You need them all, but technique, steps, costumes, lighting, athletic
performances, and lots more just don't add up to making "everything -
beautiful - at - the - ballet."

George Balanchine, who had single-handedly brought Igor Stravinsky into
the mainstream of American musical life, knew it best:  music is first and
foremost in the heart of dance.  The San Francisco Ballet, now performing
two of its best-ever subscription series back to back, soars on honoring
the principle of the primacy of music.

Anchored, respectively, by the Balanchine-Stravinsky "Symphony in Three
Movements" and the Balanchine-Bizet "Symphony in C" (the latter with Joanna
Berman AND Lucia Lacarra, bringing back memories of great New York City
Ballet performances), the two programs manage to avoid being stuffy - they
present new music as well, including something delightfully irreverent.

The young, terrific SFB dancer Yuri Possokhov choreographed a major new
work a year ago, and his "Magrittomania" took its place tonight, in the War
Memorial, as part of Subscription Series No.  7.  (Possokhov didn't take a
bow during the well-deserved ovation for his work - he was about to partner
Lacarra in the Bizet that followed.  I wonder what else he accomplished
tonight.)

In "Magrittomania," Possokhov presents some of the most dramatic, wildly
imaginative, engrossing, contemporary (and yet classically "clean")
choreography north of Mark Morris.  Thyra Hartshorn's sensational sets
and costumes pay homage to and spoof Magritte at the same time.  Even with
one hand tied behind her, Yuan Yuan Tan, as the Woman in Red, gives the
performance of a lifetime - Possokhov has found the key to this greatly
talented but often under-performing dancer.  Roman Rykine leads a corps
on fire (and wearing bowler hats throughout), with the great trio of Joan
Boada, Guennadi Nedviguine and Pablo Piantino front and center.  You must
see not only "Magrittomania," but this production, this cast.

And yet, with all those superlatives - going back to our theme tonight -
what makes this piece work is the music.  Possokhov turned to Yuri
Krasavin, who does to Beethoven what Magritte did to art, what Spike Jones
did to horse races.  From the First Piano Concerto to the "Waldstein" and
"Appassionata," to the Seventh Symphony, Krasavin took some of Beethoven's
most intense music.  and then turned it up several notches, creating the
kind of buzz and tension that make people MOVE, especially if they are
dancers.  The SFB orchestra, under Robert Luther's direction, had an
uncertain start with this difficult work, but fused with the dancers later
on, in a hot performance.  (And then went on, conducted by Emil de Cou,
to a super-cool Bizet, the music turning the color of all those tutus.)

Another new-music event in these programs is the commissioned score
for another new work by a company dancer, Julia Adam's wonderful "Night."
Fellow dancer Benjamin Pierce is responsible for the riotous costumes of
this Tina LeBlanc apotheosis, and - continuing with this edition of All in
the Family, the dancer-costumer's brother, Matthew Pierce, wrote the eerie,
delicate "night music."

In careful and imaginative programming of musical parallels and themes,
Program No.  6 had the Petit-Bizet "L'Arlesienne" between "Night" and
"Symphony in Three Movements"; leading off No.  7 (before "Magrittomania"
and "Symphony in C" - is Morris' "Pacific," to commissioned music by Lou
Harrison.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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