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Royal Ballet: La Fille mal gardée, Spring 2015


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Alison, To the best of my memory, the handstand/cartwheel ending to Alain's solo has al.ways been in place. I go back to the late sixties with this ballet and, though I didn't see the initial run of performances, everyone I've seen as Alain, starting with Alexander Grant, has ended it thus (with, admittedly, varying degrees of athleticism and emphasis!).

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think that Alain's handstand is more noticeable now because the ballet is danced more slowly than in the past and the angle of the seat on which Simone,Thomas and Lise sit has been altered.I think that it used to be placed at a slight angle rather than almost parallel to the front of the stage so that the handstand was concealed from the audience.

 

It's one of those small details like keeping the rustics upstage so that they distract the audience from seeing Bottom's transformation in the Dream,or making sure that the lads bringing in the sheaves in the second act of Fille conceal Colas as he is smuggled into Simone's house that are not seen as that important by those staging these works.As with much else in Ashton's ballets you ignore his floor plans at your peril.

 

As with so much to do with Ashton ballets it is small details that make all the difference. There are two snippets of film on You Tube of Ashton rehearsing his ballets one is of him coaching Sibley and Dowell in the final section of the Dream, which I think was filmed as a masterclass for the BBC, the other is of him working in Canada with a girl who has learnt the rudiments of the role of the Gypsy in Two Pigeons.In both cases his involvement with the dancers is transformative. He takes a good performance by Sibley and Dowell and by insisting on apparently trivial changes turns it into a great one full of detail that is sadly missing from a lot of the performances we see today.In the Canadian rehearsal studio he transforms a dancer from someone doing the steps into someone portraying a character through performing the choreography.

 

Something missing from many of the Ashton roles, particularly those created on Alexander Grant, is an understanding of and commitment to demi character dancing.Grant gave an interview at about the time of the centenary in which he insisted that Alain was a character rather than a role. He also said that what everyone forgot was how much Massine had influenced Ashton and that in order to understand Ashton you had to understand Massine. I have seen several Massine ballets and in everyone of them it is the effect created by the dancer's application of their technique to the creation and portrayal of a character that is important not simply technique. That the dancer has the technique is a given, it is what they do with it that matters. As Colas and Lise are demi character role it is rather sad to see the Fanny Elssler pas de deux treated as a Russian style display piece broken up to garner applause rather than danced through in character.

 

Today's emphasis on technique as an end in itself rather than a means to an end has had a stultifying effect on the way in which Ashton is danced which is perhaps best illustrated by comparing two performances by the Royal Ballet in La Valse one recorded in the the late 1950's or early 1960's which can be found, I think, on the DVD An Evening with the Royal Ballet which includes Aurora's Wedding and the other on a recent all Ashton DVD. In the earlier recording the dancers just get on and dance the ballet for all its worth. I think that Elizabeth McGorian said that they went "woosh" which is a very succinct way of describing the performance. In the later recording there is a greater hesitancy and it seems to me, more concern about doing the steps and not making a mistake, than actually performing the ballet.It is a bit like someone trying to talk in a foreign language who is more afraid of getting the idiomatic phrases wrong than conversing.

Edited by FLOSS
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  • 2 years later...
On 5/9/2015 at 05:23, Sim said:

Was the Marquez/McRae Fille cast ever released on DVD?  I thought it was, but that is probably wishful thinking more than accuracy!!  I think it is a real pity that Marquez, the definitive Lise of these times for me, has not had her performance committed to DVD for pubic posterity.  

I know this is like 3 years late, but you can find it online. Its very good. I adored the Ospivova/McRae but the Marquez/McRae just had something special that made it more fun.

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