Glazunov Raymonda : Petipa, Gergiev, Mariinsky

This year's Mariinsky Ballet Raymonda, with Viktoria Tereshkina, conducted by Valery Gergiev on arte.tv until February.  This is the full three act version of the ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa in 1898, when he was eighty.  It was to be his last production, but it was the work throygh which Alexander Glazunov made his name. Though the version seen here is the 1948 re-creation by Konstantin Sergeyev, it's a glimpse into the world of late 19th century Russian ballet.  
Raymonda is a beauty courted by a Christian prince Jean de Brienne, but a Saracen, Abderakhman, enters the party.  Raymonda falls asleep and dreams of the Saracen.  Modern audiuences won't have a problem understanding the connectioin between dreams and the subconcious, or forbidden lust.  So Raymonda falls asleep and dreams she's been captured by the sexy stranger.  In the second act, Abderakhman declares his love and offers Raymonda wonderful treasures.  But this cannot be : Jean de Brienne kills the intruder, and Raymonda lives happily ever after in safe wedded bliss. Because this is a ballet, the story is told, not through narrative, but through a series of vignettes for dancers to do their thing, solo, in groups and in larger ensemble. Dance is "abstract" theatre !  Lots of opportunities for staged symbolism : scenes lit by moonlight,"arabic"set pieces, children, some dressed as blackamoors and  music to match, combining western lyricism (lovely solo violin doubling the prima donna).  "Dreaminess" is an illusioin. Though the dancers strike graceful poses, their feet are on the ground even when they perch en pointe or leap through the air.  Being a dancer means having muscles and physical stamina. Not for nothing many end up with injuries and retire young. Nothing romantic about that !  So the music allows for rest periods, for changes of pace and so on, and grand moments when the orchestra takes over, though the basic pulse remains firm and energetic.

Glière The Red Poppy and Soviet non-realism

The Harbour Scene in Glière's The Red Poppy

As part of the Voices of Revolution series at the South Bank, Vladimir Ashkenazy conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in Mosolov's The Iron Foundry,  Prokofiev's Piano Concerto no 3 (Behzod Abduraimov), Glière's Concerto for coloratura soprano and orchestra and the Suite from Glière's The Red Poppy. The Iron Foundry and The Red Poppy were written  around 1927, when the Revolution was safely established, and culture in the Soviet Union was briefly progressive, even avant garde. It represented the hope that a new world order could be achieved through progress and Russian leadership. Later, Stalinism, and "the will of the people" would dictate the conservatism that comes with mass populist values.  The Iron Foundry marks one aspect of Futurism: faith in industrial processes.  It's a blast ! It also connects to other artistic works of the period, not only in Russia, from Fritz Lang's Metropolis (read more here) to Machinist Hopkins (more here). I've written about The Iron Foundry and Soviet Futurism before, (see labels like Futurism and Eisenstein) so I decided to watch the full ballet version of The Red Poppy in a full-colour production from Bratislava in 1954. 

Glière's The Red Poppy is set in China. Nothing unusual about that given western taste for exotic locales.  Significantly, Turandot premiered in 1927, around the same time as The Red Poppy. Since a huge part of Asia was in fact part of the Russian Empire, it was perfectly natural for Russian composers and artists to incorporate "eastern" themes. Hence Borodin's Prince Igor, and much else.   Yet there's more to The Red Poppy.  It's poltical, and connects to a wider context of Soviet expansionism.  The film, Storm over Asia (Vsevolod Pudokin, 1928) depicts a Mongolian herdsman mistreated by the British (generic capitalist) who eventually drives them from his land.  The timing of The Red Poppy is worth noting.  It's no accident either that the title is "red" poppy, since the "white" poppy produces the opium which caused the Opium Wars and the Unequal Treaties.   China was in the throes of modernizing after thousands of years of feudalism, and the young Republic forced to call on help from outside. The Chinese couldn't really rely on western powers who had an interest in keeping China subservient, so they called in the Soviets.  The Chinese Communist Party was minute, founded only in 1921, so it didn't seem a threat. But by 1924, Comintern had such influence that it could organize massive strikes in the main Treaty Ports, threatening the control of western powers.  The leader of the Comintern in China was codenamed Borodin, a name familiar to many Chinese since his music was well known in China.  Hanns Eisler's elder brother was also involved, lower down the scale. The Chinese soon got rid of the Comintern, but eventually the CCP took hold. 

Glière's The Red Poppy depicts the harbour in a Treaty Port (as sen in the photo above, taken from the original production). Coolies, working on a pittance, are unloading goods for foreigners and the rich. In the Bratislava production the cargo is marked "From the USA" and contains guns.  The workers are mistreated, not only by western capitalism but by Chinese collaborators, depicted - alas - like Fu Man Chu stereotypes. Glière incorporates many different musical styles to emphasize the contrast between cultures - foxtrots and jazz for the capitalists,  bizarre pastiche Chinoiserie for the Chinese, and The Internationale for the Soviets and "good" Chines partisans.   The original, being a ballet, contains numerous set pieces for dance, including passages where notes flutter breathlessly, so the dancers do a lot of en pointe, their feet arched as if they had bound feet (another western stereotype of Chinese culture).  In ballet, dance tells the story, so plots don't need much depth.  A Chinese nightclub dancer called Tai-Choa notices how nice the Soviet sailors are (they have a famous dance number).  There are "Malay" dancers too, who have no function but to add another element of exotic soft porn  - "Malays" no real Malay would recognize.  In a protracted dream sequence, induced by smoking dope (as stereotype Chinese were expected to do), Tai-Choa finds herself in a temple with a giant Buddha. Demons dressed like generals in Beijing opera threaten her, but she's saved by good guy warriors in white (!) commanded by a Chinese partisan. The Chinese villian tries to get Tai-Choa to poison the Soviet Captain (whom she loves)  but she won't do it. The temple/courtyard is raided and the Captain and his men enter.  The Chinese villain raises his gun and shoots, but Taï-Choa sees what's happening and takes the shot, and dies.

Russian music was ubiquitous in China long before the Communists came to power. After 1917, hundreds of thousands of "White" Russians flooded into China to escape, swelling the number of western musicians in China,  forming dance bands and orchestras, even supporting Russian language opera houses. Glière's earlier music would have been quite well known, though The Red Poppy with its overtly political character would probably have been banned before 1949.  After the Sino-Soviet split in 1957, it would have been banned again.  But by then, decades of militant entertainment of all persuasions had become part of the Chinese scene, giving rise to a distinctly Chinese form of political ballet, which blends agit prop with the stylization of Chinese opera.

Jurowski's Journey : Stravinsky The Fairy's Kiss

Bronislava and Vaclav Nijinsky with Maurice Ravel, Paris : Photo: Igor Stravinksy

Vladmir Jurowski's Stravinsky Journey with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall  continued with Stravinsky's The Fairy Kiss, (Le baiser de la fée) framed by Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no 1 in B flat minor (Daniil Trifonov) and extracts from The Sleeping Beauty.  For me, the big draw was The Fairy's Kiss, fashionably maligned in its time, not least thanks to Diaghilev's disdain for Ida Rubenstein, a lovely celebrity but nowhere near the league of the Ballets Russe, and the fact that it was chreographed by Bronislava Nijinsky, who had followed her brother away from Diaghilev circles.  Jurowski has a thing for the piece, having programmed and recorded the Divertimento in the past, so I was keen to hear what he would bring to it.  Unusually snow bound conditions - for Southern England - might have added vaguely Russian atmosphere, but kept many of us trapped (we had 10 centimters, for the first time in years) but the concert was broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Luckily, weather was fine last night for Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Wigmore Hall  - read more here.

