We saw another of their mixed programmes which, as I have said before, certainly allows the company to show their versatility in contrasting productions: this time it was Liam Scarlett's 2010 debut ballet for the company ASPHODEL MEADOWS paired with Sir Frederick Ashton's lyrical 1961 production of La Fontaine's THE TWO PIGEONS.
ASPHODEL MEADOWS was Liam Scarlett's first ballet choreographed for the Royal Ballet in 2010, the company that he trained with as a teenager. The ballet is only 25 minutes but it's concentrated energy is quite hypnotic added to the tension in the score by early 20th century French composer Francis Poulenc. Within a company of 20 dancers, the main focus is three sets of couples who all have a moment to shine in differing pas de deux.
In Greek mythology the Asphodel Meadow was where the souls of ordinary citizens went after death and there certainly was an endless tension in Liam Scarlett's choreography of couples locked in an endless dance. It's a production I would be very interested to see again.
It was paired with Ashton's charming but slight THE TWO PIGEONS which we first saw in 2015. A painter is losing his patience with his young girlfriend's unwillingness to stay still while he tries to paint her in his Parisian roof-top garret. Things aren't helped when her friends appear, closely followed by a troupe of passing gypsies. The painter is captivated by a fiery gypsy dancer and he follows her to their encampment, leaving his girlfriend alone. However the gypsy leader turns on the painter and humiliates him, finally chasing him out of the camp. The two lovers are reunited in the attic, their love personified by two pigeons who settle near them.
Based on an original ballet from 1912, Frederick Ashton choreographed a shorter version which premiered, appropriately, on Valentine's Day 1961. It's all a bit generic - inconstant lover, spirited girl, flashy but hard-hearted gypsies - but oddly enough, when the two sad lovers are reunited and the audience's attention is riveted to the two live pigeons on stage, the piece wins you over.
Restaged again by Christopher Carr, the thin characters were vibrantly danced by Vadim Muntagirov and Lauren Cuthbertson as the lovers and Laura Morera as the passionate but fickle gypsy girl. The late Jacques Dupont's original scenic design still charms.
It was a very enjoyable evening of two uplifting ballets, I am sure there will be more mixed programmes in the coming months...
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