On the face of it, trying to adapt Leo Tolstoy's massive novel, Anna Karenina, into a single ballet seems almost as cockeyed an idea as the notion of adapting his even more massive War and Peace into a single opera.
Prokofiev successfully pulled off the opera, although sadly he did not live to see it staged. I have to admit, though, that I approached the National Ballet's North American premiere of John Neumeier's full-length ballet of Anna with a bit of trepidation.
I need not have worried. Neumeier is one choreographer who has completely mastered the art of telling a story, not through the external, visible action but through the internal, psychological lives of the characters. In Anna Karenina, he has distilled the action of Tolstoy's sprawling, episodic book into a tightly-wound journey into the human soul, all expressed through powerfully dramatic movement which leaves the "prettiness" of classical ballet far behind in the dust.
And the gifted dancers of the National Ballet have pulled right along with him to dig deeply into that internal world of the souls of Tolstoy's diverse characters.
At three hours with one too-short intermission, Anna Karenina clocks in as the longest ballet in the National's repertoire. But that's a misleading point, since there isn't really one single superfluous minute -- we're brought right down to the essentials throughout the piece.
Modern as Anna Karenina appears, it still requires the disciplined work of a large classical company to make this piece "go" -- and at that, a company thoroughly familiar and at home with modern styles as well as classical disciplines. That description fits the National right down to the ground.
As in his Nijinsky, Neumeier has leaned heavily on a classical composer whose music fits the temper of the piece like a custom-made glove. The score is assembled in large part from an assortment of the less well-known works of Tchaikovsky. The fit isn't just in the fact that Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy were contemporaries. It's even more a matter of Tchaikovsky's music managing to portray both the stylized elegance of the society and the claw-like forces of guilt which besiege those who don't live strictly according to its rules. That description applies to Tchaikovsky, of course, with his life-long guilt over his homosexuality, but it also describes Anna Karenina.
Nowhere in this ballet is this more true than in the finale of Act One, where the concluding firestorm of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony becomes the driving force behind the harrowing intensity of a pas de trois with Anna, her lover Vronsky, and her husband Karenin. Neumeier even makes a strength out of Tchaikovsky's weakest moment in the symphony, taking advantage of the sudden and inexplicable interruption of a harmonium (chamber organ) to portray the scene of Kitty's wedding to Levin.
Alongside the Tchaikovsky excerpts, Neumeier has also employed some edgy modern works by Alfred Schnittke, and (far less expectedly) several songs by Cat Stevens.
The set, also designed by the choreographer, uses a white floor in front of a box of black curtains, and large rolling set pieces with doors on both sides and open ends -- allowing them to be used in almost infinite combinations and locations. These are also painted stark, institutional white as is one of the several backdrops flown in and out for different scenes. Costumes are modern.
The ballet opens with a small but significant shift for the character of Karenin -- instead of being a powerful bureaucrat, he appears as a campaigning politician. This change gives the fullest motivation for him to have not just a picture-perfect life, but also a picture-perfect demeanour at all times. As Karenin, Brendan Saye strutted and preened stylishly about the stage, always showing to advantage in front of the cheering crowds at the political rally and the omnipresent photographers.
Later, at home, he couldn't take off that public persona. While Sonia Rodriguez matched him in polish at the rally, the raw edges of Anna's discontentment and loneliness dominated her dancing as soon as she was at home again. And Saye's continued posing as Karenin made the reasons abundantly clear.
As the ballet progressed, Rodriguez grew more and more into the role, finding even greater inward depths of feeling to portray the slowly-growing despair of the woman. A memorable performance.
Their young son, Seryozha, was played with aptly childlike innocence, playfulness, and abundant energy by Alexander Skinner, a new member of the corps de ballet. The moments when Anna played happily with him on the floor were a delight.
Christopher Gerty brought sensuality and charm to his portrayal of Anna's philandering brother, Stiva.
Jenna Savella raged with equal parts power and abandon as his wife, Dolly, when she caught him with their children's governess. Their quarrel scene was a high energy point in the first act. Savella then gave a real feeling of force-in-stillness in the domestic scene where she returns to her children.
Meghan Pugh gave a brilliant, wide-ranging performance as Kitty, portraying the innocent excitement of the young girl and the overwrought desperation of the woman with verve and energy.
