It turns out that the most interesting weight loss at the Met this season wasn't Deborah Voigt's but Veronika Part's. Voigt seems to have sacrificed -- at least for the moment -- her vocal sheen and deep power reserve, but the tall Part, who went from 'normal looking' on the Kirov's '02 tour to her current 'ballet thin,' has been liberated.
Mind you, I don't actually know anything about ballet. But to these eyes Part's become both a more athletic, more technically capable dancer -- her Odile now revels in her physicality -- and a remarkably communicative one. (There was, if I recall, something reserved about her stage persona in the past; that's gone.) If she'll never catch Vishneva in the former aspects of the art, I doubt I'll ever see as expressive and moving a performance from that Mariinsky star as the ones Part's giving us already.
In 2002 everyone was talking about how interesting Part's swan was; today, I think, it's something else. -- Not that I expect Voigt to turn into Karita Mattila or anything.
I saw her performance on 7/4, and she has indeed lost that ?milkmaid? figure, as Laura Jacobs puts it, and looks fantastic. If she does not get promoted to principal dancer in 2006, I?ll be very surprised. I know Suzanne Farell?s company has dibs on it for now, so this may just be a pipe dream, but how great it would be if ABT revived the Balanchine choreographed Don Quixote and they cast Part as Dulcinea. While D. Vishneva has a dazzling virtuosity and I always enjoy watching her dance, V. Part has the power to break hearts. When M. Gomes arched his back as he lept to his death in the end, I almost lost it. Thanks, ABT.
ReplyDeleteAlso, that Danny Tidwell was great in the supporting roles I?ve seen him in this season (Cupid in Sylvia, one of the Neapolitans in Swan Lake). His regal and Apollonian air reminds me a little of Jacques d?Amboise. This is just my impression, but unlike many of the principal male ABT dancers, he doesn?t comport himself like a pimp-daddy when he's on stage.