La Bayadere
American Ballet Theater
The Metropolitan Opera House
New York, New York
June 24, 2008
By Michael Popkin
copyright 2008 Michael Popkin
ABT is rather thin on the ground ballerina-wise right now, but a saving grace appeared Tuesday night in the person of Michele Wiles, who showed a facility, polish and command dancing the role of Gamzatti in the second Bayadere of the season I'd never associated with her before. It was better dancing than I've seen from any ballerina in this role at ABT over the years - at a level even with what you can see in the video of Elisabeth Platel in the role at the Paris Opera. And indeed it was as fine dancing as I've seen from any woman in this company in a principal role in several years, no matter what the ballet, equalled only by several of Diana Vishneva's performances over that period. On this particular night Wiles was a more fluent and finished dancer than Gillian Murphy (who danced Nikiya) and a better actress too; though Murphy did look sexy with a bare midriff and had the big extension audiences love today. She was also a better match with David Hallberg (their Solor). She and Hallberg have been paired together for years.
Her dancing in the grand pas de deux in Act I was beautifully articulated and made lovely sense of the phrasing and music. All of the little flourishes and grace notes you expect in a grand pas were there; as were strength and command of the stage. Her variation at the opening of Act III (the wedding in the tomb scene - Aida meets La Sylphide) was if anything even better. Whipping through septuple pirouettes in passee, she closed effortlessly to her fifth positions far enough in advance of finishing each sequence, while her working foot was still coming down the front of her supporting leg to the floor, so that the working foot would be presented on the floor beautifully turned out in fifth at the end of every phrase without interrupting the flow of the turns. And because the foot was always there turned out just so at the finish, she could shift her weight onto it and have the succeeding dance phrase continue without interruption. The flow of the sequence was perfect; the images or brief poses were presented in continuity.
In a diagonal travelling forward in a series of pas de chevals at the end of the same solo, brushing the floor delicately with her pointes while swivelling her torso to present first one shoulder, then the other in her epaulement (there's a similar but longer diagonal in Kitri's variation in the grand pas de deux in Don Q) she even reminded me a little of Vishneva, whom she certaily has had ample opportunity to watch: they have a similar authority; a similar command of themselves; and a similar impeccable schooling in the Kirov style.
Trained at the Kirov Academy in Washington, D.C. (as were Sascha Radetsky, Melanie Hamrick, Maria Bystrova, Hee Seo and probably half a dozen other members of ABT if only I knew who they were), Wiles is undoubtedly the most impressive dancer I've seen from that school; though Kevin McKenzie has been doing his best to fix that since the moment she arrived under his tutelage.
And impressive as her technique was last night, her dramatic rendition was just as good. Though at first I found her appearance and features a bit too blond and all-American for the role, the sweep and assurance of her dancing, as described above, were so compelling that I soon forgot about that. Her Gamzatti was regal (as befits a Rajah's daughter) but at the same time emotionally vulnerable (as also befits one raised in the sheltered atmosphere and exalted station of a princess in an eastern court). Because she was less melodramatically evil than many others you see in the role, she remained human and sympathetic. Convincingly wounded by Solor's continuing passion for Nikiya, she appeared as much the victim of the circumstances as the other two principals, and this gave a nice balance to the ballet's impact and conclusion.
Photo: Michele Wiles in La Bayadere, copyright Gene Schiavone, courtesy of ABT.
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