THE FIREBIRD / A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY / SYMPHONY IN C at Covent Garden - Rushin' Russian

In a recent blog I mentioned that The Royal Ballet's mixed programmes can sometimes be a tricky balancing act but no such problems with their last of their season, three ballets with a markedly Russian theme.

First we had Mikhael Fokine's 1910 sensation THE FIREBIRD which marked a number of firsts: the first ballet score by Igor Stravinsky, the first original work that Diaghilev's Ballets Russes had presented in Paris, and the first based on Russian folklore.  The Royal Ballet is using Natalia Goncharova's stage designs for the Ballets Russes 1926 revival and they add a whole unexpected level to the piece.

THE FIREBIRD made it's London debut at the Opera House in 1912 and it was also a big success.  That connection amazingly continues to this day: the original Firebird was danced by Tamara Karsavina - a role which catapulted her to the Ballets Russes top table - and she in turn coached Margot Fonteyn in 1954... who coached Monica Mason in the late 1970s... and who is now on hand to help the new generation; I think it's only in ballet that you can find connections like this.

The plot is minimal: Tsarovich Ivan captures the mythical Firebird while hunting in a hidden part of the forest but she persuades Ivan to free her in exchange for one of her feathers which will summon her should he ever be in danger.  Ivan discovers a group of princesses captured by the evil Magician Koschei and falls for the most beautiful but is quickly surrounded by Koschei's army of enslaved humans.  He waves the magic feather and The Firebird appears to confuse and confound Koschei's army who all collapse in exhaustion; the Firebird also shows Ivan where Koschei keeps a magic egg which holds his immortal soul.  Ivan smashes it and frees the enslaved people who stage a magnificent wedding ceremony for Ivan and his princess.

The tale might be trite but Stravinsky's thumping score sounded fresh and vivid and Christopher Carr's staging is an excellent showcase for Fokine's intriguing choreography and the elaborate staging of the climactic ceremonial procession where row after row of costumed extras fill the stage, it might not be ballet but it certainly is a spectacle!  It was great to see a favourite dancer Itziar Mendizabal playing the lead role of the flashing Firebird; she was imperious while always in fluttering flight.  It was just a shame that The Firebird doesn't make an appearance at the coronation.  There was a bit of a "whoops" moment when Nehemiah Kish's Ivan was brandishing the magic egg to the ensemble... and the top fell off and rolled across the stage!

The mood changed totally for the next ballet, Frederick Ashton's 1976 adaptation of the Turgenev play A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY.  As elaborate and colourful as THE FIREBIRD was, Ashton's A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY was nuanced and intimate. 

As in the play, Natalia Petrovna rules her country home with a charming grace, adored by her husband Ysiaev, her son Kolia, her ward Vera and their close friend Rakitin.  Her life is turned upside down however when her son's new tutor arrives, the handsome student Baliaev.  He returns Natalia's affections but when Vera discovers them together, she jealously alerts the whole family to their subterfuge; Baliaev and Rakitin leave the house and Natalia is left alone with her lovelorn feelings.

Dame Peggy Ashcroft told Ashton that his version of the play was better than the original play and at only 40 minutes it certainly doesn't waste time getting on with the central plotline.  It has Ashton's clean, classic tone and economic story-telling, leaving it to the dancers to interpret his characters with the depth they need, but he also provides delightful solos for others including a character dance for Natalia's son Kolya, created for Wayne Sleep and danced splendidly here by Luca Acri.

It is a haunting cameo of a ballet, perfectly matched to a selected score of music by Chopin. The cast were all fine: David Hallberg was good as the tutor Baliaev as was Meaghan Grace Hinkis as the impressionable Vera.  But the heart of the ballet was provided by the remarkable Natalia Osipova - languorous lady of the manor at the start, she slowly blossomed into a woman in love only to be left crushed and alone, slowly walking towards an uncertain future.  It is remarkable that only three weeks ago she was the vengeful and tragic Medusa.

