Sunday 20 March 2022

National Ballet 2021-2022 # 4: The Ever-Magical Sleeping Beauty

Of all productions in the entire National Ballet of Canada repertoire, I've seen this venerable production of The Sleeping Beauty the most often (apart from the annual Nutcracker, of course). Originally staged and adapted by the legendary Rudolf Nureyev from Marius Petipa's classic version, it's not quite the oldest production in the company's roster, but it has undoubtedly been danced more often than any other except The Nutcracker. There are a whole raft of reasons for that fact, but fact it is -- and I've covered many of the reasons in earlier reviews of previous stagings. Here are the links to those, so you can read my comments on those previous occasions.
 
 
 
 
 
For now, I am going to simplify matters by going straight to the performance I saw this week. This was a Saturday matinee in a remounting designed to commemorate the National Ballet's first staging of this Rudolf Nureyev production fifty years ago, in 1972. The event was marked by a short commentary in the programme book from Veronica Tennant, one of the young Canadian dancers who first performed these roles at that time, in her case dancing the role of Aurora opposite Rudolf Nureyev himself. From her words, you can sense the sheer dynamic excitement which attended that legendary production, a true "coming of age" moment for what was, at the time, still a young company.

The roles of Aurora and (in the Nureyev production) Prince Florimund are major testing roles for young dancers moving upwards towards the top ranks. On Saturday, we had a chance to watch one of the two new Auroras making their role debuts this year, First Soloist Calley Skalnik (the other was First Soloist Jeannine Haller). Skalnik's performance immediately scored with the light-hearted, playful exuberance of the young princess in Act I, moving on to a more thoughtful, subtle reading of the Act II dream sequence and a dynamic performance in the final grand pas de deux. Technically impressive in both the Rose Adagio and the pas de deux, Skalnik will be worth watching as her performance of this role grows.
 
As Florimund, we had Principal Dancer Brendan Saye, whose work was notable for insightful interpretation and secure partnering. Above all, he scored in the long introspective solo of Act II. This was a complete invention of Nureyev's, one of several additions he made to the role. For it, he picked up a slow entr'acte originally designed to bridge the scene change towards the end of the act, a bridge which simply isn't needed with modern scenic design and set change methods. Pure dance, of course, but also a significant contribution to the portrait of the prince -- and Saye communicated the man's unrest with great finesse. 

Both of these excellent performers had significant moments where you could forget to think about their technique and simply concentrate on their characters' immersion in the story they were telling. All the same, their technical flair was certainly noteworthy.
 
In what's become a much rarer event than in earlier days, a pre-show announcement listed off a series of cast changes involving a number of the featured Fairy roles in the Prologue and Act III. I didn't have time to note all the switches involved, but that announcement did draw my attention to the depth and strength of the company in filling all of these "minor" roles. They are minor, in the sense of lasting only a minute or so each, but the Fairy variations of the Prologue and the wedding celebration challenge the dancers to complete a portrait, with characteristic footwork and port de bras, even finger positions, a critical part of each one -- and all in a very brief time span.
 
It's a significant pointer to the overall strength of the company that, with five (I think) dancers appearing in roles they originally didn't expect to fill on this date, there were no significant hiccups or issues, and no need to suggest that any of them "were very good -- considering...." All were impressive.

More contributions to the playfulness of the performance came from the whimsical tone adopted by Rebekah Rimsay as the Countess in Act II, and the team of Dukes and Duchesses who dance with her in the hunt scene.

The third act divertissement brought one welcome surprise. The performance skipped over the slow, stately sarabande which normally opens the act. This was another of Nureyev's displacements, the music originally designed to come after the pas de deux and before the final grand waltz. I've always felt that using it to open the act was an error, a significant slowing-down of the performance's momentum. 

In the pas de cinq, Genevieve Penn Nabity (role debut) and Christopher Gerty presented an impressive duo as the two Diamonds.

In another role debut, Larkin Miller did impressive work in the soaring leaps of the Bluebird, although I would welcome a slightly freer, more winglike use of the arms. Miyoko Koyasu presented a graceful Princess Florine.

