The Sarasota Ballet’s Digital Program 5, released this past weekend, featured ballets from past and present choreographers. George Balanchine’s Donizetti Variations and Ricardo Graziano’s Amorosa differ largely in style but are similar in that they are both choreographic sensations. Donizetti Variations, first performed by the New York City Ballet in 1960, is a plotless ballet set to music by Gaetano Donizetti. The choreography reflects many aspects of the August Bournonville style with a Balanchine flare. Principal couple Katelyn May and Yuri Marques danced with attack and precision during the pas de deux and solo sections. May’s musicality was spot on during her variation, and Marques nailed his turning sequences.
The sheer joy of Balanchine’s “Donizetti Variations,” set to melodic, buoyant ballet music from Gaetano Donizetti’s opera “Dom Sébastien,” hooks you from the moment it begins. So does the wit of the choreography, which has the intensely satisfying quality of seeming to reveal the score in all its detail, while not taking it terribly seriously.
Much of the ballet features different permutations of the ensemble of nine dancers, usually arranged in threes. In one section, three women bob up and down on pointe in arabesque; two are up when the third is down, and vice versa. The counterpoint is funny and brings attention to the accents in the music.