Balanchine/Millepied mixed bill
Concerto Barocco / Sarabande / This Part in Darkness
Lyon Opera Ballet
Opéra de Lyon, France
December 17, 2011

You can interpret Balanchine in different ways, but you can’t fake it. The dancing itself is the event, and on Saturday night, the Lyon Opera Ballet, a company better known today for its large repertoire of modern works by Mats Ek, Maguy Marin and Merce Cunningham, returned to the classical canon with mixed results.

Strictly academic technique is no longer the company’s natural language, and there is nowhere for them to hide in Concerto Barocco, a pared-down ballet whose only plot is its Bach score. Playful interaction between technique and music is crucial for the two female soloists who impersonate the two lead violins, and while Mariane Joly’s expansive arabesque worked well in the adagio section, no one in the cast delves deep enough into Balanchine’s architecture to create the abstract drama the steps call for. Fluidity and co-ordination at an individual level were also missing in the eight-strong corps de ballet; if they are to dance this repertoire, what they really need is time and experience.

This New York City Ballet classic was the prelude to a programme designed as a homecoming for French choreographer Benjamin Millepied, who trained in Lyon before joining Balanchine’s company as a dancer. The PR for him is solid gold: choreographer of the hit film Black Swan (as the poster for the run obligingly points out), potential heir to Balanchine and Jerome Robbins in New York, photogenic face of several advertising campaigns. His ballets come wrapped in the hype, and in the case of Sarabande and This Part in Darkness, don’t quite have what it takes to stand on their own. (…)

» Read the full review in the Financial Times

Benjamin Millepied's This Part in Darkness © Michel Cavalca