Opening Night at American Ballet Theatre, Metropolitan Opera House

Ballet galas are a little bit like tapas: you never get quite enough of the thing you liked the most, and by the end, you feel both a little bit too full and not quite satisfied. In the first category—the small plates you wish you had more of—tonight’s ABT gala offered a pas de deux from the second act of Giselle, danced by Natalia Osipova (a guest artist from the Bolshoi) and the young principal David Hallberg. Unfortunately, this hunger that will not be satisfied, at least this season, as Giselle is not one of the ballets on the schedule during the spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House. But oh, what pleasure it was to see this pas de deux once again, after the smashing performance these two gave last year at the Met! Then, it was a surprise: Hallberg and Osipova had not danced together before, and in fact, Osipova was new to New York audiences. Her reputation as a young burning star of the Bolshoi, spotted and guided by Alexei Ratmansky, preceded her. We had heard of her prodigious jumps. But nothing could prepare us for the experience of a Giselle so airborne that all the ballet metaphors of flight, of gliding, of hovering in midair, suddenly ceased to be metaphors at all. Now, their partnership has deepened and grown even stronger. He completes her line, she pushes him to ever greater ardor. Tonight the audience, who expected much, was agog, and rightly so. The next opportunity to see them together will be in Sleeping Beauty, on the evening of June 19^th.

Other highlights: the “Shades” scene of La Bayadère, which looked ravishing, with the whole corps de ballet breathing and thinking as one. (One can tell that Natalia Makarova has been showering the dancers with her wisdom and attention.) And the exotic Thaïs pas de deux by Frederick Ashton, performed by a lithe, sensual Diana Vishneva.

The season runs through July 10, and you can see casts in advance here.