Congratulations to Jurowski and the LPO for having the courage  to pit Stravinsky's Fairy's Kiss against the ever-popular Tchaikovsky Piano concerto no 1. While Trifonov was reliable, this is a piece which needs more than reliability to reveal itself.  Not that most punters care, as long as it sounds familiar, without any special insights.  Part of the Fairy's Kiss "problem" is the plot, or lack thereof, but for Stravinsky himself  the ballet was "an allegory of a man marked out from his fellows, unable to join in their life" : the role of an artist, whose destiny is to fulfil his gift, even if it means  being alone.  In 1928, that ideal was pertinent to Stravinky, living in exile, surrounded by change. In Tchaikovsky, he  saw a quintessential outsider, forced to hide his true identity in a society where being out meant death.  In musical terms, this applied too to Stravinsky, not because he was reverting to Tchaikovsky, but because he didn't want to be constrained by style, or by market forces.  It's perhaps ironic that chreographers - Balanchine, Ashton, Macmillan, Ratmansky - have found more in the music than many listeners.

Rustling strings suggested the snowstorm in which the story begins, but typically Stravinskian winds delineated the narrative, leading onwards, then pausing tenderly.  Perhaps one might imagine a vulnerable infant who might otherwise die.  The pace picked up, winds and brass joining. Lively dotted rhythms, ideal for dancing to, outbursts of bassoon, flute and brass suggested a wild but cheerful procession, the horns adding a "peasant" touch.  The baby grows up happily enough in the village, as the music suggests, but on the eve of his marriage the fairy returns, disguised as a gypsy.  Tchaikovsky, who entered a mariage blanc may or may not have intuited Hans Christian Anderson's dilemmas about sexuality, but for Stravinsky, this turning point seems ms more artistic than literal.  The music abounds with lively figures, ideal for dancing to, offering a choreographer many inentive opportunities. A single violin appears, then a woodwind : two figures, one seductive, once youthful.   Eventually, a hush fell over the music, suggesting mystery.  Perhaps the boy is enchanted, as the Fairy claims him for her own. Not such a bad fate, for an artist. 

No and Not ! The Nose ! Shostakovich

Shostakovich The Nose at the Royal Opera House tonight, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, who is the reason why I want to go.  Please read my review HERE.  Metzmacher once did a series called "Who's afraid of modern music?" confronting the notion that modern music is somehow "difficult".  No ! and not The Nose ! A man wakes up to find his nose has disappeared. He's the kind of guy for whom appearance means status, but the nose has different ideas.  It takes on its own life, running around town as a civic official. But even that’s not clear – sometimes it’s a body in a stretchy white shroud, sometimes it’s a piece of droopy rubber, and sometimes it’s not visible at all, and only spoken about.The Nose is funny, but it's also farce. The libretto's based on Gogol.  Laughs, yes, but no smiles. Sharp teeth and eyes constantly alert for danger.  Metzmacher will give the music bite.

Valery Gergiev brought The Nose to London with the Mariinsky Theatre more than ten years ago, in a season of Shostakovich operas and ballets.  Those were early days when the Mariinsky was still refered to by its old Soviet name the Kirov, and not funded and supported as well as it is now.   The Mariinsky also did The Golden Years,which was heard no less than four times in different forms that same year. José Serebrier's recording was electrifying, the Mariinsky's live performance marred by poor staging.  At that same time London also saw productions of The Bright Stream and The Bolt, another of my favourites.  With at least three major productions of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in recent years, and the bizarre, unfinished Orango, which Salonen brought to maniac life  (read more HERE),  we haven't done badly. Besides, there's been so much 20th century Russian music and theatre in London  (The Gambler, A Dog's Heart, etc) that The Nose at the Royal Opera House should be a cinch.  I'm definitely not an admirer of Barrie Kosky, but hope that this new Nose will be up to scratch.

And back to memories of the Mariinsky Nose, the best of the crop that golden year 2006.  The Mariinsky Nose didn't rub away the very important political aspects of the piece, so even though the punch of the Russian text was lost on English speakers, the imagery was clear.  It cocked a snoot at bureaucracy and conformity.  When Kovalov tried to put an advertisement in the newspaper “lost and found” it’s refused on circuitous grounds.  Vignettes flew at a hectic pace: the bagel seller who gets raped, the twins, the old dowager announcing her own death to a bunch of twitching, neurotic spinsters : a panorama of crazy life . Nothing’s explained: logic means little in this fertile procession of observations. At the end a Prince on a stuffed camel proclaimed everything’s sorted, but by then we were in the heart of mayhem, complete with banners of newsprint proclaiming HOC and COH, which were wordplays on the Cyrillic for “nose”.

Like the Royal Opera House, the Mariinsky is also a ballet house.   Thus the Mariinsky Nose blew the dance sub themes up well. For example, numerous cab drivers whirl about in frantic circles, each with a fascinating passenger within, yet the maelstrom is executed with such precision that it suggested the clockwork order of a society controlled by expectations. When the cab drivers lifted people above their shoulders – the dancers at the fringe of the group didn't touch, but moved in tune with other bodies as if they were all one single organism. The nose was played by a superbly athletic dancer who could do backflips and twist round the singer who sang Kovalov. Effectively, a pas de deux, but the dancer obviously the master.  The point, exactly !

It was striking, too, how much the Mariinsky Nose owed to the Russian circus tradition. Of course there were clowns, but the real influence is deeper. Circus works because there’s so much happening, so fast, that the illusion is even more spectacular than what’s actually happening. Hence the highly coloured costumes, and the almost acrobatic physicality of the performers’ movements on stage. Even the massive metal tunnel (vaguely resembling a nose) created a vast new dimension to the set, further blurring the boundaries of linear perspective. At one point an angel vocalised wordlessly from the rafters, while a sinister dark angel flitted out from behind her. Circus extends the limits of what the human body can do – just as the errant nose amply demonstrates. Circus and opera both have the same goal: the creation of illusion.

Watch this space.  Friday I'll write up the new Shostakovich Nose. 

Berlioz meets George Antheil The Spectre of the Rose

Carl Maria von Weber's Invitation to the Dance, orchestrated by Hector Berlioz, the music upon which Fokine created the ballet La spectre de la rose (1911) for VaclavNijinsky. But that's not all!   George Antheil re-adapted Berlioz re-adapting Weber for the movie Spectre of the Rose (1946). Antheil created the music for Ballet Mécanique, the brilliant Dadaist masterpiece created by Ferinard Léger. Antheil was at the heart of the Paris avant garde in the 1920's, hanging out with Man Ray, Stravinsky and pretty much everyone. For him, film was an art form, created by intellectuals for lively minds. Even in Hollywood, Antheil managed to connect with the adventurous and creative.  Lots on this site about Antheil, and on the other experimental and art film of the 20's and 30's.