Clare Peterson and Isaac Wright, both in role debuts, brought out plenty of chuckles from the audience as the playful Pussycats (a holdover from the story of Puss in Boots in Ivan Vsevolozhsky's original libretto of 1889).

Finally, and by no means an also-ran, high praise for the significant work of Conductor-in-Residence Maria Seletskaja in leading the splendid National Ballet Orchestra through what stands (for me) as the most masterly ballet score in existence. I can never forget how then-Ballet Master Lindsay Fischer described the score for The Sleeping Beauty as "this marvellous symphony," and it is all of that and then some. The subtleties and excellences of the Orchestra's playing are simply too numerous to mention but gave -- as always -- immense pleasure, and the entire performance rested securely on Seletskaja's skillful conducting.

Performances of The Sleeping Beauty continue until March 27 at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto.
 
 
 

Sunday 13 March 2022

Toronto Symphony Orchestra 2021-2022 # 3: Screen to Stage

One of the most intriguing concert programmes in my entire music-loving career was set on stage at Roy Thomson Hall this week by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
 
It was, in fact, a concert which could have existed in no time or situation before the present day. Every work on the concert was previously performed, virtually and/or on video, by members of the Orchestra during the long, drawn-out months of the first pandemic lockdown. These performances are now being shared, for the first time, played live for a live audience at Roy Thomson Hall. 

Hence the unusual title. Typically, we imagine things going from stage to screen -- a stage play or musical being adapted for film would be an obvious example. It's much rarer for any artistic expression to adapt in the opposite direction -- hence the unique nature of this concert.
 
It was in intriguing concert for another reason. It was two years ago this week that the world came to a crashing halt as the pandemic erupted. It was two years ago this week that guest conductor Ryan Bancroft went through all the rehearsals, even the final dress rehearsal, for a programme highlighted by Mussorgsky's famed Pictures at an Exhibition. This week, albeit with a different programme, his long-delayed debut with the TSO finally happened.
 
And finally, as we gathered in a world overshadowed by war and the threat of greater war possibly to come, Bancroft read a statement of support for the nation and people of Ukraine on behalf of the orchestra, its board, its staff, its supporters, and then asked the entire audience to stand for the national anthem of Ukraine. I'm sure I wasn't the only person in the hall whose eyes became wet -- nor was that the last time it would happen in this concert.
 
The opening work was Dvorak's rollicking Slavonic Dance No. 8, a piece I've loved ever since I was a youngster, and used to play in the 4-hands piano original version with my sister. As a kid, I was instantly fascinated by the continual switching between groups of 3 x 2 beats and 2 x 3 beats, a pattern entirely characteristic of the traditional Czech furiant -- of which this rowdy dance is a prime example. As always, it ended far too soon.

For the next number, concertmaster Jonathan Crow took the stage to play the solo part in the ineffably lovely Romance No 2 in F Major for Violin and Orchestra by Beethoven. This piece falls into what I consider the "mid-range" of Beethoven's output: not nearly as well known as the great masterpieces, but far too well-crafted and thoughtful to be dismissed along with his cheap potboilers and moneymakers.

At a sedate tempo, Bancroft and Crow joined to give the work a truly gentle yet strong reading, capturing the opposites of tone which sometimes succeed each other within moments. Crow's beautifully sustained playing made me regret even more than usual that these Romances aren't programmed more often, as they surely deserve to be.

Third place went to the Symphony No. 29 in A Major, K.186a (201) by Mozart. Lightweight in comparison to later Mozart works in the size of the orchestra (strings, oboe and horn only), the symphony otherwise has much to say, particularly in the reliance on the structured sonata form for three of the four movements. Together, conductor and orchestra delivered a crisp, well-paced account which found ideal light and shade in each of the movements, culminating with a bouncy performance of the finale -- and a beautifully timed payoff line in the final notes of the symphony. One wonders if this little leg-pull might have inspired Beethoven's later similar jokes in the scherzo movements of his seventh and ninth symphonies?

