off-street parking that cost us only $6 at the meter. Between a crafts fair at Lincoln Plaza and dinner at China Fun, it was not a long wait before the performance began at 8 pm.

Indeed the ballet was not well-attended. I estimate over half of the balcony and family circle seats were not taken. Our seats had great acoustics, but I would have preferred to be closer to the stage. This matters less with operas as I go mostly for the singing (and many opera singers don’t act that well), whereas with ballets it is important to see the dancers’ movements and expressions.

The ballet has an interesting history. Shostakovich was criticized severely by the Russian censors since this work supposedly reflects the idyllic peasant life in a bad light. It was revived by Alexei Ratmansky and the Bolshoi Ballet in 2003 (it was premiered in 1935), and the ABT first performed it in January, 2011, at the JFK Center in Washington, DC.

The story (as summarized in the synopsis) is quite complicated (perhaps convoluted), but is actually quite easy to follow. The “story” I wrote above skips several aspects, including: inspector of quality, dog, milkmaid, tractor driver, the accordion player, and the grim reaper. There is considerable humor in not naming many of the characters and calling them by interesting names such as “Anxious-to-Be-Younger-Than-She-Is Dacha Dweller”. The fact that Zina (Veronika Part) and the ballerina (Stella Abrera) are quite different in height helps. I did get confused sometimes by Pyotr (Alexandre Hammoudi) and the ballet dance (Gennadi Saveliev) since they are closer in stature; and their costumes are only slightly different.

I generally do not appreciate comedies as much as, say, tragedies. However, I did find this ballet enjoyable. Even though there was no suspense to the story, and one is pretty sure everything would turn out okay at the end, I still found the story fascinating as it unfolded. The Dacha-dwelling couple put out an especially funny performance. I do wish they would get more serious dancing roles as I am sure they are capable. Hammoudi is probably an up-and-coming star to be given this major role. During the pas de deux with Part he was a bit unsteady at times; nonetheless he generally did a good job. The two ballet dancers (Abrera and Stearns) have to dance as the opposite sex during Act II, generally they mimic the other sex pretty well. I am quite impressed with Stearns’s ability to stand and dance on his tiptoe (I guess the technical term would be "on point") quite well. In general, however, the lady dancer (Abrera) did a more convincing job.

Shostakovich’s music is uncharacteristically simple to follow – perhaps the storyline of the ballet helps to guide the listener. The melodies are very tonal, and close to being singable. The entire work didn’t feel nearly as heavy-duty as some of his other work (even compared to his Symphony No. 1 which I heard a couple of days before.) I have not heard any of his operas, yet I am sure his operas are not quite that easy to follow (I don’t even know if he wrote any.) In the pas de deux of Act II, the cello got quite a work out, and it was nicely done.

It was an enjoyable day overall. I am glad we got to see this ballet. I do hope it will remain in the ABT repertoire for a while despite the disappointing attendance. The New York Times Review is for another set of dancers, and contains a lot of interesting background information, including the fact that Ratmansky (the choreographer of this production) is Artist in Residence at ABT; of course I would know that if I had read the program more carefully.