Opera to Ballet and vice versa

[NorthernAndBallet]

I've seen at least a couple of operas performed as ballet, Carmen and Madame Butterfly, and I know there are a few more. I can't think of an example the other way round though where a ballet has been turned into an opera. Whilst I'm at it, are there any operas, musicals, films etc that anyone would really be keen to see performed as a ballet?

[Jan McNulty]

What an interesting topic NaB.

 

I've got to admit that I am a total philistine and prefer opera without the singing!

 

Perhaps something like Aida would work as a ballet?  I'm not overly familiar with opera so that is the only one I can come up with.

 

I've amended the title slightly to open it up more too.

[Geoff]

Ballet to opera, that's hard! Maybe widen the question to ballets which have gone into films? So not just Red Shoes / Black Swan type films but for example that Brian de Palma film which (rather oddly) has lots of Afternoon Of A Faun as part of the plot, can't think of the name.

[Coated]

I'd love to see Elektra as a ballet, something in the 30-40 minute region, full orchestra, maybe done by Pita or Scarlett, either in its historical setting or updated for the modern day (dead) oligarch. Or maybe in a 1970's grim factory setting. I realise my chances are exceedingly slim.

[zxDaveM]

don't know about opera, but I'd love to see Tess of the D'Ubervilles as a ballet...

[FLOSS]

La Sonnambula is the only example of a theatrical piece starting out as a ballet and subsequently being turned into an opera that I can think of. As a ballet based on a libretto by E.Scribe with choreography by Jean Pierre Aumer called La Somnambule, ou la arrivee d'un nouveau seigneur it received its premiere in Paris in 1827 .It is better known as the opera composed by Vincenzo Bellini with a libretto by F. Romano called La Sonnambula which received its premiere at Milan in 1831.

 

Surely Elektra would fail Balanchine's "mother in law test"?. By which i mean Balanchine's statement  that there are certain things that ballet is incapable of telling an audience which he put very succinctly by saying "There are no mothers in law in ballet" How is the choreographer going to inform the audience that Orestes tricks his way into the palace by telling his friend to report that he is dead? This is an essential element of the plot for two reasons. It explains how Orestes is able to gain access to his mother to kill her but more importantly it prompts Elektra's great outpouring of grief. Martha Graham is one of the few choreographers that I can think of who has managed to produce works that deal effectively with this sort of mythic material. I suspect that she had a great advantage over modern choreographers in that she could expect a significant proportion of her audience to know the myth she was turning into dance.Out of interest whose music would you use for an Elektra ballet?

 

Acosta has a problem with conveying information which cannot easily be told in dance with Carmen. He clearly believes that the card scene in which Carmen and her friends foretell their futures is essential to his retelling of the story so he has staged the scene using a singer to do the fortune telling. The problem is that when Carmen lays out the cards in the opera she sings words to the effect of "Always death. First me then him." Acosta has not been able to recreate that moment satisfactorily in his staging. His staging of Carmen's death is weak as well. In the opera Carmen's friends warn her that they have seen Don Jose in the crowd outside the bullring but she refuses to go in and stays in the street. After he begs her to return to him Carmen demands that he should let leave. He then kills her.You can't show that in ballet either, Carmen trying to evade Jose a bit like a mouse trying to escape a cat is so much weaker.

 

It seems to me that when you look at  individual stories as possible sources for ballet libretti it becomes clear how few there are that are really suitable for transformation into ballets.It makes me more appreciative of the narrative ballets that do work and makes me less critical of the narrative compromises that are required.

Edited October 30, 2015 by FLOSS

[MAB]

Robert Helpmann created an Elektra for the RB with Nadia Nerina and David Blair, I'm told it wasn't a success.

 

Many operas have lengthy ballet sequences but in modern productions they are often cut.  Russian operas have lengthy ballets within them, e.g. Ivan Susanin, Prince Igor etc.  In the west including a ballet adds to the cost.

 

Btw both Massenet and Puccini had a go at Manon, with the former possibly telling the story best of all.

[Coated]

Surely Elektra would fail Balanchine's "mother in law test"?. By which i mean Balanchine's statement that there are certain things that ballet is incapable of telling an audience which he put very succinctly by saying "There are no mothers in law in ballet"

 

It might fail the test, though Cinderella has a stepmother and that comes through quite clearly, Elektra's behated mother and step father could be done. Hansel and Gretel managed to weave some quite complex psychology into the performance, mostly through dancing, but partially through clever staging and sometimes by crossing the line between dancing and acting

 

How is the choreographer going to inform the audience that Orestes tricks his way into the palace by telling his friend to report that he is dead? This is an essential element of the plot for two reasons. It explains how Orestes is able to gain access to his mother to kill her but more importantly it prompts Elektra's great outpouring of grief.

....

Out of interest whose music would you use for an Elektra ballet?

 

I guess this is what ballet mime was for. Perhaps a judicious use of projections can replace that function these days for audiences not familiar with more intricate mime. I wouldn't be adverse to a little bit of cheating by using projections and/or props including lighting or 'vision scenes' of her not-dead brother, they could use a picture / similar to introduce her brother as a concept, which can then be used as a prop when her mother tells her her brother is dead.

 

Music wise, I'm after Strauss, though that wouldn't be straightforward at all.

 

Of course now I'm intrigued to know what the version MAB mentioned was like. The only thing I could find about it was a Wikipedia article mentioning it as a 1967 ballet reworked from an 1963 version for the RB.

 

ETA: according to a book by Zoe Anderson the RB Elektra was short-lived, but lurid, with terrifying throws that see "Nerina hurled from one group of men to another" and a woman screamed and fainted watching them on tour in New York.