The movie, Specter of the Rose (1946) was so quirky that there was no way it would have been a hit at the box office hit like so much else that Ben Hecht did.  Allusions to art and the arts community crackle all through the script: it's a highly crafted satire with killer bon mots. An elderly former ballerina sits knitting. She's importuned by a bankrupt promoter called Poliakoff, played by an actor called Chekhov, as the personification of High Camp. In this little world of losers who once had dreams, characters  sport fancy foreign names and speak with theatrical flourish, and repartees as sharp as in Marx Brothers comedy. There's a brilliant vignette when a hardboiled hack gets drunk and spouts philosophy (which is actually quite radical pointed, politically). "We lived in a poem" says Mme La Sylph.  Hence the story is built around the ballet La spctre de la Rose. where a young girl falls in love with the idea of art and imagines that a Rose has come alive. to dance with her.  The movie, however, morphs into murder mystery.  Did the principal dancer Sanine (played by an actor called Kirov!) murder his first wife in a fit of madness?  She died dancing on stage. Will he kill his new dance partner, his new wife Heidi.  

Against all odds, the company, on the verge of bankruptcy, becomes a hit. At the peak of success, Daniner and Heidi disappear and the show closes. Sanine has had a psychotic episode. "The rose has a thorn, the rose has a knife and dances around you till you die"  Sabine puts on his Rose costume and dances about the apartment in a mad scene, where Antheil's reworking of Berlioz/Weber explodes into mayhem. With a Nijinsky-style leap, Sanine jumps out of the window, to his death. Poliakoff , now broke again, goes back to tacky touring shows "with the trunks, the hair pulling and the mad love songs from Old Vienna", "It's better than begging" says Mme La Sylph.  Then you realize why she's a tricoteuse. The Specter of the rose is gallows humour.

Sibelius raw, vibrant Kullervo, choreographed

Jean Sibelius; Kullervo op 7, 1892  is a work so powerful that it seems to break out from the restraints of orchestral performance. Even now, the piece seems surprisngly modern.. Musically, it's explosive; fabulously "primitive" sounds which presage The Rite of Spring. Wild, whirling passages that suggest a driving snowstorm, a relentless battle to the death and implacable doom. Kullervo, whose story is told in the Kalevala, was an abused, brutalized child, whose inheritance was stolen, and he was cruelly mistreated by his uncle. He sees a lovely maiden in the forest and wants to posses her. Since he has no social graces, he rapes her. Then she tells her story, how she'd become lost in the forest while picking strawberries. She turns out to be his long-lost sister. All this, against a background of primeval Nature, in an unyielding climate where summers are fleeting. Perhaps Kullervo is the first anti-hero of this type in literature, and possibly in music. Sibelius may have realized how shockingly savage it was, so ahead of its time.  Although he loved the piece, he withdrew it. It wasn't heard again for nearly 70 years..

Now Kullervo has been choreographed by the Helsinki dance company led by Tero Saarinen, and available on arte.tv   Definitely worth watching, for it captures the raw, physical spirit of the music extremely well. The set is at once modern and primeval. Sharp angular lines evoking the arctic landscape,and the harsh nature of the drama that unfolds and the angular music itself.  Metallic surfaces, harsh lighting: this staging suggest at once both the ancient nature of the saga and the brave new world of technological innovation that is modern Finland.  

In the first two sections,this dichotomy is evoked by two principal dancers. The female dancer is dressed in blue and white, the Finnish colours, crisp and pure against a background of earth tones and darkness. Her movements dart across the stage with the freedom of a wild bird. It's easy to see why the male dancer is fascinated. In the third section, where Kullervo meets his sister, the focus is on the singing. But thereafter, the orchestra surges forth, and the choreography becomes wonderfully expressive. When Kullervo goes to battle, in atonement for his sin, the male dancer is surrounded by an army of menacing men, closing in on him  in his struggle - wonderfully rigged, athletic movements. 

In the passage "The Silence of the Women" a group of female dancers undulate. Their simple white shifts as pristine as lilies, yet their movements are grave and solemn, as if they're in mourning for lost innocence. When Kullervo dies, the dancer representing him is alone.  He's half-naked, like the day he was born, in a much more innocent time. His arms flail, his body twists. Suddenly his arms swing in wild circles, as if propelled by invisible winds. The "Northern Lights" behind him become blindingly bright. The dancer is caught in some strange vortex. The whole stage turns, and the dancer moves away while the ensemble, barely individuated, moves like a dark mass centre stage. Suddenly, the light flares up once more, and the dancer is seen, It is lit so brightly that you can see the muscles in his stomach contort.  Such ends the tale of the cursed Kullervo......

Musical values are very high. Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts  thje Finnish National Opera Orchestra,  which is top notch. Ville Rusanen sings Kullervo, while Samuli Poutanen dances the part. Johanna Rusanen-Kartano sings the sister, while the part is danced by Terhi Räsänen. The choreographer is Tero Saarinen.

Photo credits : Finnish National Opera / Finnish National Ballet / Sakari Viika 2015

Britten Prince of the Pagodas, Birmingham

At last, a new production of Benjamin Britten's  ballet, The Prince of the Pagodas, which might erase memories of the gauche production John Cranko choreographed in 1957,  which the composer disliked so much he didn't really touch the genre again. As music, The Prince of the Pagodas is a milestone in Britten's oeuvre because he's experimenting with ideas and sound he absorbed in the Far East, which would lift his music onto an altogether more adventurous plane. From The Prince of the Pagodas, we look forward to Curlew River, The Turn of the Screw and to Death in Venice. Dance infuses much of Britten's work. In Death in Venice, Tadzio's dance on the beach invokes the very spirit of life and art, and brings Apollo himself into the world of mortals,

What might Britten have achieved had he created ballet for more sympathetic interpreters? Until now, we've had to rely on Oliver Knussen's 2006 recording to hear an intelligent account of the music.  The Royal Opera House revived the streamlined Kenneth Macmillan choreography  in 2012.  (read here what I wrote then). But it's high time the ballet was completely rethought afresh.

The Birmingham Royal Ballet, in conjunction with the National Ballet of Japan, commissioned a new production, choreographed by David Bintley. Claire Seymour, author of The Operas of Benjamin Britten, went to Birmingham to experience the new approach.

"In a programme article, Bintley explains that he sees Pagodas primarily as a ‘love story with no reason, purpose, conclusion or romance!’; he has aimed to make ‘another kind of love story, not expounding on the Eros type love of a man for a woman, but portraying something more mystical and subtle … the love of a girl for her brother, a father for his son and ultimately that of a family reunited after much trial and tribulation’. 

"......These changes have many merits. Sakura is more strongly characterised and the narrative given more focus and drive, through the introduction of the quest in Act 2. There also opportunities for additional digressions which allow for the introduction of a host of contrasting contexts and characters, and also provide ‘action’ for some of the longer musical episodes.....Perhaps the balance between pathos and humour is not quite right, though, leaning too far in favour of the comic"

Read the full review here in Opera Today. 

Shostakovich Bolt Ballet online

At last online, Dimitri Shostakovich's "lost" ballet Bolt , the famous Bolshoi production choreographed  by Alexei Ratmansky. The premiere in 1931 was greeted with vociferous opposition, and the ballet remained unknown until a complete edition was prepared for Gennady Rozhdestvensky to conduct in 1995. 

