Conductor
Barry Wordsworth
The Royal Opera Chorus directed by
Renato Balsadonna
Scenes De Ballet
Music
Igor Stravinsky
Choreographer
Frederick Ashton
Design
Andre Beaurepaire
Daphnis and Chloe
Music
Maurice Ravel
Choreographer
Frederick Ashton
Design
John Craxton
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Scenes de Ballet,
Divertissements and
Daphnis and Chloe
The Royal Ballet
Covent Garden
13 - 25 November 2004
In this sumptuous evening of dance almost the entire palette of Ashton's skills as a choreographer are on show 'almost' because the high and even zany humour of (say) 'A Wedding Bouquet' awaits another evening. His genius as a story-teller, his love of geometries, his classicism, and his ability to subvert classicism with its own tropes wonderfully reconfigured, are all here; and so are his lyricism and his striking powers of observation, evident in how he finds the line and gesture that says more than words could hope to convey.
'Scenes de ballet' has become a signature piece in the Ashton repertoire. It is a dance about dance, and it exemplifies the meticulous structuring that Ashton strove to attain in his most typical formal pieces. Here patterns communicate themselves from group to group of dancers, who are disposed in formations that fold, mutate and rearrange themselves in a fluid interpretation of the Stravinsky score. It was a work that Ashton himself remained deeply satisfied with, not least because in it he had fulfilled an aspiration: to create absolute dance that could be viewed from any angle and retain its meaning that could indeed offer new dimensions of meaning as the angle of view changed.
The performance was a good one. The Royal Ballet is a company that never quite manages perfect synchrony among its dancers, which for something as carefully shaped as 'Scenes de ballet' is a drawback; but the technical excellence, expressiveness and energy of the ensemble, and the rich talent of the principals and soloists, standardly gives high pleasure, and this was as true here as always. The
'Divertissements' were a delight. After a slightly sotto 'Awakening pas de deux' from 'Sleeping Beauty' there was an erotic, sultry 'Thais Pas de Deux' danced with powerful theatricality by Mara Galeazzi and Thiago Soares. In two moments from 'Devil's Holiday', Viacheslav Samodurov dancing solo in one and with Isabel McMeekan in the other, the Royal Ballet has added a charming piece to its stock. This is even more true of the 'Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan'. Ashton here captures the Duncan spirit in what strikes one as a superb piece of mimicry and ventriloquism, even to the extent of expressing the egoistic, temperamental, passionate ad hoc creativity of an extraordinary 'artiste' in the grand sense. Tamara Rojo was superb in the role; she seems to have captured and inhabited the Duncan outlook, and remained in character for her curtsey in front of the curtain afterwards to acknowledge a highly appreciative audience.
If 'Thais' and the Isadora Duncan memoir offered hard acts to follow, Leanne Benjamin and Carlos Acosta rose to the challenge in 'Voice of Spring Pas de Deux', dancing majestically and eloquently to give a fine evocation of this lovely Ashton cameo. Acosta is a strong dancer made for a very particular type of role, and in this miniature he has found the quintessential one.
'Daphnis and Chloe' has a long and complicated history as a ballet, to such an extent indeed that had Ashton not taken artistic ownership of the Ravel score and unleashed on it his own fresh, lyrical, narrative brilliance, it might now be known as a musical piece only. The music and the tale offer fine bones to a story-teller to flesh, and Ashton predictably does it well. So well, indeed, that one hardly notices the subtleties of his craft the seamless, easy, utterly perspicuous telling of the tale, which makes it seem almost light there have been those who thought it facile but it has what Ashton at his best always achieves: the dark with the light, the commentary on darker emotions and the exercise of fate, which remain in the mind even after the triumphant ending has made an effort to efface memories of jealousy, danger, plunder, the threat of rape and the reality of loss.
Miyako Yoshida was an enchanting Chloe, and Laura Morera danced a beautiful, seductive and convincing Lykanion. Barry Wordsworth and the Royal Opera House orchestra and choir were superb. No one could have left Covent Garden that cold Saturday night without some satisfying sentiments to warm them, as a result of seeing much that is best in the choreography and performance of the dance.
Maya Lester
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