As the leading lights of ballet gathered from around the world to honor him at the War Memorial Opera House on Sunday, April 24,Helgi Tomassonmaintained his trademark strength in humility to the teary end.
“Chance nothing, gain nothing — remember, that’s my motto,” the departing artistic director of San Francisco Ballet said softly to the full opera house, as cannon-shot confetti fluttered down on a host of dance legends gathered to mark the end of his transformative 37-year tenure.
Evidencing the distaste for grandiosity that has been his key grace as a dancer, choreographer and mentor, Tomasson then glanced about awkwardly for someone to take the microphone.
“I think it’s time for me to stop talking,” he muttered.
He didn’t need to talk. “Helgi Tomasson: A Celebration” featured video tributes from the likes of choreographers Mark Morris and Christopher Wheeldon, American Ballet Theatre artistic director Kevin McKenzie, and past company members Elizabeth Loscavio,Anthony Randazzo and Mikko Nissinen, now the artistic director of Boston Ballet. Another company member turned director, Joffrey Ballet leader Ashley Wheater, spoke from the stage, as did Hamburg Ballet director John Neumeier, who recounted making one of his earliest works, “Stages,” for Tomasson at the intrepid Harkness Ballet in 1968.
The busy lobby, too, echoed with appreciation from much-missed familiar faces. Gonzalo Garcia, who trained at the San Francisco Ballet school from age 15, then left in 2007 for New York City Ballet, had flown in that morning for the tribute, even though his new job as a repertory director for the New York company demanded a hasty return.
“How could I not be here?” Garcia said. “Helgi did it. It’s hard from beginning to end to have a career of continual growth as a dancer. And then to become a director, and keep taking the company to a higher level — he’s the one in American ballet who has been showing a clear path.”
Helgi Tomasson’s famed reserve begins to melt as he prepares to step away from S.F. Ballet
但最终,the Ballet’s current dancers who testified most eloquently without saying a word, by giving some of the best performances of their lives in a program drawing from the more than 50 ballets Tomasson has created since coming to San Francisco in 1985.
Diego Cruz has danced Tomasson’s “Concerto Grosso,” with its pride of five male dancers tossing off bravura jumps to the Baroque music of Corelli, dozens of times. But this performance was easily his most elegant; he danced it with such elegance through his neck and shoulders, with such soft landings, and such a feeling of breathas he finished his clean turns.
The young soloist Lucas Erni reached new heights as the leading man in red, moving with his whole integrated body and seeming to stretch far beyond his compact frame.
Tomasson’s special sensitivity to Baroque music also shone in a reprise of his recently premiered“Harmony,”to keyboard works by Rameau. With its liquid-satin dresses by Emma Kingbury, the ballet held up beautifully on second viewing, offering standout moments for a vivacious Julia Rowe, the ultra-refined Max Cauthorn and the more passionate Angelo Greco partnering Misa Kuranaga in the intimate final duet.
This, and the opening “Chaconne for Piano and Two Dancers” to Handel (danced by Frances Chung and Wei Wang), is the kind of work Tomasson will be most remembered for: dances that radiate civility and tenderness.
Review: S.F. Ballet brings ‘Harmony’ and more to Tomasson’s final season
But it was energizing to be reminded of Tomasson’s saucier side by a flamenco-flavored excerpt from “Two Bits,” danced with prowling sensuality by Esteban Hernandez and Isabella DeVivo.And an excerpt from 2006’s underrated “Blue Rose” shone with wit, as Sasha De Soladropped from her pirouette into an un-demure wide second position and then winkingly brought her knees together, to ragtime-reminiscent piano music by Elena Kats-Chernin.
If there is one dancer Tomasson will forever be associated with, it’s Yuan Yuan Tan, whom he brought to the company in 1995. She performed the final pas de deux of his “The Fifth Season” with Tiit Helimets, furling and unfurling in her inimitable way. At the program’s close, as the audience rose in ovation, it was Tan who came out to greet Tomasson first.
Before handing off the mike, Tomasson overrode his famous Icelandic reserve to credit his wife, fellow dancer Marlene, for being “fundamental” to his success. He said nurturing the talents of the Ballet’s performing artists had been “an awesome responsibility,” andhe believes his successor,Tamara Rojo, “will be a great directress.”
At the party that followed, the heartfelt tributes to Tomasson continued. Ballet master Anita Paciotti, who has worked at San Francisco Ballet for 54 years, recalled the immediate ambition of Tomasson’s first days as director, how he committed himself to making the company a civic treasure, aiming to entice people who had never before seen ballet.
“He said so many times he wanted San Francisco Ballet to be as good as the 49ers and the Warriors, and he did it,” Paciotti said, referring to the city’s championship football and basketball teams. “This is a historic moment for the city of San Francisco.”
San Francisco Ballet:The company’s 89th season finishes with “Swan Lake,”which opens Friday, April 29 and runs through May 8. $29-$448. War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., S.F. 415-865-2000.www.sfballet.org