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Review: All Robbins fest at S.F. Ballet
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The San Francisco Ballet dances a scene from "West Side Story" in Program 4 featuring works by Jerome Robbins.
SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - How amazing it must have been to be in the (old) Metropolitan Opera House in 1944, when Ballet Theatre first performed Jerome Robbins' "Fancy Free." This vital, athletic, revolutionary revitalization of dance is so powerful that even 64 years later, watching the San Francisco Ballet’s Thursday night performance of it takes your breath away.
With Martin West conducting the Ballet Orchestra, the joyfully jazzy Leonard Bernstein score gave wings to the three sailors on leave and on the prowl for some female companionship. Pascal Molat dazzled with a frenzied solo, including split landings. Garrett Anderson and Davit Karapetyan brought sensitivity and genuine humor into that horseplay supposedly required to gain the attention of Erin McNulty, Mariellen Olson and Vanessa Zahorian, all dancing in most fetching fashion.
Pianist Roy Bogas played the ethereal Chopin nocturnes that form the basis of Robbins' superbly romantic "In the Night," brilliantly danced by Yuan Yuan Tan with Ruben Martin, Elana Altman with Tiit Helimets, and Lorena Feijoo with Damian Smith.
After that, it was back to Americana again, to Robbins' best-known work: the choreography to “West Side Story,” the Bernstein musical with Stephen Sondheim's lyrics. Why mention the writer? Because this San Francisco premiere has the dancers sing the lyrics and shout the text – and not just dance – in an exciting theatrical performance of the work.
This "West Side Story" is a 40-minute condensation, a sort of "scenes from West Side Story." All the dances are included: the Jets, the Sharks, the Rumble, the fights — but also "Something's Coming," "Cool," "America," and "Somewhere," which closes the piece, rather suddenly after the deaths of Riff (Rory Hohenstein) and Bernardo (Pierre-Francois Vilanoba).
The entire corps sings the hope and reconciliation in "Somewhere," in which the Robbins-Peter Gennaro choreography is kept to a minimum in order to focus on the theatrical-cathartic ending.
Garrett Anderson — the magnificent heroic/lyrical Tony — dances "Something's Coming" to excellent vocals by corps member Matthew Stewart. Shannon Roberts as Anita both sings and dances up a storm in "America."
With some 40 dancers swirling onstage in some scenes, "West Side Story" is one of the "really big shows" of the season. The unusually big opening night crowd indicates that this Robbins fest will be an audience favorite, and probably a difficult ticket to get.
IF YOU GO
San Francisco Ballet Program 4
Where: War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco
When: 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday (March 8); 8 p.m., Tuesday (March 11), Friday (March 14); 2 p.m. Sunday (March 16); 7:30 p.m. Wednesday (March 19)
Tickets: $25 to $235
Contact: (415) 865-2000 or www.sfballet.org.
