On Saturday, I went to the National Ballet's new full-length version of Carmen, choreographed by Davide Bombana. I'd have to classify it as a brave try that doesn't come together -- and that certainly is no fault of the performers.
As always, the dancers are reliably on top of whatever they are asked to do. The main roles of Carmen (Tina Pereira), Don Jose (Jonathan Renna), Garcia (Christopher Stalzer), Michaela (Tanya Howard), and Escamillo (McGee Maddox) were all powerfully presented -- no complaints at all on that level.
Bombana started out with a good strong objective -- his idea being to go right into the carnality, passion, and fate at the heart of the story. This is not in the least a pretty piece -- it's rough, tough, hard-edged, and intense. But does it bring out the characteristics suggested? I'd say it does not.
Part of the problem is that dance is not at its best as a teller of physical narrative. Hence classical ballet's well-known insistence on using mime to convey narrative events. Modern dance is, however, supreme at conveying inward, emotional, psychological action. And there's the key stumbling block.
There really is no psychological action in the story. Neither of the main characters really changes, although both flirt with the possibility of a serious change or growth. The collision of two strong wills is doomed from the outset, but there's no growth. This is especially true of Carmen, whose great need is to remain who she is -- and that (as presented by Bombana) is a person with no great degree of emotional activity going on inside her.
His choreography for Carmen herself reflects that difficulty. Through most of the first act, she continually falls back on her stylized walk (more of a strut) and a few signature movements that are repeated over and over and over. The sameness comes across clearly. What is less clear is the allure. The choreography gives no clear vision of the quality in Carmen that draws men to her.
The shorter second act comes across more clearly, but there are still difficulties. Right at the outset, Michaela steals the show with a heart-rending solo that conveys all the emotion and inward turmoil that Carmen so conspicuously lacks.
The bullfight scene, where Escamillo (the matador in Bizet's opera) appears as a minotaur and couples powerfully with Carmen, certainly has impact. But its impact is diminished by the silliness of the previous scene for four "toreadors" dressed in red flamenco dresses -- four male dancers prancing around in an over-the-top satire of drag queens. Certainly comical, and just as certainly destructive of the mood of danger and doom drawing nearer. In effect, this bit seems "stuck on", not even as integral to the piece as some of Shakespeare's notorious comic interruptions. Rather than making me laugh, it merely annoyed me.
The other aspect of the show that annoyed me was the music. Bizet's score for Carmen is certainly beautiful, dramatic, full of famous tunes. Bombana's decision to use it was defensible on many levels. Interspersing it with music by other composers was also understandable. What was a good deal less than clear was the reason why the scoring suddenly shifted from live orchestra to recorded soundscape effects. There were a couple of occasions where this happened in the middle of a scene with no apparent motivation at all. The wildly different sounds we heard did not correspond to any noticeable modification in the dance we were watching.
Nor did the occasional projections at the back of the stage help much. These were rather like a moving Rorschach inkblot test, and while the shapes could convey some meaning at all times they mainly served as a distraction, drawing focus away from the performers.
Final note on the lighting: with the black stage floor and black box of curtains, and with many characters wearing dark or dark-ish costumes, the show definitely needed to be brightly illuminated to compensate. I know I dozed off during the dimly-lit first act and I heard several other people say the same had happened to them. The more brightly-lit scenes of the toreadors and Escamillo certainly solved the problem, as did Carmen's brighter red costume in her final scenes. Brighter lighting throughout the show would definitely have been helpful.
No comments:
Post a Comment