Recent Stories with tag tchaikovsky

I haven't read that he was socked in the jaw very often, but I have to think that in dancers' dreams at least, George Balanchine was as much abused as adored.

I'm thinking of the moment in Serenade when Ariana Lallone pivots en pointe, one leg languorously outstretched, as a male dancer kneels behind her and, unseen, ever so slowly rotates her. Lallone's face is a perfect mask, her wrists, her fingers, not too tense, she's a living sculpture--and her body's weight shoots down through a single trembling, balancing ankle to a toe shoe.

My ankle sprained in sympathy.

PNB's "All Balanchine" (through April 25) may be the strongest of their celebrations of the celebrated choreographer's work that I've seen. The program of Serenade, Square Dance, and The Four Temperaments shows off Balanchine's remarkable ability to marry that Balanchine aesthetic to music. In each case, it's not a shotgun wedding, it's a love match. The audience on Saturday afternoon arrived head over heels, and applauded the curtain going up.

Serenade (from 1934) is a romantic vision set to Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, the stage loaded with ballerinas in long tutus. When it was new, audiences reacted to it the way PNB audiences respond to William Forsythe. At one point, heedless of symmetry, Balanchine has everyone crowd into the far corner of the stage and crouch, while a soloist performs downstage. Oh, the humanity!

If there's a trained expectation he doesn't leave unsatisfied, I'm not sure what it is. Instead, there are chords of dancers, patterns and intersections drawn from the music, and contrasts between steps and rhythm. A few themes cut across each piece: Balanchine's regard for stillness, the way he uses it as a dash rather than a period at the end of a series. Those challenging one-legged landings from a leap. Extension that, even flat-footed, creates a sense of elevation....

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Tomorrow night is your one chance this week to hear the Russian National Orchestra live. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. at Benaroya Hall, and the program includes Tchaikovsky's Elegy for String Orchestra, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major, and Dvorak's Cello Concerto in B minor. (Tickets are $32-$106). With the RNO in Seattle is young cellist Sergey Antonov, the son of a Moscow Conservatory cello teacher and a cellist with the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra. Rostropovich is a big fan.

Tom Keogh charts the orchestra's meteoric rise since its founding in 1990 as an orchestra independent of state control. You could be forgiven for thinking the RNO exists mainly to give classical music critics the chance to outdo each other with superlatives. When they recorded Tchaikovsky's Pathétique, Gramophone labeled it the best ever, asking, "Should human beings be able to play like this?"

Shostakovich's ninth symphony is notable for its brevity (it generally comes in at under 30 minutes) and for its joyful, light mood. In fact, it has made listeners think of both Mozart and Haydn. Written to celebrate the Russian victory over the Nazis, it contained none of the thunder and tragedy expected from Shostakovich, who knew from brass and drums, and was yet another reason the Party felt like Shostakovich just didn't get what they were trying to do.

So while the Tchaikovsky and Dvorak will sweep you away, no doubt, the Shostakovich should be something to behold as well, and not--this time--because when you hear the music and close your eyes, you think of Stalin.