BALLET REVIEW : Tetley’s ‘Alice’ in Local Debut With First Cast

The National Ballet of Canada happily includes so many beautiful and accomplished dancers that it boasts not one but two casts eminently qualified to carry Glen Tetley’s “Alice,” which had its Los Angeles-area premiere Saturday at Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

One week ago in San Diego, the Canadians introduced this ballet to California with its second cast (reviewed last Monday). But when Tetley’s first-chosen took the stage, it was no surprise to find perfection.

And if the fantasy characters hurtled from Lewis Carroll’s imagination onto the printed page, just as surely the dancers portraying them seemed to spring from the richly evocative musical fragments of David Del Tredici’s “Child Alice Part I: In Memory of a Summer Day”--not as grabbing or as familiar locally as his “Final Alice,” but the ultra-Romantic piece of the series.

The images of Saturday’s cast linger. All those light-stepping, swirling girls--Alice and her look-alike contingent in gauzy dresses with ribbons in their flying tresses--deliciously brought to life the spirit of the heroine.

Indeed, as young Alice, Kimberly Glasco seemed the embodiment of femininity, her black hair, pale skin and heart-shaped face the picture of compelling beauty; her seizing of the space by way of voluptuous leg extensions and backbends softly vibrant. And at each advancing point of the adventure she took on deeper involvement, greater emotional comprehension of what was being awakened in her.

So did Rex Harrington, as Carroll, exude that storybook quality of Byronic handsomeness and passion. His solo, toward the end when he realizes his absolute obsession with Alice, was a thing of exultant ecstasy.

Gizella Witkowsky poured devotion into the role of Alice Hargreaves in her pas de deux with an elegant Peter Ottman as the husband. Owen Montague’s White Rabbit boasted a wonderfully leggy presence and Jeremy Ransom’s Mad Hatter took on a brittle, wiry cynicism. Alas, the high tessitura defeated soprano Diana Walker, but conductor Ermanno Florio capitalized on the score’s chromatic allure and Wesendonckian ardor.

The evening opened with Balanchine’s “The Four Temperaments,” showcasing the marvelously expressive Kevin Pugh and a consistently outstanding cast.