http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/arts/angel-corellas-opens-debut-season-at-pennsylvania-ballet.html 2014-10-27 23:53:14 Ángel Corella’s Opens Debut Season at Pennsylvania Ballet Ángel Corella, the former American Ballet Theater principal, has begun his first season as director of the Pennsylvania Ballet, in Philadelphia. === PHILADELPHIA — In July, the star Spanish dancer Ángel Corella — a principal for many years with American Ballet Theater — The fare was pieces by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon. These are unexceptionable choices; to judge by their places in American repertory today, these are the two foremost 20th-century choreographers and the two foremost 21st-century choreographers. Still, at least one of the dances (Mr. Ratmansky’s “Jeu de Cartes”) had been chosen before Mr. Corella was appointed. We should wait to judge Pennsylvania Ballet The other two works — both company premieres, most definitely Mr. Corella’s choices — were atmospheric pas de deux in the middle of the program: Mr. Wheeldon’s “Liturgy” and Robbins’s “Other Dances.” Audiences love Robbins’s “Other Dances” (1976), staged by Isabel Guérin, is a deeply charming study of luxuriously changing moods to successive Chopin piano pieces. But Lauren Fadeley (especially) and Ian Hussey overdid the charm in several sections. If this pas de deux is to be spellbinding, it needs performers who seem to pull casually from a well of vast resources. (When Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, its original cast, “Allegro Brillante” (Tchaikovsky) and “Jeu de Cartes” (Stravinsky) are both action packed. Entrances, exits, new groupings draw our attention to changes in the music. With “Allegro” Balanchine gives us high classicism at its brightest and most outgoing. On Saturday, Amy Aldridge didn’t have the prima allure called for in the lead role; but she brings it aplomb and attack. Her partner, the alert and energetic redhead Alexander Peters, shows better than anyone why Balanchine asked dancers to anticipate the beat; he’s already at the apex of a leap as the music’s downbeat adds a “Yes!” affirmation. “ The stage, with décor by Igor Chapurin, is full of surprises. At the back, a central doorway is flanked by a ramp and a ledge — all used by dancers — and the stage-right wings are built out, like huge pleats. Mr. Chapurin starts the dancers in purple, ends them in yellow; in between they wear a combination of both. Amid a vivid cast that also included Mr. Hussey and Mr. Mathis, Mr. Peters delivered some of Mr. Ratmansky’s wittiest strokes. In one grand pirouette he continually changed focus (arriving to face south, west, north and east by turns) and dynamics, stressing the down arrival of his heel at first, then its uplift later. More than once, Holly Lynn Fusco took an arabesque leaning on Mr. Peters’s extended arm; but no sooner did they strike the pose than it kept changing — his arm descending, her leg ascending, in quick rhythmic jerks, with the music. By such means, Mr. Ratmansky keeps suggesting in “Jeu de cartes” that the ground is shifting under the dancers’ feet — or rather that Stravinsky’s music is. Just before the end, all the dancers tumble to the floor, like dominoes; and then on the final chord, everyone suddenly arrives in a big house-of-cards tableau. A giddy sense of precariousness prevails.