Naoya Ebe presented Vronsky as a cool, elegant man of the world, maintaining that polish even in the most energetic sequences with his fellow lacrosse players. Only in the intensity of that pas de trois at the end of Act One did the air of sophistication drop away, revealing the raw emotions within.
The most coolly classical moment of the entire ballet was the romantic pas de deux for Anna and Vronsky at the opening of Act Two. Set to the adagio cantabile from Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, this duet seemed like a beautifully-framed museum piece amid the more hard-edged intensity of so many other scenes.
Skylar Campbell gave great depth and weight to the later scenes in his role as the empathetic Levin, and did sterling work with the complex choreography of his first scene.
That first scene for Levin, choreographed to Cat Stevens' Moonshadow, struck me as the weakest point of Neumeier's conception. The scene description as given in the programme calls Levin an aristocratic landowner, and says he is dreaming of Kitty (Dolly's sister). What we got was a man wearing a lumberjack shirt, driving a tractor, looking for all the world like a farm hand -- and dancing with such an edgy, near-frantic quality that the dream seemed more like a nightmare. Especially when set against the gentle, almost meditative quality of the song, the choreography of this scene came across as a major miscalculation -- a rare weak spot in a ballet filled with tensile strength.
Early in the ballet, at the railway station, Anna witnesses the death of a Mushik (a railway worker). This dead man drags his own corpse away in a sack while bent double. He reappears at intervals as the personification of Fate, always slamming the sack loudly onto the floor as he appears and dragging it slowly across the stage, heedless of whatever else goes on around him -- a powerful reiteration of a powerful symbol. And for a real pit-of-the-stomach moment, it's hard to beat the penultimate scene where first Vronsky and then Karenin appear dressed in the Mushik's characteristic neon-orange jumpsuit.
What really stuck in the mind at the end of the entire performance was not so much the rapid and fatal denouement as that terribly intense pas de trois in Act One. Well, that, and the great intensity, power, and emotional descent into darkness of the title character. As Anna, Sonia Rodriguez owned the stage from first to last.
Anna Karenina is not, then, a perfect ballet, but it comes pretty damn close. It's definitely a first-rate vehicle to show the strength and depth of the company. I'm only sorry I didn't have the chance to see it twice.
I need not have worried. Neumeier is one choreographer who has completely mastered the art of telling a story, not through the external, visible action but through the internal, psychological lives of the characters. In Anna Karenina, he has distilled the action of Tolstoy's sprawling, episodic book into a tightly-wound journey into the human soul, all expressed through powerfully dramatic movement which leaves the "prettiness" of classical ballet far behind in the dust.
And the gifted dancers of the National Ballet have pulled right along with him to dig deeply into that internal world of the souls of Tolstoy's diverse characters.
At three hours with one too-short intermission, Anna Karenina clocks in as the longest ballet in the National's repertoire. But that's a misleading point, since there isn't really one single superfluous minute -- we're brought right down to the essentials throughout the piece.
Modern as Anna Karenina appears, it still requires the disciplined work of a large classical company to make this piece "go" -- and at that, a company thoroughly familiar and at home with modern styles as well as classical disciplines. That description fits the National right down to the ground.
As in his Nijinsky, Neumeier has leaned heavily on a classical composer whose music fits the temper of the piece like a custom-made glove. The score is assembled in large part from an assortment of the less well-known works of Tchaikovsky. The fit isn't just in the fact that Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy were contemporaries. It's even more a matter of Tchaikovsky's music managing to portray both the stylized elegance of the society and the claw-like forces of guilt which besiege those who don't live strictly according to its rules. That description applies to Tchaikovsky, of course, with his life-long guilt over his homosexuality, but it also describes Anna Karenina.
Nowhere in this ballet is this more true than in the finale of Act One, where the concluding firestorm of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony becomes the driving force behind the harrowing intensity of a pas de trois with Anna, her lover Vronsky, and her husband Karenin. Neumeier even makes a strength out of Tchaikovsky's weakest moment in the symphony, taking advantage of the sudden and inexplicable interruption of a harmonium (chamber organ) to portray the scene of Kitty's wedding to Levin.
