Sometimes delayed gratification is more meaningful — and two years after the last in-person San Francisco Ballet gala both the delay and the gratification were appropriately grand at “La Grande Fête.”

The gala, which returned at the War Memorial Opera House and City Hall on Thursday, March 24, was originally planned for Jan. 27 but was pushed back due to concerns over the omicron variant surge. The night was Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson’s final gala before his retirement at the end of the season after 37 years, but it also marked Danielle St. Germain-Gordon’s first as the Ballet’s new executive director, a role she had filled as interim for nine months after the abrupt exit of Kelly Tweeddale. In an amazing comeback for the event, St. Germain-Gordon reported “La Grande Fête” was the highest-earning gala in the ballet’s 89-year history, making more than $3.3 million to benefit artistic and educational programs, including helping to cover housing costs for student dancers.

Elizabeth Dye snaps a photo of her and her friends while attending the San Francisco Ballet 2022 Season Gala at War Memorial Opera House on Thursday, March 24. The gala, originally planned for January, was postponed and rescheduled due to COVID-19. Photo: Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

In what felt like a return to normal, guests partied mostly unmasked (after providing proof of vaccine and a negative COVID test provided by the Ballet, which instructed attendees to take it within 24 hours of the event). But the company also acknowledged that the world is not entirely as it was in January 2020.

Throughout the evening, there were reminders of the ongoing war in Ukraine, ranging from sartorial tributes like blue and yellow Ukrainian flag ribbons to gowns in the country’s colors. dr Kerstin Rosen even brought a flag emblazoned with the words “I stand with Ukraine” that she unfurled on the steps at City Hall during dinner, while fellow attendee Tanum Davis Bohen completed her blue and gold gown with a headpiece reminiscent of traditional Ukrainian floral crowns.

San Francisco Ballet’s ‘La Grande Fete’ gala marks full return of live dance to the city

dr Kerstin Rosen (center) holds a flag she brought to the gala in support of Ukraine with Alex Semshyn during the San Francisco Ballet 2022 Season Gala at City Hall in San Francisco. Photo: Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

The program itself included three world premieres, with two by choreographers Alexei Ratmansky and Yuri Possokhov, who both grew up in the country and still have family there. Board co-chair Robert G. Shaw noted that “Helgi is very close to the choreographers, the dancers and our staff that have ties to Ukraine.” In a moving gesture, Tomasson dedicated the night’s performance to the people of Ukraine, before the orchestra played a rousing rendition of the Ukrainian national anthem as the country’s flag was projected onscreen.

To keep guests on their toes — if not en pointe — the gala flipped its usual format. Following a Champagne reception at the Opera House, guests adjourned to the performance followed by dinner at City Hall. (Even with all that’s going on in the world, including in Washington DC, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made an under-the-radar appearance at the evening’s performance, though she skipped the gala dinner.)

Here are a few more of the evening’s highlights:

San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Sasha De Sola (right) rehearses backstage before the performance portion of the San Francisco Ballet 2022 Season Gala at War Memorial Opera House. Photo: Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

backstage

Before the curtain rose, dancers warmed up on the stage as they awaited the arrival of Tomasson.

Principal dancer Dores André, who debuted choreographer Myles Thatcher’s “Drum Roll, Please!,” remarked that the night “felt special, privileged” following the pandemic delays. After 19 years at the company, André added she will miss Tomasson because as an artistic director “he cares about different things than other people care about.”

Of note: Earlier in the season, André played the title role in the world premiere of “Mrs. Robinson” (based on “The Graduate”) and brought so much heat to her performance I worried she would set her co-star on fire.

Principal dancer Benjamin Freemantle attends the San Francisco Ballet 2022 Season Gala at City Hall in San Francisco. Photo: Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

Fashion

The gala’s dress code was officially “festive attire,” and guests spanned classic black tie and gowns to creative athleisure like Smuin Ballet dancer Max Forman-Mullin’s sparkling Barabas track suit. Mary Beth Shimmon opted for a vintage, gold Christian Dior turban that felt appropriately Diaghilev for a ballet gala. Another dance world favorite, poofs of tulle and chiffon, made a massive enough comeback that the stairs at City Hall at times resembled Britex with the amount of fabric trailing behind guests.

Dancer Christopher Ouellette, an alumnus of the famous Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo drag dance company, was one of several guests who opted for gender-blending chic in a tuxedo-gown combination with a painted-on beard.

Mixing formal with fetishwear, choreographer Thatcher chose a shorts suit with a yellow cord harness visible under his jacket.

