It's been a while since I posted a review based on a video of a live performance, but since I've just watched this one for about the 15th time in a little over a year I think it's time to let you in on the fun!
It's interesting that the world's audiences for classical music, opera, and ballet are all so damn serious about their favourite performances, and those performances are also notably serious in the manner they are presented. But in each of these wonderful art forms, there are also definite islands of comic relief.
Think classical music generally and you immediately think of the musical comedians: Victor Borge, Anna Russell, Peter Schickele a.k.a. P. D. Q. Bach, and Canada's own Mary Lou Fallis. In the world of opera, you get such delightful operatic comedies as Die Fledermaus, Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor, or Martha (the last two have been previously reviewed in my companion blog, Off the Beaten Staff).
But ballet? Is there even such a thing as comedy in ballet? The answer, of course, is "Yes" -- although it can sometimes seem like a rarity. But there is one sparkling gem of comic dance that I want to review tonight -- La Fille Mal Gardee ("The Badly-Guarded Girl"). Originally staged in France in the eighteenth century, the story has frequently been restaged with a potpourri of music by many different hands attached to it during those many productions.
The version which has achieved such wide popularity in the twentieth century is the one made by Sir Frederick Ashton for the Royal Ballet in 1960. The score is adapted from Ferdinand Herold's music written in 1828 for the ballet, with additions, and the light-hearted adaptation and orchestration is by John Lanchbery. The same version, with identical sets, costumes, and choreography, is a recurring favourite in the repertoire of the National Ballet of Canada, and of many other companies as well.
In Ashton's version, the story of the love of the young girl Lise for the farmer Colas is developed with consistent humour and good high spirits through both music and dance (and some very entertaining mime and acting too!). The ballet begins exactly as it means to go on, with a comical dance of a rooster and 4 hens immediately followed by a morning scene in which Lise's mother, the much-put-upon widow Simone, throws vegetables to drive Colas out of her farmyard.
Widow Simone, by the by, is a famous travesti role for a male character dancer, and is very much inspired by the "dames" of British traditional pantomimes. The other nutty comic role is that of the slightly dull, but very wealthy, young Alain who is Simone's choice for a husband for Lise. This role is a tour de force of clumsiness raised to an art form in ways too numerous to describe. I would guess that it's almost as big a challenge for an expert ballet dancer to dance clumsily as it is for an expert singer to deliberately sing off-key!
The leading roles of Lise and Colas are very fine roles in the highest classical tradition, and their dances together and separately are the most traditional parts of the show. But even they have some fine comedic moments.
It's also really impressive to see how frequent, and how varied, are the dance numbers given to the corps de ballet. Ashton's work here manages to keep the dancers busy throughout the show, with multiple numbers for the corps in all 3 acts, which certainly isn't true of some famous ballets! The men in particular get a great chance to show off in the traditional Morris dance of Act III. This lively number, with the men wielding sticks with great aplomb, is one of the three significant importations of a traditional dance form into the ballet. Another is the joyous Maypole dance in Act II
The third, earlier in Act II, is the comic crown jewel of the piece: the Widow Simone's clog dance. First she plays up a moment of feigned reluctance, then she eagerly dons the clogs and starts out. She's quickly joined by four ballerinas of the corps who actually dance on pointe in their wooden clogs -- a sight you have to see to believe, and even funnier when Simone (who is a actually a man) tries to join them. Throughout this 4-minute number the choreography remains a traditional clog dance, but it's laced with all kinds of comic business and pratfalls. I almost always replay it before going on!
So, the video I have is a live performance at the Royal Opera House filmed in 2000. The splendid cast stars Marianela Nunez as Lise, Carlos Acosta as Colas, William Tuckett as the Widow Simone, and Jonathan Howells as Alain. The orchestra is beautifully conducted by Anthony Twiner. The camera work is mostly very effective, with a nice mix of long shots and close-ups, although some detail inevitably gets missed in some of the busier scenes. It's one of a series of very fine video productions from the Royal Ballet on Opus Arte video.
No comments:
Post a Comment