After the emotional wringing of The Little Mermaid performed last month, San Francisco Ballet’s sixth and seventh programs, two mixed bills running concurrently, seem almost fluffy.

That’s certainly so with the sixth program’s opening piece, ”Haffner” Symphony, which has classical choreography and classical stiff pancake tutus, pastel colors and a garden scene backdrop. Artistic director Helgi Tomasson created ”Haffner” Symphony in 1991, for the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s death.


Mozart’s Symphony No. 35, Haffner, is celebratory and uplifting, and the women and men flow in and out of various groupings. They are smooth and precise, and Anthony Spaulding in particular soars across the stage. Four movements in 25 minutes, the ballet is pleasant and pretty.

Pleasantries over, the dark Underskin takes over (SF Ballet performed its world premiere on April 8). Renato Zanella’s first commissioned piece for SF Ballet, Underskin is said to revolve around beneath-the-surface emotions. The forest of long black rods, the female lead in a cat-suit, six principal dancers and the corps members are all symbolic, according to SF Ballet’s program notes.

Figuring out the symbolism isn’t apparent from watching the stage, though the dancing is fine enough. Cat-suited Sofiane Sylve is authoritative and mysterious, gyrating as if she were Hula-Hooping, splaying her fingers, whirling her arms. The principal pairs engage in push-pulls and abrupt movements, as the score by Arnold Schoenberg becomes ever frantic.

Mood-wise, Alexei Ratmansky’s Russian Seasons lands somewhere between the first two works. Set to The Russian Seasons by Leonid Desyatnikov, it features mezzo-soprano Susan Poretsky (who’s also performed this role for the New York City Ballet and Royal Danish Ballet).

The dancers are clothed in eye-popping colors such as raspberry, jade, fuchsia and royal blue, but they’re bipolar—up one moment, leaping, running and sliding across stage like kids, doing Russian folk dance steps, and down the next, slow, solemn, searching, anguished. The singing, which includes whoops and atonality, accompanies the gloomy portions and is distracting at times.

The seventh repertory program is more light-hearted. Yuri Possokhov’s Classical Symphony—another world premiere by SF Ballet—is classical with some neo twists. Ballerinas, in tutus that resemble sun hats or lily pads, thrust out their chests unexpectedly. Maria Kochetkova pirouettes in a crouched position. At times paired dancers look and move like figure skating couples, with pointe shoes tracing arcs on the floor. Hansuke Yamamoto’s leaps are breathtaking, and the scene of men doing grand jete entourment is energizing.

Program 7 closes with pure comedy: The Concert (or, The Perils of Everybody) is Jerome Robbins’ spoof of concertgoers and what they’re really thinking and fantasizing about during a concert. He uses the popular names of some of Chopin’s music, like the “Butterfly” Etude and the “Raindrop” Prelude, to make visual puns. The mistake waltz, with its tightly choreographed incoordination, is especially hilarious.

Program 6 continues through April 21 and Program 7 continues through April 20. SF Ballet’s 2010 season ends with Romeo and Juliet on May 1-9. Tickets and info: www.sfballet.org or 415-865-2000.