Wednesday evening’s West Coast premiere of Alexei Ratmansky‘s “Shostakovich Trilogy” by the San Francisco Ballet yielded one of those rare co-commissions (with American Ballet Theater) in which every moment feels like a fragment of a masterpiece. Indeed, this was simply one of the company’s most satisfying nights in years, a grand, ambiguous, mysterious and thrilling entertainment. The first of two very starry casts filled the War Memorial Opera House with performances that seemed exemplary from the first entry of the male corps to the closing tableau of ballerinas Yuan Yuan Tan and Maria Kochetkova in red bathing suits suspended by their partners.
In the two hours separating those episodes, the color red reappears in the oddest places. Ratmansky offers a non-narrative account of the life and career of his favorite Russian composer, drawing for inspiration on scores drawn from different periods of Shostakovich’s career. For anyone in this city who doubted this choreographer’s supreme powers of invention, here was confirmation. The profusion of solos, small ensembles and group outings engulfs the viewer in its variety and sheer flow. “Shostakovich Trilogy” (set in San Francisco by Nancy Raffa) comes close to exhausting you, for all the right reasons.
Ratmansky is a scrupulous choreographer. He devises movement at the phrase level that leaves little breathing space. Yet the effect is not constricting but liberating. Recurring gestures here lend a unity to the trilogy. Dancers furtively look around, and combinations often end with supine bodies. It sounds obvious, but in the heat of performance, you don’t question it.
The dancer distribution – each part features four or five soloists backed by a mixed corps – also lends a structural unity. Beyond the abstraction, one finds an embedded biography of an artist who suffered grievously from the oppressive grip of the Soviet regime. The opening “Symphony # 9” captures Shostakovich at his most acerbic, This was not the post-World War II hymn of victory the authorities expected. The lead couple, Sarah Van Patten and Carlos Quenedit, is shadowed by a pair (Simone Messmer, James Sofranko) who seem to parody their efforts; Sofranko repeatedly turns away from his partner to dive into the men’s corps, who intermittently stalk the soloists. Meanwhile, there’s a high-flying soloist (Taras Domitro) who seems an outlier, a rebel who spins in solitude.
Halfway through the piece, a backdrop (by George Tsypin), dotted with soldiers, red flags and vintage airplanes, descends, banishing any feeling of abstraction. This drop is replaced in the second part, “Chamber Symphony,” by a floating panorama of carved heads watching the stage; and the effect is disturbing.
The music here is Rudolf Barshai‘s orchestration of Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet, one of his most intensely personal works; though dour, the mood is occasionally leavened by moments of hysterical jubilation. The content grows more overtly expressive as a forlorn solo man (Davit Karapetyan) mixes with three women (Sasha de Sola, Lorena Feijoo, Mathilde Froustey) who either reject him, expire or drift away.
They may be elements of autobiography or three muses. Ratmansky’s treatment of the score is wonderfully subtle; not for him a melodramatic setting of the recurring triplet that would entice lesser choreographers.
Shostakovich’s early “Piano Concerto #1” (Michael McGraw as soloist) reflects on the era when the Socialist dream was startling to crumble. The spirits are high, but fear intrudes. In the midst of the two duets, the ballerinas begin to protect each other. Vitor Luiz partnered Kochetkova. Damian Smith‘s duet with Tan (set to John Pearson‘s lovely trumpet obbligato) was lyrical to the point of pain. Keso Dekker‘s costumes for the corps, gray on one side, red on the other, were eye-catching as was Tsypin’s hanging assemblage of Soviet detritus.
Martin West conducted well, and the orchestra did itself proud.
Regrettably, only this last section of “Shostakovich Trilogy” will be revived in 2015, unless Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson changes his mind. So, see it complete, now.
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