Tchaikovsky : The Sleeping Beauty
Scottish Ballet
Scottish Ballet Orchestra
Richard Honner
Staging a traditional version of "The Sleeping Beauty" was always going to be a near-impossible challenge for a small company like Scottish Ballet. The standard version requires a full corps de ballet, plus an extensive cast of soloists for a plethora of small but essential roles, never mind the principals. So it made sense that Scottish Ballet's Artistic Director, Ashley Page, would choose to re-think the piece completely, adhering closely to the magnificent score, and retaining the basics of the story, but revising pretty well all the choreography in his own style to suit the needs, and the strengths, of his own dancers.
Page's choreographic style is contemporary classical; his girls still wear pointe shoes, and the inheritance from the 19th Century romantic-classical style is perfectly evident, but the steps take on a distinct twist, sometimes quite literally. The attitudes and arabesques are quite deliberately over-extended almost to the point of over-balancing, there is more pelvic thrust and deeper knee bends, he favours waist-high lifts and holds quite distinctly over overhead ones, there is a marked use of leverage, or cantilever movements between pairs, and the whole style tends to be closer to the ground than the traditional classical style. It's quite distinctive, familiar enough to be reassuring, but disconcerting enough to be stimulating. What I'm not sure about is how much emotion it can convey, but that's a relatively minor part of "Sleeping Beauty" to begin with.
For this sumptuously designed version (by Anthony McDonald), and premiered in 2007, there is basically no corps de ballet, and absolutely everyone (except the Maid and Valet in the final act) dances. Aurora is born very specifically in 1830 into the Romanov dynasty, she is married in London in 1946, with her family dispossessed of their lands and titles, but still living large off accumulated private treasures. The fairy-tale characters of the act III divertissement are found in the enchanted woods by the Prince on his voyage to break the spell on Aurora; they end up with Aurora's four suitors from Act I (a nod to Sondheim?). Carabosse is the Lilac Fairy's evil twin, but she repents and is rehabilitated in the end, and the fairies represent human values, for good or bad, as the case may be. Though Carabosse here has no rat-minions, but two bad-tempered, half-animal daughters named Pina and Lucinda. No comment!
On the whole, it works very well. Most of the cuts in the score are pretty standard; a bit of trimming in the Prologue and Act I, the omission of the bulk of the hunting-party scene in Act II, for example. There's an alteration to the end of Act II, for a transition into Act III, that shocked me a bit, but mostly because I really like the end of Act II as written. Also, the famous Puss-in-Boots number was omitted from the divertissement, presumably because the music is far too character-specific to have been used satisfactorily in this new context. In exchange, we got the Hop-o-my-Thumb variation, which is often left out. Richard Honner (wearing a very spiffy waistcoat which looked like it could have been designed along with the rest of tonight's costumes) conducted a fine-sounding band with a firm hand and bright, sharp tempi, keeping things moving along very nicely.
The dancing also looked pretty crisp and sharp, in the main, though we were treated to the very rare sight of a dancer actually falling over in a solo number. I don't get to see much of Scottish Ballet, so I'm not very familiar with the company and its dancers, and Page's style is not overtly virtuosic. That said, when it does turn so, appropriately enough in the last act divertissement, the members of the pas de quatre (Amy Hadley, Nathalie Dupouy and their partners) gave a sparkling performance. Because Page kept some of the Petipa choreography for Aurora's solo numbers, the rest of her style is more romantic-classical than many of the other parts, certainly when she's on her own, but Tomomi Sato, diminutive and dainty, showed she was more than capable of negotiating both styles with perfect ease. Christopher Harrison was her slightly nondescript, but solidly supportive Prince, while Eve Mutso was a gracious and charismatic Lilac Fairy.
A fine evening's entertainment, and a refreshing take on a very familiar and much-loved classic.
[Next event : 20th January 2012. Happy New Year]
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