Alongside the Tchaikovsky excerpts, Neumeier has also employed some edgy modern works by Alfred Schnittke, and (far less expectedly) several songs by Cat Stevens.
The set, also designed by the choreographer, uses a white floor in front of a box of black curtains, and large rolling set pieces with doors on both sides and open ends -- allowing them to be used in almost infinite combinations and locations. These are also painted stark, institutional white as is one of the several backdrops flown in and out for different scenes. Costumes are modern.
The ballet opens with a small but significant shift for the character of Karenin -- instead of being a powerful bureaucrat, he appears as a campaigning politician. This change gives the fullest motivation for him to have not just a picture-perfect life, but also a picture-perfect demeanour at all times. As Karenin, Brendan Saye strutted and preened stylishly about the stage, always showing to advantage in front of the cheering crowds at the political rally and the omnipresent photographers.
Later, at home, he couldn't take off that public persona. While Sonia Rodriguez matched him in polish at the rally, the raw edges of Anna's discontentment and loneliness dominated her dancing as soon as she was at home again. And Saye's continued posing as Karenin made the reasons abundantly clear.
As the ballet progressed, Rodriguez grew more and more into the role, finding even greater inward depths of feeling to portray the slowly-growing despair of the woman. A memorable performance.
Their young son, Seryozha, was played with aptly childlike innocence, playfulness, and abundant energy by Alexander Skinner, a new member of the corps de ballet. The moments when Anna played happily with him on the floor were a delight.
Christopher Gerty brought sensuality and charm to his portrayal of Anna's philandering brother, Stiva.
Jenna Savella raged with equal parts power and abandon as his wife, Dolly, when she caught him with their children's governess. Their quarrel scene was a high energy point in the first act. Savella then gave a real feeling of force-in-stillness in the domestic scene where she returns to her children.
Meghan Pugh gave a brilliant, wide-ranging performance as Kitty, portraying the innocent excitement of the young girl and the overwrought desperation of the woman with verve and energy.
Naoya Ebe presented Vronsky as a cool, elegant man of the world, maintaining that polish even in the most energetic sequences with his fellow lacrosse players. Only in the intensity of that pas de trois at the end of Act One did the air of sophistication drop away, revealing the raw emotions within.
The most coolly classical moment of the entire ballet was the romantic pas de deux for Anna and Vronsky at the opening of Act Two. Set to the adagio cantabile from Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, this duet seemed like a beautifully-framed museum piece amid the more hard-edged intensity of so many other scenes.
Skylar Campbell gave great depth and weight to the later scenes in his role as the empathetic Levin, and did sterling work with the complex choreography of his first scene.
That first scene for Levin, choreographed to Cat Stevens' Moonshadow, struck me as the weakest point of Neumeier's conception. The scene description as given in the programme calls Levin an aristocratic landowner, and says he is dreaming of Kitty (Dolly's sister). What we got was a man wearing a lumberjack shirt, driving a tractor, looking for all the world like a farm hand -- and dancing with such an edgy, near-frantic quality that the dream seemed more like a nightmare. Especially when set against the gentle, almost meditative quality of the song, the choreography of this scene came across as a major miscalculation -- a rare weak spot in a ballet filled with tensile strength.
Early in the ballet, at the railway station, Anna witnesses the death of a Mushik (a railway worker). This dead man drags his own corpse away in a sack while bent double. He reappears at intervals as the personification of Fate, always slamming the sack loudly onto the floor as he appears and dragging it slowly across the stage, heedless of whatever else goes on around him -- a powerful reiteration of a powerful symbol. And for a real pit-of-the-stomach moment, it's hard to beat the penultimate scene where first Vronsky and then Karenin appear dressed in the Mushik's characteristic neon-orange jumpsuit.
What really stuck in the mind at the end of the entire performance was not so much the rapid and fatal denouement as that terribly intense pas de trois in Act One. Well, that, and the great intensity, power, and emotional descent into darkness of the title character. As Anna, Sonia Rodriguez owned the stage from first to last.
Anna Karenina is not, then, a perfect ballet, but it comes pretty damn close. It's definitely a first-rate vehicle to show the strength and depth of the company. I'm only sorry I didn't have the chance to see it twice.
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