Review | Hong Kong Ballet with Daniel Camargo sparkle in Balanchine’s Jewels

May 2021 was third time lucky for Hong Kong Ballet’s first performance of George Balanchine’s Jewels, originally scheduled twice but ultimately not performed in 2020. One reason for the delays was travel restrictions, as performing work by Balanchine necessitates bringing in repetiteurs authorised by the Balanchine Trust. Diana White and Paul Boos flew in from overseas to stage the ballet and gallantly underwent 21 days of quarantine, as did guest artist Daniel Camargo and guest conductor Robert Reimer.

The production featured some outstanding performances and showcased the company’s strengths – energy, commitment and high standards of technique – while also hinting at its weaker points in terms of nuance and musicality.

There was a definite divide between those dancers fully at home with Balanchine and those less comfortable with the off-balance moves and extreme lightness, speed and precision of footwork his choreography demands, while the impact of injuries and departures left some roles undercast. Nonetheless, Hong Kong Ballet can be proud of the overall level of performance for this work, one of the supreme tests of a classical ballet troupe.

Created in 1967, Jewels is routinely described as the “first full-length plotless ballet”, yet it’s not clear that this was the choreographer’s intention. The three short pieces that make up Jewels were initially performed in mixed bills with other ballets, and are connected only by their gemstone titles: Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds (Balanchine himself pointed out that they had nothing to do with jewels except the costume designs).

The least substantive (or, depending on your viewpoint, the most subtle) of the three pieces, Emeralds can easily fall flat, and it’s a tribute to White’s staging that here it went well.