After the intermission, the orchestra returned with Prayer by Vivian Fung, a work commissioned for performance by a virtual orchestra in the first months of the pandemic, two years ago. Fung rose to the challenge of designing music to be played by an orchestra that would never assemble physically together, and the result also sounded both powerful and convincing in a live and in-person performance. Texturally complex, Prayer nonetheless makes sure that the hearer picks out the essential melodic figures which are so frequently repeated in different instruments. An impressive piece.

The concert wrapped up with the orchestral suite derived from the ballet, Appalachian Spring, by Aaron Copland. This 25-minute "suite" for full orchestra (I actually think "symphonic poem" would be a better descriptor) contains all the essential themes of the original 35-minute ballet, amplified from the chamber score for 13 instruments which Copland composed according to the original commission.

It's an interesting sidelight that Copland always referred to the work as "Ballet for Martha" while he was composing it for Martha Graham. It was she who suggested the title, just before the premiere, based on a poem in which the "spring" in question is a spring of water, not a time of year.

To most listeners, though, the music itself will likely suggest a dawn-to-dusk panorama of country life, even without any further details given. The quiet, gentle music which frames the whole score inevitably suggests a musical portrayal of dawn and sunset to me.
 
Those quiet opening bars certainly captured the sense of waiting, or imminence. Bancroft shaped the entire score with a masterly hand, from the slow, hold-your-breath passages to the rapid, even raucous, music rooted in folk dancing -- particularly the atmosphere of the square dance. He especially proved his mettle in holding the entire orchestra tightly together at brisk speeds in the country dance passages with their frequent and wicked dropped and added beats. 

Nothing spoke to the quality of the performance, and of the concert as a whole, better than the gentle fading into silence of the final notes at the end of Appalachian Spring, as the piece didn't actually end -- rather, it evaporated. Even more to the point was the breathless silence that followed, at least 20 seconds of rapt quiet before the storm of applause and cheering erupted.

We may have waited a long time for Ryan Bancroft to make his debut with the Toronto Symphony, but with his leadership of this concert -- and most of all with this magnificent performance of Appalachian Spring -- he staked a fair claim to be invited back, and soon. I hope he will be.


National Ballet 2021-22 # 3: Mixed Programme and Another Sad Farewell

Some of my favourite shows at the National Ballet of Canada through the years have been the mixed programmes. These performances, made up of two or more shorter dance works, can be fascinating, infuriating, boring, stimulating, forgettable and utterly memorable -- all in one afternoon. One of the intriguing aspects is experiencing the ways in which quite different dance works can and do somehow comment on or illuminate each other by being placed together in a single programme. A key part of the experience is the frequency with which these programmes introduce brand-new works, having their world premieres, or company premieres of works previously staged elsewhere. In recent years, there's been a decided trend to including works created by members of the company on their colleagues.
 
All this, and often much more, for the price of a single ticket!
 
The mixed programme of this winter season includes no less than three world or company premieres -- more on that as I come to the individual pieces.

These performances also mark the final appearances of another long-time (22 years) and much-loved member of the company, Principal Dancer Jillian Vanstone.

As fully versatile as any other member of the company, Vanstone yet has one remarkable ability which I will certainly miss -- an ability which is perhaps as much a gift of birth as a learned skill. Vanstone has the most remarkable way of getting right into some of the younger characters in the canon, and convincing us utterly that she herself is actually just 14 or 16 years old, or whatever number is called for by the particular choreographer.

Many of her colleagues do a beautiful job of such roles as the young Princess Aurora, Juliet, Alice, Cinderella, Perdita, and others -- yet I'm still conscious that they are adults acting the role of a teenager. Jillian Vanstone becomes, for the moment, a girl again herself -- and for a woman of her age, this is a remarkable gift that is uniquely hers. The only other dancer I can remember in my entire career who could do this so successfully, and it was in rather a different way, was Veronica Tennant.

