SFB's Onegin--another look

I have a great time writing dance reviews, but one of my biggest frustrations is having only a few hundred words in which to compress so many thoughts. In my recent review of San Francisco Ballet's "Onegin" for the Chronicle I had a chance to write about three of the four casts, but as always I wish I could've said more.

Now that I've had time to go back a few times (yes, I'm an "Onegin" junkie--I could watch that ballet all day), and see the fourth cast, I thought I'd jot down a few more observations.

Firstly, the role of Gremin. I didn't get to fully expound on how much I enjoyed the care that the four men put into this role, which is not an inconsequential one. As with the Tatianas and the Onegins, there were some very different interpretations, but I found appealing things in each of them. In the cast with Maria Kochetkova, Pascal Molat was wonderful as her Gremin. Tender, without being uxorious, he treated her with great delicacy, and in their ballroom pas de deux, he made her float effortlessly. In the second act, as Onegin tweaked Lensky at the Name Day party, I appreciated the mildly amused expression that turned to genuine concern as the conflict escalated. Molat is a terrific dancer, but I think his dramatic skills are often underrated.

As the Gremin to Vanessa Zahorian's Tatiana, Quinn Wharton felt a little younger, less like distinguished royalty perhaps. Nevertheless, there was something so sweet about the way that he looked down into her eyes as they danced together. In the fourth cast that I saw, Tiit Helimets really captured the princely demeanor and I couldn't help but notice how elegant his partnering of his Tatiana was--no grabbing or indelicate grasp of her wrist, but rather a very gallant lead.

If I had to pick the most intriguing Gremin though, it would be Damian Smith, who always seems to bring out the best in Yuan Yuan Tan. His was the Gremin of Tchaikovsky's opera, who loves Tatiana madly--whose life had been "slipping drearily away [until] she appeared and brightened it like a ray of sunlight in a stormy sky, and brought me life and youth and happiness." In a few brief minutes onstage, Smith managed to convey the quiet exaltation of a man who knows just how lucky he was to marry Tatiana.

Am I the only one who likes to play "Fantasy Ballet" and come up with alternative casts I'd love to see someday? If so, I have to confess, I would have shifted around the roles for Ruben Martin and Damian Smith. Smith strikes me as the perfect Onegin, with the maturity to make a complicated man really understandable. Martin gave the part an excellent effort, but you just couldn't stop thinking, this is really just a nice guy that gets misunderstood a lot. Martin is so generously outward and I think that for me the best Onegins are much more inward-seeking and contained-- I would have thought he'd make a perfect Lensky instead.

Speaking of nice guys, I thought Pierre-Francois Vilanoba, in the fourth cast that I finally saw on Thursday night, had exactly the right physical look for Onegin. Darkly handsome, with a faintly patronizing air, he, like Davit Karapetyan, gives Onegin courtly manners, with perhaps a little more Gallic flair. Watching his rapid pirouettes just before the duel with Lensky -- a very capable Isaac Hernandez-- I couldn't help but be reminded of Vilanoba's turn as Frederi in Roland Petit's "L'Arlesienne." If Onegin were a little less buttoned-down of a character I think it might have been more comfortable for Vilanoba. As it was he seemed like an okay guy who did a few jerk-ish things -- don't we all know men like that?-- so that in that pesky third act ballroom scene, his re-discovery of Tatiana and all he had lost had a less keen-edged impact.

Vilanoba's Tatiana was Sarah Van Patten, whose limpid eyes convey emotions clear to the back of the standing room at the opera house. I expected to be moved by her, although if i'm being honest, that only happened in bits and pieces throughout the night. Right from the start, that long elegant line of Van Patten's neck was so expressive in the first few scenes, and it felt like she had a bang-on idea of the idealistic, romantic young girl she was playing. As the "grown-up" Tatiana, she went out on a limb dramatically, stretching to meet the agonized strings of the Tchaikovsky score in that final pas de deux. What was harder for me to see though, was how one scene built the groundwork for the next. When she confronted Vilanoba after his duel with Lensky, she stared him down with enormous contempt, but I thought, "Now where did that girl come from?"

Still, it's a real treat to have the luxury of four casts to quibble over. And it was really wonderful to see the corps dig into their parts as the run progressed. There were only a few changes each night -- I think Daniel Baker, Diego Cruz, Steven Morse, Francisco Mungamba, Dustin Spero, Benjamin Stewart, Matthew Stewart and Lonnie Weeks were in the peasant lineup at every performance I saw, while among the women, I enjoyed watching the various Olgas (Clara Blanco, Dana Genshaft, Dores Andre and Courtney Wright) alternate in the group of womenfolk, joined by Elizabeth Miner, Nicole Ciapponi, Koto Ishihara, and Shannon Roberts. The Act I dances got sharper, and the polonaises and mazurkas became grander as the run went on, which was gratifying to watch unfold. And lest I forget, I must add that Courtney Wright's Olga made a bright foil for Van Patten's Tatiana. Gifted with a light ballon, I think Wright looked best while skimming through her teasing duet with Vilanoba.

All in all, I imagine it's safe to say that "Onegin" has won more converts to the ballet--be prepared to fight for tickets if and when it repeats next season.