A VISCERAL DOUBLE BILL OF
PASSION, PAIN AND POETIC MOVEMENT
The San Francisco Ballet’s Broken Love program dives headfirst into the tempestuous territory of heartbreak and transformation through two emotionally charged ballets: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Broken Wings, and Sir Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand. It’s a double bill that traverses both the intimate and the iconic, with each piece spotlighting the complexity of love in the face of societal pressure, physical pain, and mortality.
SF Ballet in Lopez Ochoa's Broken Wings
Lopez Ochoa brings the indomitable spirit of Frida Kahlo to life in her 2016 creation Broken Wings—a kaleidoscopic tribute to the famed Mexican artist whose legacy transcends paint and canvas. Lopez Ochoa doesn’t aim for a literal retelling of Kahlo’s life; rather, she constructs a dreamlike portrait of a woman who alchemized physical suffering and emotional upheaval into radical, luminous art.
Isabella DeVivo
What unfolds is an expressive, non-linear narrative infused with Mexican folk culture, surrealist imagery, and fierce femininity. Danced with powerful magnetism by Isabella DeVivo as Frida, the role demands a nuanced blend of strength and vulnerability. Her relationship with Diego Rivera—played with blustery charisma by Myles Thatcher—is rendered not just as romantic obsession, but as an entanglement of art, politics, and identity.
SF Ballet in Lopez Ochoa's Broken Wings
Visually, the piece dazzles. Dieuweke van Reij’s costume design is a riot of color and symbolism. One of the ballet’s most arresting moments comes as twelve male dancers in vivid floral dresses and Kahlo-inspired headpieces swirl across the stage, embodying Frida’s iconic self-portraits—an electrifying exploration of fractured identity and multiplicity.
Myles Thatcher
Lopez Ochoa’s choreography is rich with folkloric gestures and theatrical flourishes, set against a soundscape that blends original composition with traditional mariachi and folk tunes. The inclusion of “La Llorona,” hauntingly performed by Geo Meneses and Los Macorinos, is a particularly poignant moment that adds texture and emotional weight.
Geo Meneses and Los Macorinos
At times playful, at times harrowing, Broken Wings soars by honoring Kahlo not as a symbol of pain, but as a symbol of defiant beauty.
In contrast to the vibrant tumult of Broken Wings, Sir Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand (1963) offers a more classical, yet no less poignant, take on tragic love. Set to Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B minor—performed live with tender intensity by Britton Day—this one-act ballet is a distilled drama of sacrifice, longing, and loss.
Originally created as a showcase for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, the ballet is based on Alexandre Dumas fils’ novel La Dame aux Camélias (1848), which also inspired Verdi’s La Traviata. It tells the story of the doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier, who relives her passionate affair with the noble Armand Duval as she lies dying.
Misa Kuranaga and Joseph Walsh in Ashton's Marguerite and Armand
Ashton’s choreography strips the story down to its emotional core. In this revival, Misa Kuranaga and Joseph Walsh navigate the work’s grand Romanticism with heartbreaking sensitivity. Marguerite’s decision to leave Armand under pressure from his father—played with stoic resolve by Ricardo Bustamante—is conveyed with subtle restraint, relying on gesture and gaze more than narrative exposition.
Liszt’s music surges and collapses with emotional urgency, matching the lovers’ spiraling fortunes. By the time Armand learns the truth behind Marguerite’s departure, the moment of reconciliation is too late. She dies in his arms, her body crumpling like a final sigh. It’s devastating in its simplicity.
Misa Kuranaga and Joseph Walsh in Ashton's Marguerite and Armand
This revival reaffirms Marguerite and Armand’s power to move audiences, not with spectacle, but with sincerity. It’s a ballet that whispers instead of shouts—and in doing so, lingers long after the curtain falls.
Together, Broken Wings and Marguerite and Armand form a compelling duet of broken hearts and burning spirits. While stylistically divergent—one modern and folkloric, the other rooted in neoclassical tradition—both ballets remind us that love, in its many guises, is never simple.
It’s a bold programming choice, and one that pays off. Whether it’s the rhythmic sway of mariachi or the soaring passion of Liszt, Broken Love taps into the pulse of something raw and real. You may even find yourself, as I did, tapping your foot along with it—a rare thing in the hush of ballet.
photos by Lindsey Rallo (Marguerite and Armand) and Reneff-Olson Productions (Broken Wings)
Broken Love
San Francisco Ballet
War Memorial Opera House
reviewed April 8; ends on April 18, 2025
for tickets, call 415.865.2000 or visit SF Ballet
