Music and Dance Reviews : Joffrey Ballet Offers Balanchine Work

George Balanchine’s “Tarantella” is a sublime fraud: a supercharged ballet showpiece that pretends to be a folk dance, a set of matched (often mirror-image) solos that pretends to be a pas de deux, an outlet for all-American sass and athleticism that pretends to be Italian.

Created in 1964 for Edward Villella and Patricia McBride, it has been danced by the Joffrey Ballet since 1977--and its revival this season (staged by Victoria Simon) would have offered Edward Stierle and Tina LeBlanc a smash follow-up to their triumph in the pas de six from “La Vivandiere.”

With Stierle’s death, “Tarantella” came to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Wednesday looking off-balance and ungrounded. LeBlanc detonated nearly all the technical fireworks in her role with bold attacks and a pert vivacity, but Joseph Schnell couldn’t achieve the requisite speed and flamboyance without sacrificing clarity.

At best, he offered a likable approximation--the kind of performance Los Angeles knows all too well from the decade of wildly variable “Tarantella” casts fielded by John Clifford’s Los Angeles Ballet. Pianist Stanley Babin capably attended to the solo responsibilities of the Gottschalk score, and John Miner kept the orchestral passages energetic.

Sluggish music-making by duo-pianists Babin and Douglas Schultz kept a solid cast from getting the most from Kurt Jooss’ 1932 masterwork “The Green Table.” But even at low ebb, this Joffrey repertory staple spoke eloquently about the casualties of war and the cynicism of diplomacy.

As the partisan, Beatriz Rodriguez came on the strongest, nearly overwhelming Death himself: Tyler Walters in a strangely fitful performance. LeBlanc proved poignant as the young girl, and Carl Corry brought glints of individuality to the Profiteer’s early scenes--though the character’s desperation in the confrontation with Death still needs heightening. Allen Lewis conducted.

The four-part Wednesday bill also included Gerald Arpino’s familiar “Round of Angels,” an early (1983) ballet dealing with AIDS loss, set to the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. This season, however, Valerie Madonia has given the choreography a new focus, making its gymnastic indulgences yield a statement about grief and consolation. Without compromising any of the celebrated pliancy of her role, Madonia brings to it an emotional dimension that her predecessors lacked: the sense of embodying all human pain. Ultimately, her intensity makes the physical support of her partner, the hard-working, emotionally blank Daniel Baudendistel, gain profound new implications too. Miner again conducted.

A repeat of the previously reviewed “Postcards” completed the program.