Last was George Balanchine's stupendous SYMPHONY IN C, a celebration of classical ballet and it's dancers.  We saw this last year where it joyfully stood out in a rather dour mixed programme but here it complemented the previous two very well.  

Danced to a score by Bizet, Balanchine originally premiered it in Paris in 1947 but he re-choreographed it for New York City Ballet the following year.  Balanchine was inspired by his early years dancing first with the Russian Imperial Ballet and then his years with the Ballet Russes during the 1920s.

Four couples dance to four different movements and Balanchine provides a whirlwind of pure classical technique: it's like every classical ballet finale only in abstract - no narrative, no named characters - so you can relish the solos, pas de deux and ensemble routines.  With over 50 dancers all dancing in unison onstage as it reaches it's conclusion, it is wonderfully thrilling.

All in all, a wonderful night of ballet which helped having the cohesive Russian feel. Ironically, the Royal Ballet will be having a rest over the summer months while The Bolshoi Ballet jet in from Russia for a season, but this was an evening to savour.

Theatre of War: WAR HORSE at the Lyttelton Theatre; THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER Mixed Programme at Covent Garden

As was expected, the theatre also marked the Centenary of the end of Word War I in November and I saw two of the productions that marked the event.

First off was the more obvious one, the National Theatre's game-changing production of WAR HORSE which had been on manoeuvres around the country before reaching the Lyttelton Theatre stable for an extended stay until the start of January.

As Mr and Mrs World know by now, WAR HORSE is based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo about Albert Narracott who, although under-age, joins up to find his beloved horse Joey who has been sold to the army and is somewhere on the Western Front; while there boy and horse both experience the carnage of war at first hand.  I was lucky to see both the original 2007 production and the 2008 revival, both at the Olivier Theatre and both were very moving, involving productions - just ask Stephen Sondheim who was a blubbing wreck in 2007 on the night we went!

It then moved to the New London Theatre where it had an amazing run from 2009 to 2016.  Joey has since become a mainstay of many Remembrance celebrations, a genuine iconic presence.  I had such vivid memories of the show that it was a surprise that it was nearly ten years since I had seen it last so another visit was definitely on the cards.

The good news is that Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris' production - here re-directed by Katie Henry - still delivers the emotional crescendo which had the Lyttelton audience sobbing and sniffing and there are certain images that are indelible once you have seen them, however...  it is a given that no one really goes to see WAR HORSE for the cast's performances - Nick Dear's adaptation is more weighted towards Joey, his equine rival Topthorn and the Narracott's family goose - but even by these standards the anonymity of the performances was quite astonishing.

Thomas Dennis as Albert hardly registered and, as his irascible father Ted, Gwilym Lloyd huffed and puffed to very little effect.  There is also a very odd performance from Ben Ingles as the supposedly-sympathetic officer Lt. Nicholls who promises to care for Joey - it was nothing I could really pinpoint but I wouldn't trust him with a My Little Pony toy, let alone our plucky Joey.  Even the usual laugh-generator role of the f-ing Sgt Thunder went for nothing in Jason Furnival's hands.

However I would like to praise Peter Becker as the caring German officer Friedrich Muller who helps Joey and Topthorn when they are captured on the wrong side of No Man's Land, he at least convinced that Muller was a three-dimensional character.  Jo Castelton as Rose Narracott also found some depth as Albert's careworn but worried mother and the John Tams' songs were well sung by Bob Fox.

The best performances were unsurprisingly by the Handspring life-size puppets of Joey, both foal and horse, Topthorn and - yes - the goose.  The puppeteers invested them all with character and emotions which made it very easy to forget the actors and concentrate on them.  In particular, the scenes where  Joey and Topthorn were commandeered by the German army as pack-horses were full of unspoken pathos, none more so than Joey's gentle nuzzling of Topthorn as he dies, exhausted and broken.  The excellent touch of Topthorn's demise being made real by having his puppeteers slowly emerge from the puppet and slowly walking offstage is incredibly effective.