“A couple of people asked me if it was Dior,” said Thatcher of the harness. “It’s DIY-ior — I made it myself.”

Event planner J. Riccardo Benavides designed the decor, which had the theme of “La Grande Fête,” for the evening at San Francisco City Hall. Photo: Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

Dinner and décor

The park between the Opera House and Veterans’ Building was outfitted with a gold carpet for arrivals. Amid the Parisian-inspired floral displays by J. Riccardo Benavides in the lobby, René Rodman Diamond received guests and joked that she held the distinction of being “the longest-standing gala chair in San Francisco Ballet history” given that she was originally intended to hold the position at the canceled 2021 in-person gala.

“My (gala) committee of 25 stayed by my side for two years,” Diamond said. “At one point in 2021 we were thinking of doing it outside, then when the (omicron) variant came we decided to go back to City Hall in 2022 when things were safe. It feels like everything came to a head.”

Following the performance, Van Ness between Grove and McAllister was closed (don’t worry, it’s not more construction) to allow guests to cross to City Hall for dinner. Watching the formally attired hordes flood the avenue is always its own moment of choreography.

Event planner J. Riccardo Benavides’ decor featured Parisian-inspired floral displays.. Photo: Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

Inside City Hall, Benavides’ décor was inspired by one of Tommason’s favorite ballets, “Don Quixote,” and included three fabric-rose-covered panels in homage to a costume worn in the production, which made its season debut last month.

“There’s 5,000 roses on each panel and three panels overall, that’s 15,000 roses,” said Benavides. ”I love highlighting these iconic pieces from the ballets and giving them new life.”

The menu by McCalls Catering & Events included salad with smoked trout and apple, truffled duxelles guinea hen roulade, and a chocolate hazelnut dacquoise with Burgundy poached pear cassis.

San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson smiles while speaking with Carl Pascarella during the San Francisco Ballet 2022 Season Gala at City Hall. Photo: Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

Tomasson’s legacy

The final words of the night belong to Tomasson, who quipped that even though “he barely made the performance” due to traffic, he felt fantastic given the warm responses from audiences all season.

Among the legacies he’s most proud of in his nearly four decades at San Francisco Ballet are the dancers from the company who have gone on to be artistic directors in other cities — among them Ashley Wheater at the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, Mikko Nissinen at the Boston Ballet and Gennady Nedvigin at the Atlanta Ballet.

When contemplating the past two years of the pandemic and the situation in Ukraine, Tomasson said it was a reminder “that we need art more than ever before, not only in this country but in the world. It’s a great healing process.”

San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson and his wife, Marlene. Photo: Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

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San Francisco Ballet is back – with a vengeance! The first program of their 2022 season concludes with arguably the most joyous 35 minutes of dance ever created, George Balanchine’s neoclassical masterpiece Symphony in C. Set to Bizet’s fizzy first symphony, composed when he was only 17, the entire ballet is a delight, but it reaches its apex in the final movement as dozens and dozens of dancers fill the stage, their stark white and black costumes standing in sharp relief against the sky-blue backdrop. As the dancers dive into the challenging choreography with gusto, it feels as if the stage erupts in a burst of fireworks. Yes, this is exactly what we’ve been missing for the past two years, this feeling of rapturous joy that simply cannot be transmitted via a video screen.Max Cauthorn and Sasha De Sola at San Francisco Ballet’s
production of Helgi Tomasson’s Trio

Program 1 opens with Trio, an attractive ballet by SFB’s soon-to-retire Artistic Director, Helgi Tomasson, and it’s what I would call a patented Tomasson piece – decent choreography set to gorgeous music with ample opportunity for terrific dancing. It’s not the kind of ballet that’s going to set the world on fire, or that you’ll likely remember a year from now, but it is very pleasant to watch in the moment and shows off the depth of talent in this remarkable company. In this case, Tomasson has chosen Tchaikovsky’s gorgeous Souvenir de Florence, which surprisingly wanders from Italy to Russia over the course of its four movements, the latter two combined into one (thus giving the ballet its name). A playful pas de deux opens the piece before giving way to a melancholic trio with undertones of a plot involving death conquering love, and the ballet concludes with a folk-dancy romp. Tomasson’s movement is consistently attentive to the shifts in the music, even as he cribs from Balanchine along the way. But as they say – if you’re going to steal, steal from the best.