Bolt, Shostakovich's op 27a, is scored in eight movements, allowing the ballet to develop over a series of vignettes. Ostensibly, the ballet praises the discipline of a totalitarian state. Like soldiers, workers and athletes operate in well drilled formation like parts of a machine. Ratmansky adapts this to his choreography. The dancers move in tight units, their limbs jerking rhythmically like robots. In the second scene, the workers are exercising in a yard before starting work. A bureaucrat shouts "one, two, three, four" and their bodies obey. Viewed from above, the camera shows what the Bureaucrat sees - a neat, obedient ensemble. Close up (from the workers' level) we notice that one dancer gradually falls out of step. The music is lyrical, but in a mindlessly simplistic way, like folk song adapted as propaganda.  Sour trombones announce something more mysterious.  Swan Lake satirized?  The Rebel and shy girlfriend enact a tentative courtship, interrupted  by strident, violent brass and a formation of workers in red uniforms who obediently writhe in mechanical gestures as the men in white suits (the bureaucrats) beam with joy. Then, dancers in white uniforms. Have the inmates absorbed the values of the system? On cue, they shout slogans. Notice the stylized propaganda gestures - arms thrust upwards, earnest expressions.

The "hero" Koelkov relaxes with friends in a bar. Lovely opportunities for solo dancers to show their individual "personalities". The music seduces - jazz-like riffs, languid woodwinds. Femme fatale with gypsy roses in her hair looks on as Girlfriend in white enters, aghast. A bar room fight, and a thief.  Do, lowlifes believe "Property is Theft"?  A bolt is quietly produced. Then a magical interlude where the stage is dark, and lights shine like stars. The Bolt is thrown into the machine  Red smoke pours out as the dancers jerk and leap. The lights turn out to be searchlights, as in a prison yard, and the walls move into action. Night descends again, and out of the darkness, athletes appear dancing in bright costumes. Then, wonderful contraptions that look like battleships, complete with fake waves. Inside, a dancer, his or her movements constrained by the complex fusellage they have to carry. Everything in order, right.  Girlfriend dances to maniacally cheerful music., but her movements are violent. Madder still, a xylophone solo with rude trombone raspberries. When the Apotheosis comes, the stage is bathed in golden light. Trumpets announce the New Machine. The Red workers return, even more dehumanized in plastic suits with gas masks, dance a grotesque formation and head off on scooters. Are we in hell, and are the red workers demons? Whatever the first production might have looked like, that first audience must have realized how subversive the ballet really is, despite the "triumphant" finale., straight out of a totalitarian  state celebration. Perhaps the premiere audience got the irony and were disturbed.

Also watch the documentary here Bolt, avant garde kitsch which puts the ballet into context, connecting it to radical film and theatre of the period. Bolt was Ratmansky's first big success before he emigrated to the US. Will Bolt be done again at the Bolshoi  Will Ratmansky work again at this level, and in Russia?  Who knows? Perhaps it's the nature of good art to unsettle rather than to soothe. In 2006, the Marrinsky came to the Coliseum in London with four ambitious programmes - The Nose, conducted by Gergiev, a different version of Lady Macbeth of Mtensk, and a trimmed down version of Shostakovich's The Golden Age which deals with a similar theme of athletes in a Soviet system. Gergiev didn't conduct and the piece sounded a mess, nothing like the outstandingly vivid recording of the complete ballet, conducted by José Serebrier.  Get it HERE. I'll write about that later when I have more time, because it's a good companion to  Bolt. The Golden Age is better as music, but Bolt is tighter in dramatic terms.

Verdi Les vêpres siciliennes Royal Opera House

Kaspar Holten promised that Verdi Les vêpres siciliennes at the Royal Opera House would be a spectacle, and he was right. The sheer presence of singers like Bryan Hymel, Michael Volle, Erwin Schrott and Lianna Haroutounian guaranteed its success, and Antonio Pappano's impassioned conducting made it orchestrally thrilling. Indeed, I suspect the singing will get even better as the run continues. Musical excellence is a given with this cast, conductor and orchestra. The big news was Stefan Herheim's ROH debut. 

Like the recent Salzburg Don Carlos (reviewed here) as opposed to Don Carlo, Les vêpres siciliennes, as opposed to I Vespri Siciliani, is bringing greater respect for Verdi's French language operas. Les vêpres siciliennes isn't a rarity. It's been staged several times in Europe in recent years (including Christof Loy in Amsterdam) and was heard in London in 1968 at the Camden Festival. These operas change casual assumptions about opera history. Verdi is enhanced, as an international figure and as a composer for orchestra.  Les vêpres siciliennesis a long, unwieldy creature as was the style of the era. Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable confused London critics whose knowledge of period probably isn't vast. The challenge, for the Royal Opera House, is to present antique repertoire in a way that modern audiences can relate to. I was privileged, last night, to sit beside a lady who had never been to an opera before. Les vêpres siciliennes is a daring choice for a first opera, but this lady was thrilled! Which goes to prove that audiences should listen with open minds and open hearts.

Stefan Herheim's Les vêpres siciliennes may not be as astoundingly brilliant as his Salzburg Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (see review here), but Verdi isn't Wagner and this isn't, perhaps, Verdi at his best. But Herheim develops the innate ideas in the drama. The set, designed by Philipp Fürhofer, reminds us that we are watching an opera, most certainly not a historical document. It was frightening how some London critics were unable to cope with La donna del Lago  (more here) as Rossini's vision of Scotland as opposed to the reality of Scotland's past.  Until audiences in our time drop the silly notion of setting specificity - which didn't exist until very recently - we need sets like this to remind us that opera is art, not history. Theatre-within-theatre sets might be a cliché is inept hands, like Robert Lepage's taxidermy Adès Tempest (reviewed here) but Herheim has always been interested in the process of creative development, and we need to focus on Verdi or miss the point of this version of the opera in French.

The Overture unfolds to a scena where soldiers attack ballerinas. It's absolutely in keeping with the brutality of military occupation, and validated later in the libretto. It also connects to the use of ballet in French opera, and perhaps to the way artists are screwed by those who want mindless entertainment, not art. The auditorium lights up and we see the punters in the boxes in the stage theatre laughing. At the very end, when peace seems possible, good people are massacred. So much for "patriotism" and easy answers. It's not easy to stage a massacre in the limited time the music provides, so throwing light back onto the ROH auditorium throws responsibility onto the audience. Like Verdi, we too have to be creative and enact the horror in our minds. The story doesn't end when the music stops.

Herheim shows how dance is integral to the opera. Dancers don't just appear for the beautiful Four Seasons ballet (as was planned) but are incorporated as silent figures at many points in the drama, again  reinforcing the idea of art as opposed to reality. In the final act the ballet has more dramatic purpose than many expect. The celebrations are delightful but the charm is artificial, just as the plot at this stage is hopelessly fanciful. The music and the dancers are pretty but the opera will end with blood. hence the constant tension in the undercurrents in the music. Appearances are illusion. Henri (brilliantly sung by Bryan Hymel) turns out to be the long lost son of Guy de Montfort (equally brilliantly sung by Michael Volle).On these sudden changes, the opera pivots, much like the movement of a ballerina.  The vast choruses sway: who are the patriots, who are the persecutors? Procida (Erwin Shrott) is initially a sympathetic character, whose "O Palermo!" rouses us to his cause. But he's more interested in killing than compromise. At the wedding ball he appears in disguise, dressed as a ballerina in black tutu, with red sequins that suggest blood. It's in keeping with the text and also reinforces the theme of dance as metaphor. Even the distorting mirror walls in the set reflect the distorted images in the drama.