So I will certainly miss Jillian Vanstone, and think of her often, at future stagings of such ballets as Sleeping Beauty (coming next week, by the way), Cinderella, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Romeo and Juliet, The Winter's Tale, and more.

And, with that, on to the actual performance.

The first work was the world premiere of Skyward, created for the company by Choreographic Associate Alysa Pires. For Pires, and for many of the dancers, this was the first new creation made in the studio after the lockdown, and the excitement was intense. As Pires said, "I wanted to bottle that feeling." She succeeded. Skyward bubbles over with intense, affirming, aspirational energy and power. As I've noticed in previous reviews of her work, Pires is an intensely musical choreographer, and the dance throughout this piece grew as one with the music. The title was affirmed again and again by the frequent lifts, the sense of near-weightlessness, the urge to become airborne in so many places.

The second work was the company premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's 2005 work for New York City ballet, After the Rain. This was the piece which Jillian Vanstone specifically requested for her swan song, and for once the Saturday matinee audience was actually fortunate to see the retiring dancer in her selected last role (this is a great rarity). Vanstone had requested this work specifically because of her long and fruitful professional relationship with Wheeldon, who chose her as the first dancer in North America to perform the role of Alice when his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was staged with the National Ballet.

We're told in the programme notes that the second half of the work, the awesomely beautiful pas de deux, is a favourite stand-alone number for many dancers. To me, this seems a great pity as it is both finely balanced by and searchingly contrasted to the preceding pas de six. The true impact of the work depends on seeing it as a whole, and those who just take the pas de deux out of context are, I think, short-changing their audiences -- wonderful as it is.

The first section, the pas de six, had a clearly ritualistic character. This quality comes first of all from the music Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa (literally, "blank slate"). The strings march at a precise tempo through a kind of fugato which then lands on a suspension and holds there, while one of two solo violins plays a looser kind of rhapsody or cadenza, using a melodic figure from the fugue as a basis. This pattern repeats a number of times. Each time the solo violin appears, two of the three couples on stage stand still while the third goes through a series of movements seen only in these brief duos, and completely separate from the movements of the six dancers during the fugue. In short, both music and dance are highly stylized and severely structured.

The contrast with the heartaching humanity of the succeeding pas de deux (set to Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel) makes the case for staging the entire work. A quick costume change puts the lead couple into simple costumes, with the woman dancing in soft slippers and (most unusually) with her hair down. Vanstone's long hair is so unusual to be seen in classical dance that it becomes almost a third character, by turns revealing and concealing the all too human emotions of the woman and man. In that total contrast to the first part, the flowing movement comes to the verge of articulate speech time and time again. Jillian Vanstone and Harrison James projected strong waves of human vulnerability, tinged with the sorrow of farewell which was -- of course -- heightened by the occasion. A treasurable moment in ballet to remember.
 
After the intermission, we next saw the world premiere of On Solid Ground, created by Principal Dancer Siphesihle November. I found the title a bit ironic for a work which again seems to aspire frequently to cast aside the surly bonds of earth. November stated that his intention was to translate for the audience the joy of internal self-exploration and self-awareness in movement. That's a challenging intention, to be sure, so it intrigued me that the choreography so often created a feeling of being a Rorschach ink blot test in motion, as much designed to trigger the self-awareness of the viewer as of the artists. This kind of dance fascinates me -- choreography which, although abstract, often seems momentarily on the verge of making some kind of concrete statement. I love the constant flow of my own thoughts and feelings demanded as I watch such a work. 

In contrast to three premieres with varying degrees of seriousness, the final work in the programme was a golden oldie which can only be described as a joyous romp. Elite Syncopations (the title comes from the second song on the playlist) makes no deep statements, asking us only to relax, banish care, and join the company in the spirit of fun.

Kenneth MacMillan created this jovial piece in 1974 on the Royal Ballet, using music by Scott Joplin and others of his contemporaries at a time when his music was much in vogue -- due to the use of the rag The Entertainer in the Hollywood film, The Sting. The National Ballet gave the piece its company premiere in 1978 and it's been a firm audience favourite ever since.

