Dance review: The Australian Ballet’s Jewels
This glittering production of George Balanchine’s Jewels is as much a crowd-pleasing display of dazzling eye candy as a showcase for the ballet aficionado, with the technical prowess of the company’s dancers exhibited in three acts of divergent styles.
The Australian Ballet returns to Adelaide under the direction of David Hallberg following its performance of Swan Lake last year. As it’s still celebrating its 60th anniversary, it seems fitting that it brings us Jewels, created by Georgian-American choreographer and co-founder of the New York City Ballet George Balanchine. His Sylvia Pas de Deux was performed by the Australian company just one year after its foundation in 1963, the first of many Balanchine ballets it would go on to present.
Jewels, debuted by the New York City Ballet in 1967, is said to be the world’s first full-length ballet without narrative or plot, an abstract work embodying Balanchine’s unusual choreographic style blending classical ballet with modernist elements and his own unique, fluid, signature moves.
Inspired by the Fifth Avenue window of luxury jeweller Van Cleef & Arpels, Balanchine themed the three acts with different gemstones and each is tied to cities familiar to him: Emeralds to Paris, Rubies to New York and Diamonds to his birthplace of St Petersburg.
His choice of accompanying score, here performed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Jonathan Lo, is an additional reflection of each of those cities. There’s Fauré’s ethereal “Pelléas et Mélisande” and “Shylock” for Paris, Stravinsky’s powerful and stringent “Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra” for New York (the piano solo played by Andrew Dunlop) and Tchaikovsky’s majestic Symphony No. 3 in D Major, Opus 29 for St Petersburg.
The lack of a narrative and the decorative presentation – so glittering and luscious that the audience’s gasps grew louder with each curtain rise – belies the complexity of the choreography, which changes radically from act to act, with the only unifying theme the gemstones.
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Under the direction of Hallberg, the virtuosic ensemble of The Australian Ballet handles the choreography with such skill and grace they make it appear deceptively easy, their technique delivered with the artistic expression and emotional engagement they have amply and repeatedly demonstrated in the past. There are some standout performances, such as the mesmerising, steadily-paced romance of the pas de deux in Emeralds by second principal couple Dimity Azoury and Maxim Zenin, or the powerful and sassy performance by soloist Belle Urwin in Rubies.
The production is faithful to the original, set against Peter Harvey’s simple yet opulent design of bejewelled drapes to each side of the stage and a backdrop hung with mirrored roundels that glitter with different coloured spotlights reflecting the gem colours. There’s a reason, too, for the retro vintage feel of the costumes – they are replicas of the original designs Balanchine’s long-time collaborator Barbara Karinska created for the Jewels premiere by New York City Ballet.
Each costume glistens with hundreds of rhinestones and beads sewn by volunteers from the Country Women’s Association and the Embroidery Guild of Australia. The male dancers wear bejewelled tunics in gem-themed colours, while the long tulle skirts of layered green worn by female dancers in Emeralds reflect the dreamy Romanticism of Fauré and Paris. The short and striking ruby-encrusted panelled skirts worn by female dancers, along with the angular choreography reminiscent of Stravinsky’s “Rites of Spring”, mirror the dynamism and power of New York in the jazz age, and the traditional white powder-puff tutus are the perfect reflection of the Imperial majesty and elegant romance of Tsarist Russia.
Jewels is a welcome, glittering escape from a dark winter’s night, a pleasing extension of the gorgeous lights of Illuminate Adelaide outside and a spectacle that’s just as welcoming for audiences new to ballet as it is for those with the experience to recognise the difficulties and complexities of the choreography. It’s perfectly timed for the school holidays and there were many children in the audience who no doubt will carry lifelong memories of this performance.
The Australian Ballet is presenting Jewels at the Festival Theatre until July 18.