I did feel something was lost in the transfer to the proscenium stage but Rae Smith's spare design, Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler's remarkable puppet design and Paule Constable's lighting still delivered, as did Adrian Sutton's score.  I am glad I experienced WAR HORSE again, but just wish that most of the human cast had invested their roles with the passion that the puppeteers did.

A few days later we saw a more intriguing response to the Centenary, the Royal Ballet's premiere of THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, which was part of a mixed programme with Wayne McGregor's INFRA and the late George Balanchine's SYMPHONY IN C.

The ballet took as it's inspiration the recorded memories of WWI veteran Wally Patch and a contemporary of his, Florence Billington, who in voice-over remember the quiet and lonely devastation they felt at the deaths of friends and a boyfriend respectively.  These spoken memories are interwoven with the lush, sombre score by film composer Dario Marianelli to create an absorbing soundscape to Alastair Marriott's choreography which illustrates the story of Florence and her beau Ted Feltham; from their meeting at a social dance before the war to his enlisting and subsequent death on the battlefield, cradled by Patch as he dies, to Florence receiving the news by telegram to Ted viewing it all from another place.

The ballet was visually stunning with a fractured, broken video playing on the scrim of contemporary footage of the call to arms in 1914 to the solemn procession of the coffin of the Unknown Soldier in 1920, which eventually raised to reveal Es Devlin's minimalist design of rotating flat panels which were played upon by Bruno Poet's stark lighting to create sweeping changes of tone across the stage while the reminiscences of Patch and Billington were heard.

There were good performances from William Bracewell as Ted and Anna Rose O'Sullivan as Florence but in the cold light of day the ballet failed to move; Marriott's choreography was nice to watch but detracted from the pathos of the spoken testimony of individual loss.  There was no profundity in the thoughts behind the movements but more importantly the very real disconnect between the spoken remembrances of the Western Front's living Hell and the precision and athleticism of the male dancers was too strong to ignore.  The piece ultimately felt like there was no real artistic need for being there, it was a commission to fill a brief in the programming.  I also read somewhere the jibe that he can't be THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER if we know his name was Ted Feltham!

The three ballets in the mixed programme seemed to have been selected to counter-point each other, there was no linear connection between them other than to show off the versatility of the Royal ballet company.  McGregor's INFRA from 2008 had twelve dancers hyper-extending in solos and groups to McGregor's signature taxing choreography while above them Julien Opie's illuminated silhouettes walked in solipsistic silence left and right.  It's an obvious leap to get what McGregor is illustrating - the tortured souls underneath those anonymous walkers - but after a while you long for a resolution.  But always good to hear Max Richter's music...

But then the mood was turned on it's head again with George Balanchine's glorious SYMPHONY IN C, danced to the music of Georges Bizet.  Premiered in 1947 in Paris but extensively re-thought for New York City Ballet the following year, Balanchine drew on his extensive knowledge of the Russian classical tradition from his teenage years with the Imperial Ballet and from his years with the Ballet Russes in the 1920s.

Broken down into four movements with new performers for each, SYMPHONY IN C is a whirlwind extravaganza of pure classical technique: it's like every classical ballet finale with the narrative and named characters removed so you can just concentrate on solos, pas de deux and ensemble routines.  With over 50 dancers onstage as it reaches it's conclusion, it felt so impossibly sumptuous and showy that I almost expected a camera crane to swoop in and a director to yell "cut", such is it's feel of a Hollywood musical idea of a big ballet number.

The four couples were excellently danced by Natalia Osipova, Sarah Lamb, Reece Clarke, Marcelino Sambé, William Bracewell, Anna Rose O'Sullivan, Yuhue Choe and Luca Acri.  It was by far the most memorable piece of the evening and rather put the others in their place.

