The seasons' final program for Atlanta Ballet was Bach to Broadway. On paper this was my favorite of the season, though in the event a mixed bag in part because of misleading advertising--or at least it seemed misleading to me. The announced program was 7 for 8 (Tomasson) to Bach, Balanchine's Who Cares? and a premier by the Mariinsky's Maxim Petrov (or Max Petrov as they said over the loudspeaker) to Tcherepnin's Concerto Armonico (ie Concerto for Harmonica).
I confess to having thought beforehand that the company might well need every last member of Atlanta Ballet II to fill the stage for Who Cares? But when the curtain went up, it was on the pas de deux to "The Man I Love"--that is, this was a four person version of Who Cares? -- no ensemble at all. Nowhere on the program or in the…show more content… I know the choreography for the pas de deux and solos make up the meat of the ballet which is what we got, but Who Cares? sans ensemble is not exactly the full-on Broadway celebration Who Cares? Nor does opening on a "highlight" have the same effect as when the highlight emerges later in the ballet against the backdrop, as it were, of the ensemble. If I had been warned ahead of time I might have adjusted. But I wasn't and it threw me for the whole performance. Obviously this must have the Balanchine Trust's okay and perhaps others can report to me if this is how the ballet is usually performed by smaller companies etc. But I was bummed. Petrov was in the audience for this and I kept thinking--'well I hope somebody tells HIM, this is not what Balanchine designed.' The reduction to the male lead and three ballerinas, did make the ballet more than ever seem like
