NYCB Vol. 19 No. 3 - Jewels, Diamonds
“Suzanne Farrell wrote in her autobiography that when she first stepped onto the stage in the pas de deux, her guide was the "lonely" oboe that plays the adagio's major theme. Melancholy does indeed pervade the music, and so the dance. There's another kind of loneliness, too, which is odd considering the ardent attention paid to her by her partner. The ballerina in Diamonds moves in a kind of solitary splendor. She is not self-absorbed like the Paul character in Emeralds, but her movements, so grand and large, register like symbols of adagio dancing. This duet is a distillation of the pas de deux, and she is the messenger, the essence of the ballerina character. Her range is large— from the grand-scale développés à la seconde, the long supported promenades, and deep arabesques, to movements of great intimacy, as when she slowly walks on pointe with soft, yielding knees, giving her journey a slow-motion effect. (This pensive walking was a Farrell specialty.) Yet everything she does is measured, and so seems larger than it really is. One of my strongest images of the pas de deux is of the ballerina standing in a simple passé as she is promenaded in a circle by her partner. Yet she fills the space around her in this modest pose. It's all about the physical beauty of her line and her psychological composure.”
—Balanchine Variations by Nancy Goldner
WNET Recording of Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins 1970
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