http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/arts/dance/review-paris-opera-ballet-kicks-off-new-season-with-futuristic-choreography.html 2016-09-25 23:35:13 Review: Paris Opera Ballet Kicks Off New Season With Futuristic Choreography During the season-opening gala on Saturday, the audience leapt to their feet, applauding wildly at the end of “The Seasons’ Canon.” === PARIS — Tropical flowers dripped off the gilded balconies and balustrades of the Palais Garnier. Huge parrots presided over the brightly hued display, and a tiger prowled through the plant-filled basin of a fountain. French pop stars and actors posed for photographs; women in couture on needle-sharp heels negotiated the crowds. (The parrots and tiger were stuffed. The women were real.) All the effort was for Saturday night’s gala opening of the It’s the second year that the Opera has put on a splashy season-opening event. The It was a celebrity studded, But before the end of that season, Mr. Millepied In a post-performance speech, Ms. Dupont praised the diversity of the company’s repertory as “unique in the world”; it’s worth remembering that whatever Mr. Millepied may have done well or badly during his short tenure, it was he who convinced Mr. Forsythe to create his first ballet in 17 years for this company, and he who invited the Canadian-born Ms. Pite, an The audience leapt to their feet (unusual here), applauding wildly at the end of “Seasons’ Canon,” set to Max Richter’s adaptation of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” It’s not hard to understand why. Working with 54 dancers, Ms. Pite has created massed blocks of movement that focus on large-scale patterning to often thrilling effect. Bodies ripple in waves across the stage; complex formations swirl headily as multiple groups run in different directions, taking up sequential positions, then abruptly running again. Dancers fall like dominoes; line up and windmill their arms down; stop suddenly and twitch heads, necks and upper bodies in abrupt, robotic unison. It’s tribal, futuristic and a bit like an opening ceremony for a post-apocalyptic Olympics. The performers, dressed by Nancy Bryant, each wear baggy khaki green trousers; the women have sheer flesh-toned tops, the men are bare-chested. Their throats are painted blue-green; the only flash of color on the dark stage, animated to often-brilliant effect by a backdrop of smoky swirling lights and glowing color. (The set is by Jay Gower Taylor, lighting by Tom Visser.) But the piece feels all about effect. (It is not helped by the rousing familiarity of Mr. Richter’s score, which is inexplicably not played live.) Ms. Pite has done this visceral crowd-stirring stuff before, both in “ There is little in “Seasons’ Canon” to suggest an interest in movement innovation or in using the Opera dancers’ advanced ballet technique. Although there are several principal dancers (Marie-Agnès Gillot, François Alu, Ludmila Pagliero and Alice Renavand among them) in the piece, and solos or duets for them pop up briefly, mass movement keeps swamping all. The bombast of “Seasons’ Canon” feels all the more marked next to Mr. Forsythe’s “Blake Works I,” a detailed and joyous homage to French classicism, beautifully danced by its original cast on Saturday. “Seasons’ Canon” will be a hit for the Paris Opera Ballet, but I wish Ms. Pite had choreographed something really new.