NYCB Vol. 18 No. 2 - Symphony in C, Edward Villella
- Lauryn Johnson
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Edward Villella on Symphony in C: “I loved ending with this ballet. It was something I knew I could really do—it suited my abilities. I could hear the audience gasp and hear the round of thunderous applause when I made my first exit during the movement. The gasp and the applause rang out again when I did the repeat. It stirred me up, higher than I'd ever been.
“I had purchased two balcony seats that night, all I could afford, and sent them to my parents. They had reluctantly agreed to come to the performance, under the impression that I'd be dancing small roles, struggling in the corps. I think they were shocked to see me in two leading roles, and were even more taken aback by the audience's enthusiastic response.
“After the curtain came down, I was still in costume standing on the darkened stage with Balanchine. My makeup was running and sweat was dripping from my body. Balanchine was telling me what I had done right-and wrong—in the ballets. The curtain was up again. The house was empty, and a stagehand had put on the night-light, one dull bulb.
“After Balanchine and I finished talking, we shook hands. He went off in one direction. As I started to move toward my dressing room, I saw my mother and father standing in the wings in tears. The three of us fell into each other's arms and laughed and cried and hugged and kissed. From that time on, my father carried my picture in his jacket and flashed my reviews all over the garment center. My mother made my father buy her an electric juicer for Christmas. Each night she prepared celery shakes, and jars of carrot and spinach juice. She'd leave them out for me to drink when I returned home from the theater.”
—Prodigal Son: Dancing for Balanchine in a World of Pain and Magic by Edward Villella
(top left) Edward Villella and Patricia McBride. Photo by Fred Fehl, 1961. Harry Ransom Center.
(top right) Edward Villella and Patricia McBride. Photo by Fred Fehl, 1961. Harry Ransom Center.
(bottom left) Edward Villella and Sara Leland. Photo by Fred Fehl, 1961. Harry Ransom Center.
(bottom right) Edward Villella and Patricia McBride. Photo by Martha Swope, 1969. NYPL
Arlene Croce, The New Yorker dance critic, described her initial impression of Edward Villella in Symphony in C:
“I saw a dark-eyed devil in an orange sweater fly backward through space about seven feet off the ground. That was for starters. He returned in Symphony in C— leaping on in the third movement at the moment when, after the opening fanfares, the music catapults to an A chord from an octave below. Then, with the music rebounding to a persistent keening chord in A, he continued to leap and land, circling the stage on a stream of air while murmurs of amazement ran through the house.
(left) Edward Villella. Photo by Martha Swope, 1959. NYPL
(right) Edward Villella and Violette Verdy. Photo by Martha Swope, 1959. NYPL
“Coming to rest beside his partner, he began an amusing little vamp in plié, then launched into sautés downstage and up, looping the sautés together with a jaunty turn or two en l'air, after which he shot out of sight in a jump that touched off pandemonium.
“The buzz died down, we settled ourselves expectantly, and then he was back, and the miracle happened again: the unstraining, space-swallowing round of sauté, grand jeté, sauté, saut de basque, the climactic grand jeté off. All just as before, only higher. And grinning like a tiger the whole time.”
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