I would definitely see SYMPHONY IN C again, I am happy to have seen THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER and INFRA but think I would pass on seeing them again.  However as I said earlier, the mixed programme was a wonderful showcase for the talents of the whole Royal Ballet company.

THE VERTIGINOUS THRILL OF EXACTITUDE / TARANTELLA / STRAPLESS / SYMPHONIC DANCES at Covent Garden

It's just over 2 years since we discovered through Wayne McGregor's wonderful WOOLF WORKS how the Royal Ballet are adept at contemporary as well as classical ballet and this has been demonstrated a few times by their scheduling of memorable triple bills based on choreographers or themes.  So, Constant Reader, what can be better than a triple bill?  A quadruple bill of course!

Last Saturday we took our amphitheatre seats for an evening of four one-act ballets, only one of which we had seen before.  The first of the four was choreographer William Forsythe's THE VERTIGINOUS THRILL OF EXACTITUDE - the title is almost as long as the ballet itself being only 15 minutes!

Forsythe's choreography uses the majestic finale of Shubert's 9th Symphony and it's constant flurry of movement - using classic moves but with wonky angles and straggly arms and legs - must be a trial for the three female and two male dancers, all vividly colourful against a black background, the men in bright purple and the women in bright lime-green.

The dancers mix and merge, coming and going, dancing in groups, trios, duets and solos all at a frenetic pace - a bit too frenetic for Itziar Mendizabel who came racing from the wings into the middle of a group and went down on her tutu to an intake of breath from the audience.  But she recovered well and found her way back into the music after a beat or two... well done Itziar.

After a pause we had Balanchine's cheeky TARANTELLA, a duet of great charm and character which allows it's male and female to really stamp personalities on the roles.  Capering around the stage and around each other, Meaghan Grace Hinkis and Alexander Campbell were delightful.

Next was the first revival of Christopher Wheeldon's narrative ballet STRAPLESS which we first saw last year as part of a Wheeldon triple bill; in my blog for that production I hoped that it would be revived sometime but I didn't expect it to be so soon!  Oddly enough, the jitters which might have explained Itziar's stumble in VERTIGINOUS THRILL... also affected STRAPLESS when, during the scenery change for the second act, one of the ballerinas positioning a panelled column for the Café L'Avenue set, pushed too hard and the column went BANG across the stage only for it to be dragged off ignominiously!  The ballerina I hasten to add just wandered off and left it!

It has been slightly reworked to focus more on the main characters of Amélie Gautreau and John Singer Sergeant - the model and artist of the notorious MADAME X painting which scandalized Paris in 1884 - but again I felt that the story proves too elusive when reduced down to just ballet.  But Lauren Cuthbertson captured the skittish society beauty Amélie very well and her haunting of her now-famous portrait remains a powerful moment; the modern-day gallery visitors blind to the real woman whose image they admire.

The last ballet was Liam Scarlett's new production SYMPHONIC DANCES based on Rachmaninoff's last composition.  Written in 1940, the composer had asked Mikhail Fokine if he would be interested in using the music for a three-part ballet but Fokine's death in 1942 ended the possibility of it happening in Rachmaninoff's lifetime.  Since then ballet productions have been mounted but Liam Scarlett's is the first in the UK.

STRAPLESS sits well with SYMPHONIC DANCES as it too is centred around the central figure of a statuesque diva, and for good reason... This season will be the last danced by Principal Ballerina Zenaida Yanowsky and Liam Scarlett in SYMPHONIC DANCES has choreographed a production in which she remains the centre of attention at all times.

Yanowsky looked every inch the diva in her opening costume, a strapless black bodice and huge, multi-layered skirt which became almost a character in itself as it whipped and swirled around her.  Red and black also ruled in Jon Morrell's stage design, a stark and empty Opera House stage glowed with red lighting amidst the onstage mist while a large metal lighting grid hanging above the stage cast ominous black shadows beneath it.

