Review: Sarasota Ballet, Ashton Gala ★★★★★

This gala performance by Sarasota dancers with Royal Ballet guests ranged from the sublime to the satirical, once more highlighting the range of Sir Frederick Ashton’s prolific output. And whereas each of the four pieces in the programme has merits, a stunning interpretation of Dance of the Blessed Spirits by The Royal Ballet first soloist Joseph Sissens stood out as the evening’s highlight.

An eight-minute dance set to a flute solo from Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice, Ashton recreated an earlier version of it for that most Ashtonian of male dancers, Anthony Dowell, in 1978; and we could not bestow higher praise on Sissens than to say that his line, movement and entrancing stage presence were strongly reminiscent of Dowell’s. Soft arms, pliable back, soaring elevation, Sissens possesses it all in spades; the audience seemed suspended from his every movement, so that throughout his performance you could have heard a pin drop.

Joseph Sissens, Dance of the Blessed Spirits, Sarasota Gala © 2024 ROH. Photo: Andrej Uspenski

Like the first performance of Sarasota’s Linbury residency, the Floridian company’s first ever tour abroad, the gala started with a reprise of Valses Nobles and Sentimentales, to music by Ravel, which we reviewed elsewhere. With the same cast as the first performance, it proved an elegant, dreamy opening to the evening, the apparent simplicity of its flowing dances masking the difficult minutiae of the choreography.

Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, Sarasota Ballet Gala © 2024 ROH. Photo: Andrej Uspenski

The final two pieces brought a radical change of mood, showing Ashton at his most satirical and mischievous, often coming perilously close to vulgarity without ever crossing the line.

Varii Capricci, set to music by William Walton, was first performed by The Royal Ballet in 1983, as part of the Britain Salutes New York Festival at the Metropolitan Opera House. Subverting the lofty expectations of his hosts, Ashton created a fairly outrageous vignette of goings on poolside, where a gigolo flirts with a capricious heiress, and four couples cavort happily.

As the gigolo, Ricardo Rhodes brimmed with self-confidence, but found his match in Jennifer Hackbarth’s knowing heiress.

Varii Capricci, Sarasota Ballet Gala © 2024 ROH. Photo: Andrej Uspenski
Ashton’s choreography is never less than interesting, but the overall feel of the piece is less so. Ossie Clark’s original costumes, all ragged pastel chiffon and glitter, haven’t aged well and look a little tacky now. Varii Capricci is perhaps best seen as a museum piece, rather than a living repertoire work.

Façade, set to a suite by William Walton, combines classical ballet with vaudeville.. Seven numbers sharply mock traditional and folk dances, from the opening 'Scotch Rhapsody', sparklingly danced by Sierra Abelardo, Evan Gorbell and Emelia Perkins, to the riotous finale of the 'Tango-Pasodoble', hilariously performed by the Royal Ballet’s Lauren Cuthbertson, glamorous in a 1930’s figure-hugging gold satin shift, and Gary Avis’s lounge lizard, whose dandyish costume, heavily pomaded hair and preposterous self-regard were hilarious and fairly stole the show (pictured top).

In between Sarasota dancers brought fun and pizzazz to the 'Swiss Jodeling Song', with its mock cow milking, 'Polka', a sassy solo by the estimable Macarena Gimenez, 'Foxtrot' and 'Valse', and the 'Popular Song', a dance for two men, Daniel Pratt and Mischa Goodman, with more than a touch of homoeroticism.