BALLET REVIEW : Mozart, Modernism From Canadians

The National Ballet of Canada probably put its best feet forward at the opening of its weeklong visit to the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Tuesday.

Whether the artistically solid, financially troubled company--now led by Reid Anderson--chose the best possible repertory for the introductory occasion remains a matter for speculation.

Joining the rest of the world in its breathless rediscovery of Mozart on the 200th anniversary of his death, the Canadians saluted the late John Cranko (Anderson’s mentor) and the pretty charms of his “Concerto for Flute and Harp.” So far, so sweet.

The second item on the agenda was supposed to provide the contrast of show-stopping bravura via familiar highlights from “Paquita.” Someone decided, however, to substitute another exploration of muted Mozart.

In “Musings,” the choreographer James Kudelka used the Clarinet Quintet, K. 581, as an extravagantly lyrical showpiece for the beloved senior ballerina, Karen Kain. And so, the gentility danced on.

The large (non-capacity) audience applauded both ballets politely. Then, during the second long intermission, a lot of Orange County’s first-nighters went home. Enough pretty civility apparently was enough.

Ironically, those lulled into abandoning the floating ship missed the one big explosion of the night: William Forsythe’s “the second detail”--a flamboyant, enigmatic, multi-textured, avant-gardish exercise in textbook reconstruction.

Perhaps the balletomanes who took part in the premature exodus will come back for “The Merry Widow.”

Cranko’s “Concerto,” created for the Stuttgart Ballet in 1966, is little more than an elegant, mildly clever in-joke. Pretending to be an old-fashioned ballet en blanc , it provides a delicate series of neoclassical maneuvers for a pair of gracious ballerinas and their selfless partners. The real action, however, is assigned to the corps.

And there’s the rub. The corps consists here of 10--count ‘em, 10--cavaliers in tights. There’s nary a tutu in sight.

The boys in the back leap and spin and turn and pose in virtuosic unison, almost as if they were swans or Wilis in reverse drag. At least, that’s what they are supposed to do.

In this formal instance, alas, precision and finesse proved somewhat elusive, and the tenuous connections between choreography and music were blurred. Compounding the disappointment, the central dancers (Margaret Illmann with Jeremy Ransom, Chan Hon Goh with Pierre Quinn) seemed to settle for pallid competence just when one wanted--needed--glitter.

Under the circumstances, the most persuasive impulses emanated from the pit. Ormsby Wilkins conducted a chamber orchestra imported from Toronto with sensitive flair, and the instrumental solos were dispatched with panache by Leslie Allt and Lucie Parent Auger.

“Musings,” which received its premiere last June under the title “Fare Well,” functions primarily as a glamorously romanticized, subtly understated ode to Kain, who joined the company 22 years ago. It depicts a sweeping series of ballroom flirtations--did I hear a waltz or was it just a minuet?--in which everyone swirls, in varying permutations and combinations, around the lovely ballerina.

Kudelka knows his Mozart, and he obviously loves his luminous protagonist. He has crafted an elaborately decorative bouquet for her, and Kain--marvelously willowy and vaguely magnetic--makes the most of it.

The other dancers, most notably the heroic Serge Lavoie, provide noble support. So, for that matter, do the onstage musicians: Max Christie, Fujiko Imajishi, Dominique Laplante, Jonathan Craig and Maurizio Baccante.

Forsythe’s “second detail,” first performed in Toronto last February, comes as a mighty jolt after these extended, pleasantly soporific preludes. Wake-up time.

Thom Willems’ computer-generated score is predicated on deafening thuds, thumps and roars that eventually attain witty rhythmic coherence as well as a degree of mock-mawkish melodic logic. The bleak electronic soundtrack accompanies a busy gray-on-gray ballet.

There must be method in Forsythe’s chaos. But don’t ask the choreographer for any easy explanations.

His stage resembles an empty rehearsal hall. Snow falls. Trendy abstraction reigns.

A white gown, designed by none less than Issey Miyake, hangs mysteriously midair. Folding chairs flank the rear wall, which accommodates blazing light on one side, a cute little movie screen on the other.

Thirteen assorted dancers--clad in gray work clothes--dissect classical exercises with stupendously nonchalant control. They also distort classical exercises. The participants observe each other, compete, intertwine, point their toes, collapse, preen and stretch--pretending all the while that every athletic, fraught-with-meaning, off-kilter step was improvised on the spot.

“A lot of my stuff doesn’t look like ballet,” the ever-helpful Forsythe has explained, “but only ballet dancers could do it.”

Meanwhile, the distracting picture show on the wall flashes an ongoing display of cartoon vistas, symbolic images and numerals, anatomical underwear photos. . . .

The choreographer-designer may be making a profound statement here on Canada, its art and its climate. He may be delving deep into the significance of confusion. He may be commenting on love and alienation in a hostile world.

He may be doing all of the above, or none. Maybe he isn’t trying to say anything at all.

The definitions probably do not matter. Forsythe does whatever he does with flair, with technical enlightenment and an abiding consistency of tone. He stretches the viewer’s imagination, just as he stretches the dancer’s body.

He fascinates and stimulates, even when he aggravates and confounds.

Especially when he confounds.