Herheim productions are so detailed, and so thoughtful, that images repay careful consideration. The skull masks the chorus wear, for example, hide their faces but also remind us that, even in the midst of a party, Death awaits. When the invaders attack women, a small boy stands up to them, waving a toy sword. Later he becomes a Cupid. Artists often have signatures. This child figure is typical Herheim, suggesting purity amid conflict, and the ultimate validity of idealism.  Bear this image in mind, carefully, because this production generated nasty speculation from those desperate to disparage Herheim and Holten. Even the change of choreographer was construed as anti-Herheim, even though the background to the dispute was much more complex and not related solely to the production. This Les vêpres siciliennes fully vindicates itself. Go, listen,. learn and enjoy.

Jim Sohre  has reviewed this in Opera Today
photos : copyright Bill Cooper, courtesy Royal Opera House

Gergiev explodes - Le Sacre du printemps full video

Tonight at the BBC Proms,  François-Xavier Roth conducts Stravinsky Le scare du Printemps (the Rite of Spring). It's going to be different! Roth's leading Les Siècles, the innovative period instrument ensemble. The logic is, I think, to connect Le sacre with the long tradition of French music for dance. Music for dance is physical: it needs to support movement. Roth's hero Jean-Baptiste Lully, who conducted with a stave, adding percussion effects, got so involved with the music that he rammed the stave into his foot, got gangrene and died. We can hear "modern" Rites of Spring anytime, but it will be good to hear it expressed with the vigour and brashness of the baroque.

Above is a very good, lively and physical Rite of Spring.  This time we have Valery Gergiev, with the Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra. Fantastic performance - vivid, spirited, barbaric. Violence is exactly what we need to hear. Diaghilev and Stravinsky were shaking up everything comfortable society expected.

Look at the dancers : their bodies contort in strange, stylized twitches. They prance on tiptoe for long periods - how painful their calf muscles must feel!. When they rest, their hips are turned 45 degrees, their feet turned sideways. They are making a sacrifice, just as the Chosen Maiden is doing. The Mariinsky dancers move with superb precision,  The gestures look simple but they're not, and they're executed with such commitment that you know there's more to this ballet than dance. It is a ritual, a shamanistic ceremony. connecting to ancient mysteries of fertility and rebirth. 

Gergiev is in his element. Forcefulness finessed with discipline.  The narrative is savage, but not barbaric. Gergiev directs with utter precision: every note, every gesture feels right, executed with conviction.  He makes the Rite of Spring explode, but it's a controlled explosion, all the more impressive because it's done with high professional standards. Listening to this feels like a work-out, physically and emotionally. Which is what it's all about.  This time I thought of dense geological layers, relentless forces of nature. The Bear People respond with the only resources they really have: their bodies. Hence the Sacrifice and thus renewal. The Rite of Spring could never be an opera.

This performance, at the Champs-Élysées. uses a reconstruction of the original choreography and designs. That's been done before, but this time, Gergiev reinvigorates the piece. He's not reverential or polite. We're not listening to a museum display. He makes The Rite of Spring explode, as shocking and fresh as it might have sounded in 1913.

Glyndebourne Hippolyte et Aricie Rameau revitalized

Glyndebourne revitalizes Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie. Baroque tastes were extravagant. Louis XIV, Le Roi Soleil, and his successor Louis XV,  epitomized the aesthetic: audacity, not gentility, vigour, not timidity. When Hippolyte et Aricie was premiered in 1733, it was considered radically inventive. So it's appropriate that Glyndebourne should present Rameau with the same spirit of adventure. William Christie has shown many times before that baroque thrives on daring and panache.

So the Prologue starts with a shock calculated to shake things up. Diana, the Goddess is in a refrigerator. But she's the Goddess of frigidity. Why not show her in a Frigidaire?  She has a frigid, rigid mindset. . For her, feelings should be sealed in air-tight compartments. So Diana comes out of the freezer cabinet. Her colours are those of frost, and the "pale sterile moon". Nature, though, is having nothing of artificial cool. In the egg compartment, Cupid is breaking out of a shell, challenging Diana with bright colours and joyously lively song.

Hippolyte, the son of Theseus is in love with Aricie, who has dedicated herself to the service of Diana, the Virgin Queen. Hippolyte's stepmother, Phaedra, lusts after him. Ironically, her husband Theseus is off saving a friend who has committed adultery with the wife of Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. We enter l'Enfer, where hell fire reigns: the reverse of the refrigerator, where overheated workings splutter in darkness and dirt. Is death more colourful than Diana's sterile temple? The denizens of the Underworld have merrier dances. A group of Flies.with elaborate wings, pirouette gleefully. Decay is part of the cycle of Nature. Without it, no rebirth. Theseus calls on his father, Neptune, for help and escapes. The Parques (The Fates) warn "Tu sors de l’infernal Empire, pour trouver les Enfers chez toi."

Rameau writes a Tempest into his music, which even now, when we're used to extreme theatre, is strikingly dramatic. At Glyndebourne, we get strobe lights, Rameau's audiences, who loved mechanical special effects, would have been thrilled by electricity. Neptune is the God of the Ocean, so his minions are "matelots".  At Glyndebourne, they appear as a chorus of French sailors. This is perfectly in keeping with the music. Rameau adapts a hornpipe jig. It's meant to be gay (in the old sense of the word) "Tous les cœurs sont matelots ; On quitte le repos : On vole sur les flots;"

Theseus blames his son for his wife's infidelity. Hippolyte follows Aricie into Diana's world. A dead stag hangs from the rafters.  Diana, despite her disdain for passion, is also the Goddess of the Hunt, and an agent of death  Aricie is initiated into the cult by being blooded. It's not gruesome, though, for Rameau's sense of elegance precludes overt barbarism. At Glyndebourne, Diana's followers are seen in hunting reds, the men's wigs oddly peaked as if they were foxes. Hippolyte disappears in a puff of smoke, presumably dead. Phaedra dies, too. This time, the Underworld is depicted as a morgue, pointedly designed like Diana's chilled-out Temple. But Hippolyte is no more dead than Theseus was when he went into hell. The lovers are reunited happily ever after. In this production, the ghost of Phaedra appears to observe proceedings. It's a nice touch, which fits in with the mood of healing and kindness. No grand showpiece arias here. Instead, the exquisite "Rossignols amoureux" a delicate air for soprano accompanied only by flute, exceptionally beautifully played by a soloist in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Ed Lyon sang Hippolyte, fresh and youthful but no ingénue. Lyon's voice is assertive, suggesting strength in the character beyond the restraints of the text. That's perceptive. With his genes, Hippolyte is no wimp. Christiane Karg sang Aricie with charm and energy. Katharine Watson sang Diana, and Ana Quintans sang a vivacious Cupid.  Quintands also sang the crucial Nightingale Song, in the guise of a shepherdess. So Cupid has triumphed ! François Lis was a magnificently characterful Pluto/Jupiter, well supported by Loïc Felix's Tisiphone. Sarah Connolly (Phaedra) and Stéphane Degout (Theseus) were exceptional, wonderfully assured singing and stage presence.