The second part of the first movement featured Yanowsky seemingly unmoved by the sinuous capering of James Hay; in the second scene she reappeared in a black and red tuxedo while it was the turn of the men in the ensemble to wear the full skirts - indeed there was a noticeable wobble from one of the men proving that the Devil works in threes after the Itziar and column incidents.

The final movement saw the metal grid horizontal to the stage with Yanowsky losing the tuxedo to appear in just a bodysuit, this time duetting with Reece Clarke, before Rachmaninoff's dramatic, oppressive score built to a devastating climax.  As Wayne McGregor says, an abstract ballet cannot help but have some sort of narrative because of the human element and Yanowsky and the ensemble made me think of an imperious Empress slowly thawing and allowing emotion into her life through her adoring acolytes.

Zenaida Yanowsky was cheered to the Opera House's Fabergé egg-like roof and rightly so; she was astonishingly powerful and totally in command of her stage; Laura Morera is playing the role too so it would be interesting to see it with another energy, another persona doing those moves.

All together, it was an evening of passionate performance and thrilling choreography.  I am still wondering about those three errors however, could it be that this company - who were different from the opening night apart from Yanowsky - had been under-rehearsed?  Ah well, I suppose it goes to show that they are human underneath all that well-drilled skill.

JEWELS at Covent Garden - Balanchine's sparklers...

What?  Another night at the Royal Opera House?  Hey don't blame me, I have to go to make sure Owen doesn't climb onstage and jig about.

This time it was to celebrate the 50th birthday of George Balanchine's three part ballet based on the jewels he once saw on a visit to Van Cleef & Arpels.  Balanchine is credited with being the father of American Ballet but is also the template for the modern choreographer who can move between the worlds of ballet, dance, musical theatre and even film.

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Balanchine was the last choreographer hired by Sergei Diaghilev for his landmark company the Ballets Russes and after the impresario's death he struggled on with failing companies in Monte Carlo before making the move to the US where he flourished and found fertile ground for his exploration into abstract dance.

Indeed JEWELS is a necklace of short abstract ballets which had as a connecting thread three moments of dance development - EMERALDS is based on classical French ballet with languid movement to music by Fauré, RUBIES is pure 20th Century jazz ballet danced to music by Stravinsky and DIAMONDS is in the Russian Imperial style to music by Tchaikovsky.  It was certainly charming and showed the expertise of the Royal Ballet company but I found it an oddly disjointed affair.

EMERALDS as I said was all very languid but - and this might be a hangover from the contemporary dance seen recently - none of it seemed terribly exciting and the choreography seemed very - um - ok I'll say it - American.  It all seemed very ersatz and toothless, admittedly it did end interestingly with the four women leaving the stage slowly as the men knelt alone - as Owen opined "they have lost their emeralds" but it was all very dreary.  It was only the drama of a woman having a seizure in the row in front of me that stopped me dropping off.  She was ok after a while - but it did make me wonder how they get someone out of the precipitous amphitheatre seats if they conk out...

DIAMONDS was better only in so far as it contained a wonderful performance from Marianela Nunez as the lead ballerina in an extended pas-de-doux with Thiago Soares which must be exhausting to perform as to be honest it did outstay it's welcome for me.  Again one could not fault the performances of the company but it did ultimately - again - feel like a copy of a copy; a Las Vegas recreation of watching Pavlova.

The reason that these two nostalgic ballets felt so thin was because the middle section RUBIES was practically fizzing with inventiveness and wit!  Like a Van Cleef and Arpels necklace, tiny diamonds and emeralds surrounded a huzzing big glorious ruby slap-bang in the middle of the setting.

Vibrant and colourful, Balanchine's tribute to the American idiom of jazz ballet was the only one of the three pieces that felt original and with it's own inner dynamic which lit up the stage.  Stravinsky's 'Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra' jabs and pokes at you, keeping you - as well as the dancers - on your toes.  The delicious ruby-red costumes turn the stage incarnadine - there you go Virginia Woolf, I used one of your favourite words.  There is a very good reason why the poster art for this revival features the central couple from RUBIES - because they are sensational! 

