NYC Ballet - Baiser de la Fee, Tschai Pas, Bal de Couture and Diamonds
The New York City Ballet winter season is in full swing, and I took in my first ballet of the season on Saturday night. First up in the mixed repertoire, Tschaikovsky Celebration evening was Divertimento from “Le Baiser de la Fee , ” a George Balanchine ballet set to an Igor Stravinsky composition. ( Divertimento was the only piece in the Tschaikovsky Celebration that was not set to Tschaikovsky’s music.) As the repertory notes explain, the music and dance can be traced back to the 1937 Balanchine work The Fairy’s Kiss (a.k.a., Le Baiser de la Fee ). Portions were excerpted for a Stravinsky festival in the 70s and later a final movement was added. That final movement is Divertimento . The ballet begins with several corps de ballet members and is rather unappealing, but soon enough we move into the pas de deux (between principal dancers (and real life married couple) Megan Fairchild and Andrew Veyette) and that’s where things become more interesting. Fairchild looks like