NY Bids Adieu to Star Ballerinas

santafejoe · Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 7:04 pm Post subject: NY Bids Adieu to Star Ballerinas

One of the Women in by Adult Ballet Class Sent this to me this morning. I wanted to share this Beatiful Ballet article with you. :)

NEW YORK - Alessandra Ferri and Kyra Nichols, beloved ballerinas with more than a half-century of performing between them, are as different in style and temperament as they come.

But over the weekend, they were linked forever by a quirk of circumstance: They ended their storied New York careers in emotional performances one day apart. It was a weekend ballet fans _ some maybe a little hoarse from cheering _ will likely remember for a long time.

On Saturday evening, it was Ferri _ petite, passionate and dramatic _ performing her signature role, Juliet, in her last appearance with American Ballet Theatre after a 22-year run.

And the previous night it was Nichols, a precise and thoughtful technician, dancing her favorite George Balanchine works to end a 33-year career with New York City Ballet.

Fans could only marvel at how both dancers managed to go out on such a high note, still in command of many of the powers that kept them going for so long.

Ferri, an incredibly youthful 44, seemed to both laugh and cry as gold confetti shot across the stage and the crowd at the Metropolitan Opera House showered her with flowers and cheers for 20 minutes of curtain calls.

For this last night as Juliet, and performances of "Manon" this season, she'd chosen as her guest partner a talented fellow Italian, La Scala's Roberto Bolle, famous at home but unknown here until now. Bolle _ so impossibly tall and handsome it makes you blink _ may not have been equal to his celebrated partner in terms of acting, but his Romeo made up for it in charisma.

Still, the night belonged to Ferri, with her famously supple back, her distinctively curved feet and that petite physique that somehow made her Juliet seem younger than those of dancers a decade her junior.

Ferri has been playing the role since she was a teenager. Born in Milan, she joined the Royal Ballet in London in 1980 and five years later joined ABT, already an established star. As the years went by she became most famous for her dramatic portrayals in story ballets, and through her travels became a truly global star.

Known for her fearlessness onstage, she threw herself with typical abandon Saturday into the beautiful backward lifts in the famous balcony duet. And in the final scene in the Capulet crypt, she let Bolle's grief-stricken Romeo toss her seemingly lifeless body around as if it were an indestructible rag doll.

Ferri ended her ABT career with the familiar yet unforgettable tableau of Juliet's dead body draped backward over the cold stone slab, reaching out to her dead lover.

Though she's had many partners, none has been more important to Ferri than Julio Bocca, the Argentine whose passion onstage matched her own until his retirement from ABT last year. Fittingly, he returned to congratulate her Saturday, along with a stream of dance luminaries onstage and in the audience.

But her very last curtain call was saved for her two young daughters, ages 9 and 5, dressed in their finest. In another parallel, Nichols' two young boys of almost exactly the same ages joined their mother onstage Friday evening at the New York State Theater.

Over more than three decades at NYCB, Nichols, now 48, became known as a quintessential Balanchine ballerina, never letting the dancer outshine the music or the choreography, but blending the elements into a perfectly balanced mix.

For her farewell performance, she chose all Balanchine, beginning with the soulful "Serenade." The 1948 classic ended with Nichols towering over her partners, held aloft by the ankles, as she reached her arms to the heavens and slowly arched backward.

Then came Robert Schumann's "Davidsbundlertanze," an elegant romp for four couples, in which a pensive Nichols brushed her hands across her face toward the end, perhaps a little more poignantly this time.

The curtain closer was "Vienna Waltzes," in which the entire cast seemed to dress up for a fitting final farewell, the men in tuxes and the women in satiny white gowns with tiaras.

Many in the audience had grown up with Nichols, remembering her as a regal Sugarplum Fairy or a quicksilver Dewdrop in "The Nutcracker," or glittering in "Jewels." It wasn't just Balanchine's work on which she made her mark: Jerome Robbins, the other key creative force at NYCB for many years, recognized her special talents and featured her in "I'm Old-Fashioned," "Antique Epigraphs," "The Four Seasons" and "Other Dances."

She was known as a generous collaborator, the opposite of a prima donna, supporting partners as much as they supported her. Perhaps that was why Philip Neal, her main partner in recent years, seemed to be fighting back tears as he presented her with a bouquet Friday night.

But the most poignant moment came when her sons delivered their bouquets. As the curtain rose and fell, Nichols gave one last piece of instruction to a partner on the City Ballet stage, whispering to 5-year-old Cameron: "Bow." He obliged.