Together with Lis, Connolly and Degout (one of the finest French singers of his generation) sang their parts in the Paris production last year with Emmanuelle Haïm, where the set was a reconstruction of what the opera might have looked like in 1733. That was important because it clearly showed the cast in costumes that were "modern" at the time. Rameau wasn't depicting Greeks or Greek Gods but archetypes in a setting his own audiences could relate to.  So much for the notion of period specificity. True period authenticity is fascinating, for me, anyway. But it doesn't necessarily do much for modern audiences, who might find the succession of dances less easy to take. The Glyndebourne production, directed by Jonathan Kent, with designs by Paul Brown, doesn't actually "update", to use the much misused term, but treats the opera as something fresh and exciting, as it might have seemed to audiences nearly 300 years ago  Like the cycle of Nature, life goes on when things renew. The humour is entirely appropriate, and the dances are brightly characterized. One other good moment: when Sarah Connolly descends off the stage as Phaedra preparing to die, the auditorium goes completely dark for much longer than usual. She's such a big star that audiences expect an exit as dramatic as that. She doesn't get to sing anymore, but the memory lingers on.

Most credit, however, to William Christie. What animated, vivid playing he draws from the  Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. How the singers seem inspired by his enthusiasm! He's visionary. He understand the baroque and its aesthetic so well that he can teach us a great deal about the idiom. His Rameau Les Indes Galantes (recorded on DVD) is an education. Christie brings out the vivacious, almost anarchic vigour that is at the heart of French baroque. He's worked with Jonathan Kent before (Purcell Fairy Quuen, Glyndebourne). My companion said "If this is good enough for Bill Christie, it's good enough for me". By sheer coicidence we bumped into Christie himself a few minutes later, and told him. He beamed. "That's the sort of feedback I like to hear!". I hope it helped to make his day. Certainly, with this performance, he made mine.

Complete review and cast list in Opera Today
Photos c. Bill Cooper, courtesy Glyndebourne Festival

Les Vêpres siciliennes changes at ROH

The Royal Opera House has announced a change of choreographer for next season's Les Vêpres siciliennes. This production would have been a highlight of the season because it would have brought together both the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet plus stars from the Danish Ballet, with which Kaspar Holten had connections in Copenhagen. They've been looking for a major collaboration like this for years. It would have been spectacular.

Verdi's Les Vêpres siciliennes would have been an ideal vehicle because it centres round a long ballet which is integral to the opera. The music itself is glorious. Verdi's Four Seasons might not be as famous as Vivaldi's but it's extremely well known - it's even on Youtube.  You can't have half an hour of abstract music in an opera, and the ballet reflects the composer's original intentions. If we care about Verdi, we need to hear more than the usual blockbusters. In this Verdi centenary year it's good to focus on Verdi's music in wider context.  One of the top Proms this summer will be Viva Verdi on 20/7 where Antonio Pappano will conduct an unusual Verdi programme.

"There will still be a strong element of dance in the production, however no longer featuring Artists from The Royal Ballet, The Royal Danish Ballet and students from The Royal Ballet School", says the ROH press release. The new choreographer is André de Jong. 

Being a music person, I don't know much about the dance background but Judith Mackrell, a dance critic does. Read her article here.  The choreographer who is leaving is a well-known dancer Johan Kobborg, the partner  of Alina Cojocaru, who announced recently that she's leaving the Royal Ballet at the end of the season.  Dancers don't have long shelf lives and need to make the most of their careers and good for them.  According to Mackrell,  Kobborg is "about to turn 40 and while still a dancer of intelligence and style, he's at the age when the range of his repertory has inevitably begun to diminish. He's also begun focusing on choreography – with a handful of short ballets to his name and a new production of Giselle" in New Zealand. 

"The Royal haven't ignored Kobborg's skills, commissioning his perfectly pitched production of August Bournonville's La Sylphide back in 2006. But the opportunities for him to create new work for the company are very limited. Already the Royal has its resident choreographic triumvirate (Wayne McGregor, Christopher Wheeldon and Liam Scarlett) to accommodate, along with Alastair Marriott, Kristen McNally, and a new generation of choreographic associates. Faced with such a crowded marketplace, it's not surprising that Kobborg is looking for projects elsewhere, and would ideally like the chance to direct a company."

When the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House merged, there were those who said that it would be hard to balance the two halves of the house at Covent Garden. Perhaps they were right.

Neo classical power : John Eliot Gardiner Stravinsky Oedipus Rex Barbican

John Eliot Gardiner marked his 70th birthday at the Barbican, London, with long-term associates the LSO and the Monteverdi Choir.

Historically informed performance is usually misunderstood, which is all the more reason why JEG's role should be celebrated. His background gives him insights that confound preconceived expectations.  His Verdi Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House (review here) brought out the turbulence in the score reached only by a conductor like JEG who knows how Renaissance music reflected turbulence and violence.

True to form, Gardiner approached Stravinsky with striking originality  Conceptually, Oedipus Rex is remarkable because it confounds expectations. Stravinsky and Jean Cocteau deliberately chose emotional distance. They cloaked the text in a dead language so the impact is indirect. Like  Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex is stylized. . Oedipus Rex isn't opera in the popular sense of the word, but something quite unique.

Significantly, Gardiner began with Stravinsky's Apollon musagète. Like all ballets it evolves through a series of tableaux, but the structure in this case highlights something very different. Just as he shocked traditional ballet with the Rite of Spring, Stravinsky was exploring a new approach to music for dance. Apollon musagète adapts the pared down elegance of neo-classicism to the cool, clean lines of 1920's modernism.

The orchestra is strings only, limiting the palette so the refinement of form is unclouded. This music is so precise that one hardly needs visuals. The solo violin enters like a dancer, swooping and sweeping. The line is languid but elegant , defined with delicate decoration. The concept of physical movement is defined in the music itself. Curving movements, swooping and sweeping, diagonals, lines that break off to return again with fuller force. Trios and solos intertwine. The violins here are dancers, violas, celli and double basses their corps de ballet. JEG had them standing for a very good reason. As the music circulated, it became more and more rarified, shimmering with lightness, defying the concept of gravity. Music, the apotheosis of dance. Gardiner has conducted enough Rameau, Lully and masters of the French baroque to know that concepts of form and clarity are fundamental to style.

In this context, JEG's Oedipus Rex was extremely perceptive, stressing the neo-classical stylization. The emotional distance is reinforced by the use of a Narrator (Fanny Ardant) and Chorus, creating a frame around the solo singing parts. The instrumentation is spartan, used effectively rather than effusively. Observing Stravinsky's economy of gesture is important because it suggest the implacable, impersonal nature of fate. Sentimentality has no place in a drama like this. Instead, Gardiner conducts with tightly controlled tension, keeping the longer line in focus. When climaxes came, they were explosive. Suppressed violence like this works better than overt excess. When the trumpets cried in fanfare, and the chorus sang "Gloria!", we didn't hear militarist triumph, but rather choruses of terrified voices. Just as in Apollon musagète, Stravinsky uses sounds as abstract voices This time, the palette is dark and brutal, shades of granite metal and rock, as impenetrable as the fate from which Oedipe cannot escape.

