PARISIANS PRESENT COOL, BEGUILING `JEWELS' BY BALANCHINE ON PBS

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on August 28, 2006.

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Stay-at-home ballet fans will find themselves beguiled by the latest installment in PBS's Great Performances series: the Paris Opera Ballet dancing George Balanchine's ``Jewels.''

Created for the New York City Ballet in 1967, ``Jewels'' was the first plotless three-act ballet in dance history. Balanchine, for whom music always came first, chose the work of three decidedly different composers to evoke three cultures central to his life and art.

Music by the French Romantic composer Gabriel Faure, flowing like gently stirred water, sets ``Emeralds'' in motion. The choreography is dreamy, haunting, full of muted passions. It conjures up the France of our imagination.

``Rubies'' responds in kind to the raw energy and jazzy rhythms of Stravinsky's ``Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra.'' It's all urban America, dancing blithely on the edge of danger.

``Diamonds,'' to Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3, evokes imperial Russia. Balanchine was schooled at the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in the final years of the Romanov dynasty. The choreography sums up the cool beauty of a classical dance tradition that reached its peak under czarist patronage.

The Parisians give ``Jewels,'' recorded at the ornate Palais Garnier, an impeccable performance throughout. They're at their sublime best in ``Emeralds,'' moving with unsurpassed refinement while conveying subtle fugitive emotions.

Farrell's Czarina

They make ``Rubies'' suaver than it is when danced by the NYCB. U.S. aficionados will miss the brashness, the rakishness and the spontaneity delivered by the home team.

Legs that slash the air like switchblades in New York translate in Paris into limbs stroking the space as if it were lined with velvet. The result is gorgeous in its own way.

In ``Diamonds,'' the Paris company's Agnes Letestu lacks the magical combination of sensuousness and hauteur that Suzanne Farrell originally brought to the ballerina/czarina role. But the overall clarity and assurance of the dancing emphasizes the architecture of the choreography. The exquisitely manipulated patterns become -- more clearly than I've ever seen -- a metaphor for order and purity.

PBS Great Performances: The Paris Opera Ballet in George Balanchine's ``Jewels'' will air Wednesday at 8 p.m. in New York on Thirteen/WNET (nationally some stations may show it Aug. 28; check local listings). For more information, see http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/jewels/ .

© 2006 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.