Suzanne Farrell: Back at City Ballet
Wendy Whelan documented the rehearsal process via Instagram
This week, New York City Ballet tweeted “Suzanne Farrell is in our studios this week to coach Maria Kowroski & Tyler Angle and Sara Mearns & Russell Janzen in the regal pas de deux from Balanchine’s “Diamonds”—a role she originated with Jacques d’Amboise in 1967—to prepare for the ballet’s return this May.” Farrell last performed at State Theater in 1989, and “never dreamed [she] would live to see the day when [she] did not work for New York City Ballet.” Though she was kept on as a ballet mistress and teacher for a brief period following her retirement from the stage, she has not been employed by NYCB since 1993, when her contract was suddenly terminated. The terms of her departure were never exposed, but it is widely known that Peter Martins’ tenure was marked by a “disinclination to bring in Balanchine alumni.”
Suzanne Farrell left Cincinnati for New York at the age of 15, where she soon began studying at the School of American Ballet. After just over a year as a student, she joined New York City Ballet, where she quickly received acclaim: she was known for her mastery of the Balanchine repertoire; for originating roles in “Meditation,” “Don Quixote,” and “Diamonds”; and for inspiring persistent interest from Mr. B. She had a prolific working relationship with Balanchine—there is perhaps no one with greater knowledge of Balanchine’s method of tailoring steps to an individual or revisiting works that he believed could be improved. They also shared a close personal relationship, most notable for Balanchine’s unsuccessful proposal.
Balanchine was notorious for maintaining relationships with his dancers—Tamara Geva, Alexandra Danilova, Vera Zorina, Maria Tallchief, and Tanaquil LeClercq—and it was no secret that he hoped to add Farrell to the list. But Farrell recognized that their partnership could be fruitful without consummation or marriage. In her memoir, she wrote, “Balanchine needed to choreograph to live, just as [Farrell] needed to dance to live. Neither of us needed to be married to live.” Farrell instead married Paul Mejia. After a period in which Balanchine pulled Mejia from his featured roles at NYCB, the couple resigned from City Ballet and traveled to Europe, where they danced for Maurice Béjart.
Five years after her departure, Farrell saw City Ballet perform in Saratoga and wrote to Balanchine to ask if she might dance for him once more. Balanchine continued to choreograph for her after her return: first with “Tzigane,” and later with “Mozartiana,” “Davidsbündlertänze,” “Chaconne,” and “Élégie.” Farrell writes about her return to the studio with Balanchine for “Tzigane,” “I knew then that the fun had begun—we were experimenting again.” The relationship between the two was not that of an artist and his muse, but something more: a partnership between artist and artist, working as one.
It was not until Balanchine’s health began to fail that he acknowledged the impropriety of his proposal to Farrell, who later wrote that the choreographer’s confession had enhanced their connection “not only [on] a dance level, but a spiritual one.” “Mozartiana,” made possible by the depth of their relationship, perhaps best embodies Balanchine’s recognition both of his lifetime of contributions to the ballet and his devotion to Farrell. The ballet is at once a prayer and an offering, a story of evolution and constancy, and a communion between physical and spiritual worlds. In Farrell’s words, it “traced the progression of Balanchine’s knowledge and feeling in the face of death—he saw not a blackness but rather a beginning, a lightness.” Balanchine looked to his past to use what was in front of him to create a vision of hope for the future, with the ballet conveying a spiritual realm of wholehearted fulfillment.
City Ballet has demonstrated that it can look forward: what Martins lacked as a choreographer, he made up for in his ability to spot emerging talent (Wheeldon, Peck, Ratmansky). Commissioning choreographers like Kyle Abraham, Pam Tanowitz, and Jamar Roberts proves the company’s continuing interest in incorporating the work of contemporary choreographers into its repertoire. But Martins largely failed to look back. However, there is reason to hope. This fall, Gia Kourlas reported on dancers Patricia McBride, Mimi Paul, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Edward Villella returning to coach roles they originated, notable because “when Mr. Martins was in charge, Balanchine alumni outside of the artistic staff were mostly kept out of the studio.” As a part of the interim team at NYCB, Jon Stafford has already demonstrated willingness to bring back Balanchine dancers, and, based off of this week’s events, one can assume he and Wendy Whelan will continue to do so.
Farrell’s return is notable for more than her status as Balanchine’s most recurrent inspiration. While running her company and summer intensive, Farrell established herself as the foremost preserver of Balanchine’s legacy, and as a mentor committed to developing not only technique and artistry, but a sense of artistic purpose, marked by integrity and a fierce work ethic. During her tenure running a summer intensive at the Kennedy Center summer intensive, she conducted every audition, hand-picking the thirty young dancers invited to attend. It was widely known that she wasn’t looking just for technique and potential—she wanted dancers with whom she connected on an individual level, dancers who would be responsive to the diligent work necessary for a career in ballet. She looked for qualities that could transcend technique: individuality, musicality, and honesty. “Having a small head, long neck, and long limbs was not enough. Being feminine and beautiful was not enough. Being technically masterful and musical was not enough. It was when I saw Elena dancing Balanchine for the first time—when I witnessed her willingness to take a chance—that I finally understood [what Balanchine had, perhaps, seen in me],” Farrell remarked after working with the dancers of the Kirov on her first staging assignment, a statement indicative of the qualities she is capable of cultivating in her dancers. Reviewing a performance marking the tenth anniversary of Farrell’s D.C. company, Alastair Macaulay remarked “the way to watch Ms. Farrell’s company, however, is not to remember or reimagine the diva’s own performances—it’s to see what her dancers have to reveal about Balanchine.”
And that is what makes Suzanne Farrell’s return most important: her return indicates the same sense of beginning she so aptly brought to life in “Mozartiana,” a prayer fulfilled, a sense of life, death, and continuity. There is nothing more natural than to see her in the studio, but her belongingness at City Ballet is what makes her presence so poignant. Her homecoming suggests a renewed connection to Balanchine masterpieces, marked by a discovery of the individual in relation to the work that Balanchine so prized. It is the sense of renewal Farrell embodies, her ability to pull authenticity from a dancer and from a work, that make her return to City Ballet so important.
Note: Quotations attributed to Farrell are from her autobiography, Holding on to the Air, originally published in 1990.