Stuart Skelton was a superb Oedipe. Being the central protagonist, his part is more complex and emotionally more anguished. The rhythmic pulse in the music is relentless, almost overwhelming, but Skelton rose to the challenge so well that one could - almost - imagine that he might beat what fate had in store. In that, he created the part with sympathy. He made Latin sound like a living language -- demotic and off the streets. It gave the singing a thrilling sense of immediacy, as if the events were actually unfolding in real-time.

Gidon Saks's Creon was impressive. The weight of Saks's voice is such that it inhibits mobility, but this is a part which is meant to be taken with implacable solidity. Jennifer Johnston's Jocaste was deftly paced, and even the small tenor role of Shepherd made an impact. The part lies high, and here it was sung with an attractive fragility which worked well in the context of the drama. Five years ago Valery Gergiev conducted the LSO in an interpretation that was more low down and dirty. But Oedipus Rex isn't about false realism. John Eliot Gardiner and his forces brought out its true intellectual and musical power.

Violence and intrigue at the Bolshoi

Latest in the Bolshoi Ballet saga is the news that principal dancer Svetlana Lunkina has decided not to return to Russia after unspecified threats were made to her husband. Although the case is not related to the acid attack on Sergey Filin, the Bolshoi's Artistic Director, it suggests an underworld of extremes that could come straight out of an opera plot. HERE is a link to the best informed article written so far on the situation. It's from Der Speigel, which still believes in investigative journalism.  If only we had more of that in the UK, where some newspapers have become blatant tools for marketing. Once writers went out and got stories. Now they just retweet feeds. At least in Russia, some people stand up for what they believe in.  For a dancer, who works through visuals, becoming blind is almost worse than death. Yet Filin forgives his attacker.  The acid might corrode his face, but not his soul.   No wonder they appointed him boss at the Bolshoi, and not the other guy. Filin proves that real vision doesn't come only through the eyes.

Hans Werner Henze and Oliver Knussen - Undine

Oliver Knussen retrospective at the Barbican this weekend, but Hans Werner Henze's death last weekend still haunts me. Henze and Knussen have a lot more in common than one might assume. Both of them Wunderkind, with wide-sprawling careers. Henze was more prolific as a composer, Knussen  has been busy as conductor and general guru. Both of them connected to Aldeburgh. Henze, thinking Auden and Britten were still friends, naively sought Auden's patronage. It was good for Henze's art but not so good for his prospects with Britten. Henze's prospects on the big money US market were effectively doomed by his Communist ideals. Knussen';s career took off when he went to the US.

This week I've been listenin again to Knussen conduct Henze's ballet Undine (Ondine). Music for ballet  is different to music for theatre or for the concert hall. Music for ballet has to allow for the physical demands of dancers. Balletomanes come to see dancers : for them music is often secondary. So a composer must write bearing in mind the limitations of the human body. Dancers can't float up in the air indefinitely. There have to be breaks for them to rest and regroup.  Hence the episodic nature of ballet music, which has to allow for sequences that display the skills of the dancers. The episodes have to be long enough to give choreographers something to work with, yet not be too long or complex that dancers can't cope. Ballet music, one may say, follows the body not just the mind. 

 On audio such moments may drag but the drama is in the dancing itself.  Which is why seeing a ballet helps you connect between music and visuals. Henze was still only 30 in 1956 when Ondine was written, but he'd already written seven ballets : Ondine was the breakthrough that established him in the genre. The ballet was commissioned by Sir Frederick Ashton to showcase Margot Fonteyn.

Henze’s music thus focuses on images of water, tides and waves, for the sea is Ondine’s element. She’s supernatural, so her music is magically lyrical. When she dances in the waterfall, the colours in the orchestration shimmer around her. In comparison, scenes that take place on land, especially in Act 2, are relatively earthbound, but that’s the essence of the plot. Palemon dies, but Ondine lives on, immortal. The music flows so seamlessly into dance that you can almost see semi quavers enacted in movement. Every note reflects in dance. Pizzicato becomes en pointe, the interplay of piano, harp, and celeste become intricate ensemble. The guitar part is more than mere “Italianate colour”, for Henze loves the instrument and has written more for it than any modern composer. Seeing Ondine in performance shows just how good a composer Henze was and is. Sir Frederick Ashton and the audiences of 1958 found the music difficult, but Henze, a devoted balletomane, wrote intuitively for dance. Now the music poses no problems. Instead, we can appreciate how it respects the physical demands of ballet. Despite the undulating, wavering beauty of the scoring there are firm undercurrents and a strong dramatic pulse.

The water spirits form a circle, their arms undulating, like a giant sea anemone, moving with the ocean tides. Graceful as the image is, it’s also powerfully muscular, underlined by the depth and energy of the music. Sea anemones look delicate, but they’re strong, a lot like ballerinas. I learned Ondine from the audio recording conducted by Oliver Knussen. Now the image of the ondines in the corps de ballet will remain with me.

The sets were designed by Lila Di Nobili, who also designed the British premiere of Elegy for Young Lovers at Glyndebourne in 1961. Sir Frederick Ashton wanted to pay tribute to 19th century ballet tradition, so the set is lushly romantic, complete with proscenium arches, like a cherished museum piece. Against this background, the dancers seem all the more youthful and vibrant. I quite like the tension between Ashton's retro vision and Henze's irrepressible inventiveness.

Dancing Baroque? Handel and Rameau

Handel's Giulio Cesare at the ENO raises intereesting questions. Michael Keegan-Dolan is a choreographer, so his staging would naturally emphasize dancing, not singing or even drama. Dance is part of the baroque aesthetic, but to what extent? If any composer is associated with dance it's Rameau. Rameau's rhythms throb in intricate patterns, so energetic that they beg expression through physical action. Prior to Stravinsky, Rameau defined movement in music.

Rameau's Les Indes galantes is now available on medici.tv.  It's a work of near genius, with William Christie and Les Arts Florissantes who have the genre in thir souls. Christie shows how vital and vivid period performance can be, done well and on its own terms. The cast is particularly strong - Partricia Petibon, Nicolas Rivenq, Danielle De Neise, Nathan Berg, João Fernandes, Christoph Stehl,  Malin Hartelius etc) so it's pretty outstanding. Baroque is stylized, but it isn't dull. The acting, directed by Andrei Serban, is full of wit and personality. True to the baroque spirit,  the designs (Marina Draghici) are extravagant. Rameau chose his subjects because they'd be visually exciting to audiences in his day who had probably never seen much of Peruvians, Turks or "the savages of America". Draghici can thus blend elements of alien cultures with fantasy : a Matelot in an Ottoman Court, for example, and a stunning recreation of the Inca God of the Sun. Magically lit and beautifully filmed.

But this Les Indes galantes is essential, I think, for dance fans because it shows how dance can be integrated into an opera. The choreographer is Blanca Li. She "conducts" the dancers as effectively as Christie conducts singers and players. Ensembles move as the music moves, dancers are individualized just as instruments are individualized.  The elegant orderliness of Rameau's music allows quite complex choreography, which Li and her dancers execute flawlessly. For three hours!  These people are seriously fit.  Blanca Li blends different dance styles, like getting the "Savages" to strike angular poses, channelling Diaghilev in the Rite of Spring. Again, the spirit of baroque, all influences joyously mixed in riotous profusion.  I didn't go to the ENO Handel Guilio Cesare last night, having seen Michael Keegan- Dolan's last ENO double bill. His Rite of Spring wasn't bad because the dancing "spoke".  His Duke Bluebeard's Castle fell apart for me because dramatically the ideas weren't thought through. So maybe that's the conundrum choreographers have to face when they stage opera. Dance is a tool, but dramatic logic is what makes dance in opera work.

