Hugo Marchand/Béjart @ NY City Center
Above photo from Boléro starring Hugo Marchand; photo by Curtis Brown
~ Author: Oberon
Sunday July 26th, 2026 matinee - Étoile Hugo Marchand, plus dancers from his home company, the Paris Opera Ballet, as well as dancers from Béjart Ballet Lausanne, in a program about the aspects of love at New York City Center. It was an often captivating afternoon of dance, but audience distractions prevented complete enjoyment: seat-poachers, cell phones, chatterboxes, bright flashlights, and hacking coughers made for two hours of interrupted pleasure; more than once, I felt like getting up and leaving.
The pillars of the program - Maurice Béjart's settings of The Firebird and Boléro - were interspersed with four duets, three of which had a similar feeling and look: boy meets girl, they dip and swirl lyrically. The first of these was Balanchine's ever-lovely Sonatine, made mesmerizing by pianist Elena Bonnay's playing of the Ravel score. Dancers Léonore Baulac and Germain Louvet moved with effortless grace: a beautiful partnership, they relished their solo passages to fine effect.
The Béjart Firebird is visually engrossing, with a dramatically powerful story-telling very different from Balanchine's version, to which New Yorkers are accustomed. Dancers from Béjart Ballet Lausanne are first seen as a huddled, grey- clad community. The firebird, in the person of the red-clad danseur Hideo Kishimoto, appears; he gives a compelling performance with his handsome, exotic presence and definitive dancing. The burning sun looms over the dancers as the Phoenix, danced by Zsolt Kovacs, appears to revive and inspire the Firebird. The Stravinsky score, with its quirky monster-mash and the gorgeous 'lullabye', never fails to thrill me.
The program's first half ends with the afternoon's first appearance of the production's star, Hugo Marchand, partnering the Paris Opera Ballet's beloved ballerina Dorothée Gilbert in Le Parc, a duet to Mozart choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj and inspired by Les Liaisons Dangereuses. I was curious to see this Preljocaj work as I've loved everything I've seen of his in the past. A few years ago, I had the great pleasure of sitting next to him whilst the late, lamented Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performed his striking 1995 ballet, Annonciation. Today's Preljocaj duet shared with Annonciation a mind-blowing kiss; the dancers reveled in the passion and sweeping movement the duet calls for.
After the interval, Madame Bonnay returned to the piano for Satie's Trois gnossiennes to which choreographer Hans van Manen had created a 3-movement duet, danced today by Paris Opera Ballet Étoiles Léonore Baulac and M. Machard. This piece felt a kinship to the Balanchine Sonatine which opened the program. A beautiful rapport between the dancers and the pianist was lovely to experience.
Dorothée Gilbert and Germain Louvet looked marvelous together in L'esprit du Bleu, a duet from Carolyn Carlson's Signes set to a score by Réné Aubry. The music seems ominous at the start but eventually relaxes into an enticing lyricism. The ballet was inspired by the abstract painted landscapes of Olivier Debré, the relationship between the dancers commencing with a smile. The duet had a contemporary feeling, the ballerina being barefoot and the partnering less formal than in the opening Balanchine duet.
Maurice Béjart’s Boléro is a marvelous dance setting of Maurice Ravel's immortal Boléro; M. Marchard is one of the few artists who have been permitted to dance the piece since its premiere in 1961. In the ballet, Marchand dances the solo part on a large round-table whilst 18 male dancers from Béjart Ballet Lausanne add steps and poses in patterns surrounding the platform. The music is, of course, hypnotic and unstoppable. M. Marchand held the packed house under his spell, his colleagues gradually joining in until the community seems to be taking part in a ritual of almost religious fervor. The finale met with a full-house standing ovation, the crowd demanding numerous bows from the star and his colleagues. ~ Oberon