You don’t go to a ballet gala to see great dance. You go for the crazy tricks and the lady two rows back wearing the fruit basket on her head.
American Ballet Theatre delivered all that Monday at its opening-night gala. There was even some great dance thrown in.
Socialites drifted down the red aisles of the Met, proving you can be too blond and too thin. Caroline Kennedy and Blaine Trump spoke, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova were among the guests of honor, and the audience included Isabella Rossellini and “Project Runway” designer Christian Siriano.
The dance part of the evening was heavy on English choreography and Russian ballerinas.
British ballet genius Frederick Ashton’s “Thais pas de deux” is making its ABT debut. Diana Vishneva sells it with her physical presence. Even working with her less seasoned partner, Jared Matthews, she knows how to freeze an image onstage and burn it into your mind. She also knows how to work an orange veil.
However, an Ashton pas de deux from “Sleeping Beauty” fared less well, getting a generic performance. Big ballet war horses also got trotted out. The highlight was an excerpt of “Giselle” danced by Natalia Osipova and David Hallberg that was a reminder of their great performance last year.
Osipova showed off her incredible jump as she hung suspended in midair.
Veronika Part is riveting in the right roles, but the “Black Swan” pas de deux isn’t one of them. Her flexible body is hard to control, and Marcelo Gomes was working overtime to keep her vertical.
Ballet went Vegas when Gillian Murphy and Ethan Stiefel danced a duet from “Don Quixote” with a lot of flash and less polish as Murphy slammed her way through some tricky turns with a fan.
The big acquisition of the season is the company debut of “Lady of the Camellias” next week. Julie Kent and Roberto Bolle gave us a taste of it — amid all the tricks and turns elsewhere, they stuck to intricate partnering and acting up a storm.
Whether the dancing was great or not, the glitzy show onstage and off made for a great night out.