Britten's Prince of the Pagodas - essential listening

The Royal Ballet is doing Benjamin Britten's The Prince of the Pagodas at the Royal Opera House. Because it's choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan, it's part of ballet history. But for music lovers, it is absolutely essential. Without The Prince of the Pagodas, we might not have Death in Venice.

The Prince of the Pagodas is so crucial to Britten's music that that it's surprising that there's been so little analysis in the media. What makes this ballet unique is that Britten is consciously cross-cultural, experimenting with new ideas he would develop later. Nowadays gamelan is practically mainstream, and everyone's heard about Bali, so it's hard to miss what makes the music in this ballet unique. In serious music circles, however, the importance of The Prince of the Pagodas has never been in doubt. Read Mervyn Cooke's Britten and The Far East (Boydell, 1998)  It is so well written that it is a first point of reference for anyone interested in Britten, or indeed modern music and cross-cultural studies.

Benjamin Britten was never insular. Mervyn Cooke describes the influence of non-western music on western music (Debussy, Poulenc, McPhee)  and Britten's visit to Bali, where he was assisted by a Dutch musicologist who specialized in Balinese music. Britten was no casual tourist. He'd learned Balinese music from McPhee (see here for a clip of Britten and McPhee in 1941, playing transciptions) and knew the correct terminology and structures. Cooke's analysis of the impact on Britten's music is so penetrating that I won't summarize. Cooke's book is a central key to Britten studies. You NEED it!

The photo above is Taman Ayun Temple, Bali, coutresy Geoff Clarke. Click to enlarge. It's interesting how landscape affects culture. Throughout Asia, rice fields are carved in terraces, curving round the slopes of mountains. Rice is also grown on flat plains, of course, but even there rice padis are enclosed by low walls to regulate the flow of water. There's still a pattern  in the landscape as the padis are small and follow the shape if the terrain. Terraces and padis are ecologically sound because they make maximum use of rainflow and growing space. (This photo is Japan.) Pagodas and temples reflect this too,as they rise upwards in stages. There is cosmological significance, too complex to go into here, but the point is that physical design comes from organic experience and from the landscape. Think of the way the Great Wall follows the contours of the land. .

Translate this into music: rhythmic series! Much non-western music moves in plateaux that vary imperceptibly, acceleration and decelaration, changes in tempo and pitch regulated communally by the performers when they feel right about it. The whole structural ethos is different to western music. Percussion predominates. Perhaps it's also significant that in many non-western cultures, music is associated with dance. Thai and Balinese dancers for example use angular, rthymic movements that might seem at odds with body shape, but are used sensually and expressively.

As Mervyn Cooke notes, it would be unthinkable to separate music and dance in Balinese culture. We can see why Britten was persuaded to write The Prince of the Pagodas though ballet was not a form that interested him greatly in principle. The Royal Ballet staging (Monica Mason, Grant Coyle, Designs Nicholas Georgiadis) reflects Britten's Bali in the sense that we see pagodas very much like the ones at Taman Ayun - particularly evocative towards the end when they're lit from within, so they seem like glass or ice sculptures. Even the tubular metallic uprights (presumably abstract castle towers) feel right in musical terms. Much of the rest of the ballet seemed very western to my non-western eyes, as if a ballet from the time of Louis XIV or the Tsars were transported to a fantasy setting. That's perfectly apt, though, considering John Cranko's plot is a strange mix of fairy tale and absolute monarchy. As dance, I would have liked more adventuresome movements picking up on the exotic quality of the music, but that's unrealistic. It's  Kenneth Macmillan's ballet not mine! A good critic respects that the author of a work has a point even if it's not the same as the critic's.

Western ballet music is episodic because it has to allow set pieces for dancers to show what they can do best. For dance lovers, that's the whole point.  Some composers do episodic brilliantly, but I suspect that for Britten it didn't come so easily. Read Mervyn Cooke again for more detailed analysis of the work. Britten is not writing incidental music around dance, but experimenting with ideas he's adapted from Balinese music.  This is the USP of The Prince of the Pagodas, it's "unique selling point"  What a pity that more wasn't made of it in the media and marketing. In Act Two,  the long uninterrupted flow allows Britten to write as if he were writing a tone poem. Musically, it's the most stunning part of the whole work. This is where Britten is really "telling the story" as dream  sequence, connecting to the bizarre fantasy that makes a princess fall for a Salamander. (The Freudian symbolism is obvious.) Perhaps that's why there were two intervals which killed the dramatic pace. The first and last acts are almost bookends for the heart of the piece. .

Oliver Knussen conducted Britten's The Prince of the Pagodas in 2006. There's a wonderful recording, energetic, bright, idiomatic and also accessing the darker levels of its meaning, and brought out the Balinese inventiveness very sharply. He'd read Mervyn Cooke. Barry Wordsworth conducted this 2012 revival with a pleasant Romantc feel, perhaps more attuned to MacMillan than to Britten, which is perfectly valid.  Recently, Britten's original 1957 recording has been re-released. It should be interesting as composer recordings usually are, but the genesis of the piece wasn't easy, and Knussen has the benefit of fifty years' extra reflection.

Please explore this site for more on Britten, non-western music and cross-cultural influences. Messiaen is relevant tooi. Please also see HERE for a description of the theatre Britten and Pears gave a recital in when they visted Macau in 1956.

Benjamin Britten's Balinese Soul

Benjamin Britten's The Prince of the Pagodas at the Royal Opera House (Royal Ballet) demonstrates how different ballet audiences are from music audiences. All the attention on the dancing, almost nothing analytical  about the music. So no wonder The Prince of the Pagodas has a reputation for being awkward. John Cranko's scenarios aren't much odder than many other ballet or opera plots, and Britten writes sequences  that Kenneth MacMillan could choreograph in  a fairly straightforward way. Therein, I think, lies the problem. What Britten was trying to write in The Prince of the Pagodas is his own version of Balinese music theatre, but what everyone else expected was convention.  Although by its nature ballet is episodic, appreciating this music means understanding how it works as a whole and how it connects to the rest of Britten's music.

Perhaps mainstream audiences weren't ready for this in 1957, but non-western music had been known in the west for decades. In 1870, Japanese and Indonesian music caused a sensation in Paris. Just as Debussy and Picasso were inspired by non-western cultures, so, too, Benjamin Britten. Most famous of those working on non-western music was Colin McPhee, who lived in Bali and studied its culture from the perspective of a musicologist and practising composer. Britten met McPhee when he sojourned in New York. Below is a clip from a recording made in 1941, where Britten and McPhee play a transcription of Balinese music, prepared by McPhee from music he'd collected in Indonesia. Later Britten and Pears toured Indonesia and Japan, just as Messiaen was to do a few years later. From The Prince of the Pagodas, to Curlew River and Death in Venice.  Britten internalizes non-western music into his own work.  Hence the significance of The Prince of Pagodas, and why it needs to be heard as well as seen.