The established partnership of Steven McRae and Sarah Lamb lit up the stage and not just because of their bejewelled costumes.  They gave the piece a real sense of personality and their style made it seem as if it was all coming naturally to them, belying the intensive training needed to achieve it.  Steven McRae's cheeky persona shone out but his dancing prowess was also in evidence as his dizzying pirouette into the wings at top speed attested to.  Sarah Lamb's extraordinary suppleness and grace thrilled with her gravity-defying extensions and spins.  They were complemented by Melissa Hamilton whose angular jazz movements suggested the influence that Balanchine had on Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse.

Lamb and McRae's larger-than-life performances are what I will remember about JEWELS, two dancers at the top of their talent given the perfect showcase to dazzle.

TRIPLE BILL BALLET (or TRIPLE BALL BILLET) at Sadler's Wells

On Friday we continued this year's journey into dance by seeing Birmingham Royal Ballet's triple bill of one-act pieces at Sadler's Wells.  It was down to Owen being a bit curious that we booked to see it - and I'm glad we did as I thought it was a perfectly-judged evening, each act being very different from the others.  The good thing was that I had no idea what I was going to see - apart from some ballet!

The first act was choreographer George Balanchine's THEME AND VARIATIONS, danced to the final movement of Tchaikovsky's Suite no. 3. Balanchine, the 'father' of American ballet, trained at the Russian Imperial school and was Diaghilev's last choreographer for the Ballets Russes.  THEME AND VARIATIONS is his tribute to the Imperial ballet style: romantic, formal and precise.

Comprising two principals, eight featured dancers and a corps of twelve, it was a sumptuous visual treat but also fascinating to watch as Balanchine's choreography showcased twisting turns and athletic prowess, echoing the 19th Century style with the elasticity of contemporary dance.

The principals - Momoko Hirata and Joseph Caley - were very charismatic and Peter Teigen's lighting and Peter Farmer's set design added to the lavish feel of the piece.

Sadly a long day at work, the Edwardian weight of Elgar's ENIGMA VARIATIONS and the sepia, autumnal set had me nodding away.  Frederick Ashton's choreography looked very elegiac but I am afraid I didn't see too much of it.

After a bracing lemon sorbet though I was fully awake for the last act which luckily enough just happened to be the best!

David Bintley's hypnotic THE KING DANCES slowly drew one in and echoed the earlier Balanchine of referencing past dance history to point the way to contemporary dance. THE KING DANCES takes us back to 23 February 1653 when the French King Louis XIV - aged only 15 - danced as Apollo in the ballet "Le Ballet de la Nuit" which gave him his historical name The Sun King and during his life, through his patronage, turned ballet from a court entertainment into a major art form.

Wonderfully realised by Katrina Lindsay's black and gold design and Peter Mumford's lighting, David Bintley's darkly thrilling work has four movements to celebrate the quarters of a single night: a threatening soloist appears on a darkened stage with eight dancers holding flaming torches, in the second movement the King dances with his court ladies and also with the elusive woman in the moon.

The third movement finds the King haunted by a nightmare populated by demons, magicians and hounds from Hell (though they looked quite fun!) until the mysterious, sinister soloist is revealed to be his powerful First Minister Cardinal Mazarin who intones a serious introduction to the King who suddenly appears as a burst of golden light, the dark backdrop splitting apart to reveal The Sun King in a glittering gold-sequined costume as Stephen Montague's score reaches a frenzied apotheosis.

It was utterly thrilling to watch and Bintley's excellent contemporary choreography was danced wonderfully by William Bracewell as the young King and Tyrone Singleton was the sinister soloist.

This triple bill was an utter delight, perfectly judged and a fitting tribute to the three choreographers.  If you ever get a chance to see it I would fully recommend it.