It's OK to go and ogle the guys. The men of American Ballet Theatre, who are performing this week at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, take to the stage like gods. Their confidence in the face of heroic difficulties rivals that of James Bond, and there is nobody who comes closer to the real Sean Connery panache than these sleekly muscled creatures. Gorgeous is the only word: the pirouettes and jumps are gorgeous, and the men are gorgeous in the doing of them. David Hallberg (new to the Bay Area) has the most beautiful legs in the world right now, Herman Cornejo the most loft and sweetness in mid-air, and Marcello Gomes has a majesty like a stallion's at full power, which can't be matched even at the Bolshoi at the moment.
These three are the stars heading the scaled-down version of the company in this week's performances. We won't get to see the silky pirouettes of Jose Manuel Carreno or Angel Corella, so it won't be like the grand tours that ABT used to make in the Baryshnikov years, when they camped out in the Opera House for two weeks, and showed us the classics on the grandest possible scale.
But we must be grateful to Cal Performances for bringing them. ABT remains America's national ballet company, though for a decade they have not ventured frequently beyond New York's Metropolitan Opera House. They appear in two mixed bills: the first can still be caught tonight (Thurs.), the great "Rose Adagio" from their sumptuous (and controversial) new production of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty. This is a great ballerina role, and the question is, has Paloma Herrera really recovered from the weird slump she was in for a decade, when she was just phoning in her performances? By most accounts, she has. If she is indeed back on form, it will be a magnificent thing to see. The guys on Program A will be dancing the three sailors on shore leave in the wonderful jazz ballet Fancy Free, which Jerome Robbins choreographed for ABT back during WWII, and in their rep ever since. And Hallberg dances Balanchine's quicksilver Ballo della Regina with the powerhouse ballerina Gillian Murphy.
Program B opens Friday, runs through Sunday, and features more hot men-about-town in two jazz ballets by Twyla Tharp: a loopy, casual Baker's Dozen, set to music by Willie "the Lion" Smith; and the Sinatra Suite, a long duet danced en demi-deshabille with the bow tie coming off, to five songs by Old Blue Eyes. It's ballroom dancing with spectacular florid embellishments, really deep dips, and really high highs. Gomes and Cornejo alternate in the two casts; I say, see them both. Two brand-new ballets set to music by Steve Reich and Nico Muhly fill out the bill.