(L to R) Daniel Deivison-Oliveira, Dores André and Luke Ingham in
San Francisco Ballet’s production of Helgi Tomasson’s Trio

The opening night cast was terrific top to bottom. Sasha De Sola and Max Cauthorn danced beautifully together in the first movement. She astonished with her spitfire turns and languorous balances, and he seemed perpetually airborne. Doris André, Luke Ingham and Daniel Deivison-Olivera made a nicely understated trio in the sorrowful second movement, letting the choreography speak for itself without piling on the pathos. Angelo Greco and Misa Kuranaga injected the finale with a spritz of playful energy that brought the ballet to a rousing close. And the corps de ballet of 10 dancers gave beautiful support to the principal dancers throughout, most notably the duo of Estéban Cuadrado and Mingxuan Wang, two dancers of different physiques and temperaments who somehow met in the middle through the perfectly matched elegance and lightness of their dancing.

Sarah Van Patten as the title character in Cathy Marston’s Mrs. Robinson, flanked by the corps de ballet

The middle piece of the program was the much-anticipated world premiere of Cathy Marston’s Mrs. Robinson, based on the source novel for the celebrated film The Graduate. Marston’s fresh idea is to tell the well-known story from the perspective of the middle-aged title character. This sounded fascinating in concept, but in execution, not so much. Working closely with dramaturg Edward Kemp and composer Terry Davies, Marston knows how to tell a story through dance – this is not one of those narrative ballets that leaves the audience mystified as to what they have just seen – but she does not have a feel for devising distinctive movement that illuminates character. Yes, there are odd sparks of this along the way, like the way Benjamin’s signature gesture of running his hand upwards over his face speaks to his discofiture in the world, but those moments are way too few and far between. Instead, we get multiple sequences of women in aprons miming household chores and falling to the floor. It’s a choreographic notion about the stultifying life of a housewife, but it’s not a novel or interesting one so it goes nowhere, even as it is repeated over and over again during the overlong ballet’s 45-minute running time. Sure, we get the concept, but we don’t feel it.

The central tries between Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin are equally lacking in imagination and, more problematically, real passion. There are some easy visual jokes about his awkwardness, including unfortunately broad allusions to his erection, but we never feel the couple’s true connection. This ultimately robs Mrs. Robinson’s emotional journey of any real impact. When she meets her unhappy end, it is mystifyingly abrupt and vaguely reminiscent of The Stepford Wives. What we really need is a culminating solo for Mrs. Robinson that delineates through movement her emotional state. Instead, we get a non-ending ending that leaves the audience perplexed.Joseph Walsh as Benjamin Braddock and Sarah Van Patten
as the title character in Cathy Marston’s Mrs. Robinson

Marston is not helped by her creative team. Patrick Kinmonth’s costumes seem oddly stuck in the staid 1950’s rather than the hip 1960’s and his sets look cheap and ill-constructed, rather than spare and stylized as I presume was intended. The lighting design by the usually terrific Jim French only calls attention to those deficiencies. I even began to wonder if this was on purpose, that the point was to shine a light on the shoddiness of the society it depicted. On the plus side, the dancers in the huge cast of 36 uniformly danced with commitment and style. I felt badly for Sarah Van Patten and Joseph Walsh in the leading roles. They are two of SFB’s most accomplished dancing actors and they complemented each other beautifully. Even with her beguiling opacity and his emotional transparency, though, hard as they tried they simply could not make their characters register for the audience. Oh how I would love to see them both dance a much better version of this same story!

After the low-key bewilderment of Mrs. Robinson, SFB came roaring back with the infinite glories of Symphony in C. Featuring an enormous cast of 52, including no less than four leading couples, there are simply too many moving parts for any ballet company to give a perfect performance of Symphony in C, but SFB gives it their considerable best. The corps women were stunningly light and crisp in the opening allegro movement, with a standout Julia Rowe in a demi-solo role. A playful yet regal Sasha De Sola and Aaron Robison, astonishing in the height of his jumps, led their ranks with dash and panache. The achingly gorgeous adagio second movement showed off just what Sarah Van Patten can do with a role worthy of her talents, as she alternated swoony melancholy in her pas de deux with Ulrik Birkkjaer with crisp changes of direction, mid-leap mind you, in her solo. Dores André and Max Cauthorn brought impish high spirits to the third movement before Henry Sidford and Jennifer Stahl kicked off the final section with spritely command.