It's hard to resist the colourful and elaborate costumes, actually all painted by hand on tights, worn by the various dancers, or the sight of the musicians of the orchestra dressed in light jackets and straw boaters, up on risers at the back of the stage -- led by pianist Edward Connell, who switches from time to time between a concert grand and an old, out of tune, honky-tonk upright.

The setting is a 1920s dance hall, and a community social dance is in progress. Characters present include the hot-shot handsome stud, the sexy girl that every guy wants, the little wallflower guy who never gets to dance with anyone (especially not with the sexy girl), and so on and on. MacMillan's choreography harks back to dance styles from the 1880s on forwards to the 1920s, and deliberately exaggerates many movements in a preposterous way designed to enhance the fun.

Because this is such a company piece, with every number featuring different dancers, it seems almost unfair to single anyone out. But I was delighted with the partnership of Svetlana Lunkina as the sexy girl and Brendan Saye as the hot-shot. Equally funny, and equally absurd, was Noah Parets as the little wallflower. When he finally does get to dance with the tallest girl present, played with real verve by Jaclyn Oakley, the audience is in stitches at their preposterous antics -- all fueled by the fact that Oakley dances on pointe to exaggerate the height difference.

Since it's now, in effect, a historic artifact taking a comical spin at an even older historical period,the historian in me is fascinated by how well Elite Syncopations has weathered the years. I suspect it is, as much as anything, our desperate need to find something -- anything -- to make us laugh in such turbulent, uncertain times. Be that as it may, there's no doubt that the near-full house laughed uproariously, especially at the antics of Parets and Oakley. The need has certainly been met.

And my need for a challenging, rewarding, fascinating mixed programme of dance has been more than definitely met.

Wednesday 9 March 2022

National Ballet 2021-2022 # 2: A Streetcar I Don't Desire

The National Ballet of Canada has revived John Neumeier's raw-edged balletic revisioning of A Streetcar Named Desire, inspired by the landmark 1947 play by American writer Tennessee Williams.
 
Principal Dancer Sonia Rodriguez is retiring after a career with the company spanning more than three decades. This work has been mounted at her request to give her a chance to bow out with a favourite role -- and one which she chose precisely because it places her on stage alongside so many of her colleagues in the company. I did not see Rodriguez dancing in the Saturday matinee. The National Ballet's management, for whatever reason or reasons, does not seem to feel that the audience of the Saturday matinees is worthy of being allowed to share in such special occasions as this.
 
This is one major dance work which I suspect may be much more rewarding to the performers than to many of the audience. Although the sheer force of the work impressed me on first acquaintance, I had a strong feeling, after a second viewing, that it lacks staying power.

In light of that feeling, it's intriguing to me to compare the impact of Streetcar (originally staged in 1983) with the same choreographer's Nijinsky (2000), another work which largely takes place inside the tortured, disintegrating mind of the principal character.

The two pieces share many of the same elements: multiple characters in multiple different dreamlike actions all on stage at once, repetition of key scenes or sequences, the use of rapidly repeated movements of hands or feet, and -- overall -- a dance work which definitely calls upon the entire company's resources to perform.
 
Why, then, do I now find Streetcar so enervating and grueling to sit through when Nijinsky remains, for me, endlessly involving and thought-provoking?
 
 I'd have to start with the source material. For many years now, I've had little patience with people who always want to live in the past, an attitude which lies at the root of Blanche's disintegration. Williams has never been one of my favourite writers because his characters so often seem to go there and get stuck in that groove. Blanche DuBois in particular spends a large part of the performance actively trying to deny and defy the changes that are overcoming her life. My observation is that when you try to do that, life runs you over and flattens you into the ground -- because change is life's only constant. 
 
By contrast, Nijinsky charts the meteoric career of a dynamic artist, a man who pushed against and through the accepted limitations of his time in all kinds of directions -- and came apart in the process. 

