Boston Ballet looks back and forward in ‘Spring Experience'

Boston Globe

16-05-2025

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Nissinen's solution condenses the first two acts into 30 minutes, during which time Raymonda celebrates her name day, her friends console her after Jean leaves, and she dances with Jean in a dream. The concluding Hungarian-themed wedding celebration expands to 40 minutes by borrowing some variations from the first two acts.
The opening section still feels thin. Designer Robert Perdziola's color palette is austere to start, gold, silver, and white all edging into gray, and the costumes lack texture and dimension. The choreography is pleasing rather than exciting; music director Mischa Santora's adaptation seems to leach the sumptuousness out of Glazunov's score.
The wedding celebration in "Raymonda" introduced a richer palette from designer Robert Perdziola.
Theik Smith
Kapitonova and Lee were a treat, however, her emotional effusiveness complementing his noble reserve. And the wedding celebration brought a richer palette from Perdziola and a more Glazunovian sound from the Boston Ballet Orchestra, especially in the Adagio of the Pas Classique Hongrois. A well-matched Lauren Herfindahl and Lasha Khozashvili led the Grand Csárdás with energy and precision; the expanded number of variations brought exquisite work from Seo Hye Han, Chenxin Liu, Courtney Nitting, Ji Young Chae, and, in two of the most demanding numbers, Lia Cirio. Lee added double cabrioles to his impressive double tours and tours à la seconde; Kapitonova teased out her variation (to a sympathetic piano solo from Alex Foaksman) and then, in the Coda, sustained her passé-relevé sequence at a daringly slow tempo. The closing Galop brought back the Csárdás contingent for a rousing finish.
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Kylián's '27′52″' debuted in 2002, the title referring to the piece's running time (closer to 31 minutes Thursday) and also to the birthdate — 20.07.1952 — of its dedicatee, former Nederlands Dans Theater member Gerald Tibbs. The curtain rises on the six dancers moving in silence, men bare-chested, women in different-colored sleeveless tops, a light bank dangling stage left. Either the piece has started or they're just warming up. Over the next half hour, descending panels of white fabric will encroach on the action. The flooring will come up in strips, and the dancers will take cover under it, or hold it at both ends and make it ripple. Dirk Haubrich's banging, booming score will be complemented by voice-overs reciting poetry by Baudelaire, Guillaume Depardieu, and Bruce Lee.
Lia Cirio and Paul Craig are a focal point in Jiří Kylián's 27'52"," which is named for and dedicated to former Nederlands Dans Theater member Gerald Tibbs.
Theik Smith
The dancers form three couples, though at the outset, Lia Cirio has to extricate herself from Jeffrey Cirio (her real-life brother) to hook up with Paul Craig. He pushes her about; she responds with jittery gesticulation. Chyrstyn Mariah Fentroy and Ángel García Molinero follow, kickboxing at each other before declaring a unison truce. Chisako Oka enters and has a frenzied duet with Jeffrey Cirio.
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But Craig and Lia Cirio are the focal point. She's lain down upstage; now she pulls off her red top and rises; now both bare-chested, they grow more intimate. Haubrich's score begins to obsess over a motif from the opening bars of Mahler's 10th Symphony. Craig and Cirio find accommodation, even equality, until her jittery gesticulation returns. She runs away; he overtakes her. He tries to wrap her in a strip of flooring; she escapes and runs to Jeffrey Cirio at the other end of the stage. She runs back to Craig, but he's now under that flooring. She returns to Jeffrey Cirio and lets him cover her. Three huge sheets crash down, as if the ceiling had fallen in. Perhaps the floor has provided protection.
In Jiří Kylián's "Petite Mort," one set of dancers wield foils; the other, dresses.
Theik Smith
'Petite Mort,' which Kylián created in 1991 for the bicentennial of Mozart's death, is simpler and more light-hearted. The title, 'Little Death,' is a French euphemism for 'orgasm'; the score pairs the Adagio from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 and the 'Elvira Madigan' Andante from his Piano Concerto No. 21. Six men in gold corset briefs back toward us, each balancing a foil on his right index finger. Barely visible upstage are six women in gold tops and briefs, all hiding behind full-skirted black dresses hung on frameworks with rollers. The men roll the foils around on the floor, lift them with their toes, swish the air; the women embrace the dresses as if making love to them.
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Couples eventually emerge. Liu gets temporary possession of Isaac Mueller's foil before the phallic symbols are put aside. Nitting and Sun Woo Lee follow, then Emily Aston and Yue Shi, Haley Schwan and Patrick Yocum, Herfindahl and Khozashvili, Sage Humphries and Sangmin Lee. A recurring pose has the women lying on their backs and supporting the men on their raised knees: simulated sex with an element of evasion. The foils never reappear; at the end of 'Petite Mort,' it's the dresses that are rolled from the wings to gather centerstage. Men may do the manipulating, but women have the power.
SPRING EXPERIENCE
Presented by Boston Ballet. At Citizens Opera House, through May 25. Tickets $32-$202. 617-695-6955,
Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at
Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at