(L to R) Elizabeth Mateer, Anatalia Hordov and Tyla Steinbach backed by the corps de ballet in George Balanchine’s Symphony in C

That last movement becomes a sort of balletic relay race as the tempo speeds up and teams of dancers from each of the proceeding movements dash onstage, performing brief flashes of intricate movement before ceding the stage to the next team. And there are delicious moments of unison dancing for the leading ballerinas, and then the leading men, that allow us the pleasure of watching these artists dance in synch with each other while still expressing their individuality. When the ballet ends with a celebratory whoosh of all 52 dancers filling the stage tutu to tutu in a kaleidoscope of geometry, jumping and twirling in delight, it is a distillation of pure joy.

[All photos by Erik Tomasson]

Live performances of San Francisco Ballet’s Program 1 continue through Saturday, February 12th at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA. Running time is approximately 2:40, including two intermissions. Proof of full COVID vaccination and wearing of masks while in the building are required. For tickets and additional information, visit www.sfballet.org or call (415) 865-2000, MF 10am-4pm.

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With its fantastic atmosphere and adventurous film music, “Nutcracker” conjures up the magic of Christmas and enchants the audience with its enchanting magic. For many, the beloved ballet represents an essential cultural totem that heralds the merry Christmas. This year the “Nutcracker” is of particular importance as it heralds the return of the San Francisco Ballet to the stage of the War Memorial Opera House after a 21-month absence.

Choreographer Helgi Tomasson fills “Nutcracker” with a glowing imagination that makes the well-known story appear both new and nostalgic. The venue itself seemed to shimmer golden and embellished the aristocratic ambience of the opening party scene. The set is a triumph, complete with a soft glowing fireplace, a towering Christmas tree and a “Cinderella” -style staircase.

Visually impressive, the villa feels like home due to the characters who inhabit it. Glittering ball gowns swirl around the exquisite set and the children are a charming mob of ribbons, bows, mittens and ringlets. Uncle Drosselmeyer (Tiit Helimets) storms into the air with ease, and Clara and Fritz – played by the cute Abby Cannon and the hilarious Kai Hannigan – are lovely to look at.

Tchaikovsky, the composer of the original ballet, folded new and original melodies into the score with the enthusiasm of the cheerful Nicholas who hopped over the roofs. In this performance, conductor Martin West approaches each motif with intent and care, as if each song were a miraculous gift under a Christmas tree. The orchestra gives each atmosphere its own character – the romantic “Grand Pas de Deux”, the proud “Trepak”, the comical “Mother Ginger and the Polichinelles”. The dancers and the musicians blossom in harmonious marriage and take the audience into the fantastic worlds of a young girl’s imagination.

The story dissolves into Clara’s brilliant and fantastic daydreams, and the characters of her dreams move with ethereal grace. Tomasson’s choreography is an ode to the human body and its potential. The body becomes papyrus for poetic expression while the characters flaunt exquisite expansions and sleek jumps. Cannon is popular as Clara, and her older co-stars are generous dance partners. Above all, Joseph Walsh shines as the handsome nutcracker prince, all with charming heroism and dramatic flair.

The Snow Queen and the Snow King (Yuan Yuan Tan and Henry Sidford) pose like glass figures, but move with the smooth, liquid grace of running water. The accompanying snowflakes are an ethereal sight, wearing tulle skirts that move like jellyfish. The Sugar Fairy (Nikisha Fogo) turns and jumps through the air with inexhaustible, tireless buoyancy that leaves the audience breathless.

The set transformation itself swells into an amazing magical work. The first act culminates in a deeply moving sequence in which snowflakes fall from above. The show’s dynamism builds in its more episodic second act as Clara and the Nutcracker Prince travel the world in search of candy. The vignettes conjure up different national characters, but some numbers inherit outdated stereotypes about non-European countries. Despite the unchanged material, the dancers shine as captivating portraits of technique and skill.

The grandiose spectacle of “Nutcracker” – of glittering costumes, elaborate staging, incredibly difficult, but effortlessly executed movements – arouses a rare pathos. One that lingers long after the break and settles down on the drive along the Bay Bridge.

The “Nutcracker” of the San Francisco Ballet feels like a reunion – an event that always brings a special intimacy with it during the holidays. It is a catharsis to dissolve alienation, to thaw what was frozen in time. The pain of a 21 month absence is eased by the show’s warm embrace and everything is happy and bright again at the War Memorial Opera House. To see “Nutcracker” means to experience a homecoming – the kind that is bursting with magic and elicits enough indescribable joy to float into the new year.

Maya Thompson is an arts and entertainment editor. Contact them at [email protected].

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