Second place goes to the music. Nijinsky uses two orchestral masterworks of the Russian school. Streetcar employs two main works: Prokofiev's Visions fugitives in the first act, and (in the second act) the tremendously noisy and unpleasant Symphony # 1, composed (I'm giving the composer the benefit of the doubt) by Alfred Schnittke. It's loud, clangorous, dissonant, nerve-grinding "music" and it goes on and on and on like that, making the second act of the ballet into an hour-long journey to auditory hell. Worse still, it is all played (by the choreographer's express wish) on the sound system, not by a live orchestra -- an ultimate expression of Brechtian epic detachment.

By the time he came to create Nijinsky (17 years later), Neumeier had discovered, whether knowingly or not, that the states of mental deterioration could quite readily be expressed through more concordant music,played live in the pit -- leaving the tension to be generated by the clashes between dance and music, not by the volume of noise pouring out of a speaker.
 
Finally, in Nijinsky, the traffic jams of conflicting and competing multiple scenes happening at the same time are very much integral to the story of the great dancer's progressive mental deterioration. All are taking place, to some degree, in his mind. In Streetcar, much of the onstage traffic seems completely external, with the repeated street parades in New Orleans basically standing in as moving scenic backdrop to the main action -- a far more distracting and less integrated dramatic concept.

To sum up: both times I have watched the National Ballet stage Streetcar, I have respectfully admired the achievement of the dancers without truly loving or valuing any of the characters, or any of what I see depicted on stage. And if you can't care about the characters, why bother to go?
 
So now, to get down to the actual performances which I saw on Saturday afternoon. 

Svetlana Lunkina gave a riveting performance as Blanche in the scenes where her uncertainty and loss of identity are mostly to the fore. The edgy quality of her every movement is the essential element here, and Lunkina's performance captured that element in spades. I would have welcomed a clearer expression of the seductive quality of the character -- it was there when needed, but much more muted. Her shock at the sight of her husband, Allan, being kissed by his male friend, was both convincing and startling. Most of all, Lunkina brought a dynamic feeling of desperation to her frantic attempts to rescue her ancestors and set the chairs right at the end of the first act.

The playful and the seductive were both keynotes of Chelsy Meiss in the contrasting role of Blanche's sister, Stella. Already, in the first act at the plantation of Belle Reve, Meiss clearly showed that she had outgrown this tired old world of traditions without any purpose and social postures without any meaning. In the second act, seduction turned to raw sexuality (not pornography, it is still dance) in her bedroom scene with her husband, Stanley.

The role of Stanley was performed by Piotr Stanczyk. In his reading, the man swaggers without cause and sneers without reason -- a classic example of a lout who's had to settle for being the big fish in a very small pond. Everything about him, from his boxing scene with Mitch to the climactic and horrifying rape scene with Blanche (again, not pornographic), showed him displaying his desperate need to be in control, in charge, on top of the heap. Stanczyk scores points with his sneering face every time Stanley flexes to prove his power, if only to himself. This performance was admirable not least for Stanczyk's spot-on control of the numerous strange and difficult twists, turns, jumps, and the like which the choreographer has laid out for this role.
 
Donald Thom proved convincing in the nice-guy role of Mitch. His sudden dramatic revulsion and departure when Stanley tells him all about Blanche's "friends" at the Flamingo Motel was a powerful change of tone and movement alike.

Harrison James gave a poetic account of Allan Grey in the first act. His movements flowed gracefully in contrast to the more sudden actions of other characters. Together with Christopher Gerty (or was it Ben Rudisin?) in the role of Allan's Friend, he gave an intense and involving account of the long dance sequence in which they gradually draw closer and closer to each other. It's an inspired little touch from Neumeier to have the dancer who portrays Allan reappear at the very end as the doctor who comes to escort Blanche to the asylum.
 
Streetcar is, without question, a company piece, and the various members of the company provided effective support to the main cast in roles like the ancestors, the dancers in the ballroom, the street parade, and others.
 
Powerful? Undeniably. Strongly performed? Definitely. Memorable? For sure.
 
Do I want to see it again? Sorry to all those who enjoy staging and performing A Streetcar Named Desire, but no. For me, twice is definitely more than enough.