 

I wish I had a time machine....

Edited October 30, 2015 by Coated

[James]

There are no mothers-in-law in ballet? Surely, by the middle of Act 2,Lady Capulet is Romeo's mother-in-law.

[GTL]

And there is an almost-mother-in-law in James's mother in "La Sylphide". Both ladies wear distinctive costumes which display their family allegience. The designer or, in more complex storylines, a dramaturg is really important, and of course the Royal Ballet discovered that a freely available plot synopsis sheet helped for "Mayerling".

[Lisa O`Brien]

And there is an almost-mother-in-law in James's mother in "La Sylphide". Both ladies wear distinctive costumes which display their family allegience. The designer or, in more complex storylines, a dramaturg is really important, and of course the Royal Ballet discovered that a freely available plot synopsis sheet helped for "Mayerling".

Love your Avatar,GTL. I LOVE Les Noces. It was on TV decades ago. Haven`t seen it since but would love to see it again.

[Petunia]

Since Elektra was a play and Carmen was a novel before evolving into an opera, we could add Othello (first Verdi’s Opera and then José Limon’s Pavane with Purcell’s Music) or Onegin and many more.

 

Opera to ballet: I for one would like to see a full-blown Walküre (imagine all those galloping ladies with Hojotoho and Heiaha!) and I really don’t care if Siegmund’s long-winded storytelling is difficult to choreograph…!

 

Lucia di Lammermoor is another one I can imagine.

 

Ballet to Opera: Swan Lake or the Nutcracker would make brilliant operas. Just think of all the fantastic choruses and the cute folk songs.

[MAB]

 

 

Opera to ballet: I for one would like to see a full-blown Walküre (imagine all those galloping ladies with Hojotoho and Heiaha!) and I really don’t care if Siegmund’s long-winded storytelling is difficult to choreograph…!

 

 

Got a feeling Bejart did a ring ballet

[Petunia]

You are right - I remember it. A long, long evening of pompous nonsense with very few memorable moments, I'm sorry to say.

[RuthE]

I know there don't seem to be many stories that have gone straight from ballet to opera, but how many of those which have "gone from opera to ballet" have done so in a true sense, rather than just being based on a common source?  I'm assuming the example of Madam Butterfly, above, is genuinely opera-inspired, given that the source play isn't widely known and the opera is (I don't know anything about the ballet's score - is it related to the opera's?)

 

As a long-time opera lover and a relatively recent ballet convert, I always find it fascinating how ballets deal with the same dramatic source material as well-known operas.  I've got a friend who's an operatic principal soprano and we have established a tradition of seeing ballets together which "match" operas in her repertoire; so far Onegin, Marguerite & Armand and Romeo & Juliet (she missed Manon last year by a whisker through being out of town). She really is the best person with whom to have a lengthy discussion about differences in the interpretations after the performance!  I personally find Onegin (the character) comes across much worse in the ballet than in the opera, for example, because the opera's Act 1 Scene 3 is missing from the ballet and conflated into Act 2 Scene 1... I also find it very interesting that in the opera, it is Tatyana who walks out of the final confrontation with Onegin, while in the ballet she ensures it's he that removes himself (it's her home, after all...)

Edited October 30, 2015 by RuthE

[Jan McNulty]

You are right - I remember it. A long, long evening of pompous nonsense with very few memorable moments, I'm sorry to say.

 

 

But the Valkyries in tight black leather were very memorable!  I saw it at the Edin Fest.  It was so long that I missed the firework display and I was praying for it to end by the end but I have never forgotten those Valkyries!

[loveclassics]

Right now I can only think of light operas: Gaite Parisienne, Pineapple Poll & the Merry Widow come to mind.  I'm sure there must be at least one ballet adaptation of Faust but the source there is literary rather than operatic.

 

Personally I'd like to see ballet versions of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld or Ls Belle Helene.  Both have pretty straightforward stories and lovely danceable music.  Not to mention Strauss' Fledermaus.

 

Linda

[Wulff]

The opera Marta by Flotow started life as a ballet (Henriette, ou la servante de Greenwich) by the same composer and two others and was performed in Paris in 1844. The opera followed, this time composed in its entirety by Flotow, and received its first performance in Vienna in 1847. 

 

I recall seeing Helpmann's ballet Elektra at the ROH, but can't remember much about it. I don't think that it tried to tell the story in any detail, but I do recall Nadia Nerina doing nasty things with an axe and being hurled by a group of men from the top of a flight of stairs to be caught by another group at the bottom. I understand that Helpmann made an expanded version of this ballet for the Australian Ballet in1966, but neither version met with any critical acclaim.

[RuthE]

Right now I can only think of light operas: Gaite Parisienne, Pineapple Poll & the Merry Widow come to mind.

The plot of Pineapple Poll does not come from a light opera - though of course the score is stitched together from several - but from one of WS Gilbert's "Bab ballads", although that same source inspired parts of HMS Pinafore. Hmmm... I'd love to see it again. Wonder if BRB might think of bringing it back?

[MAB]

Right now I can only think of light operas: Gaite Parisienne, Pineapple Poll & the Merry Widow come to mind.  I'm sure there must be at least one ballet adaptation of Faust but the source there is literary rather than operatic.

 

Linda

 

Well there is Walpurgisnacht (sp?)  once a Bolshoi staple.

[Pas de Quatre]

I think Walpurgisnacht is just the ballet from within the Opera.  In the rest of Europe (& Russia?) the ballets within operas are treated with respect and rarely cut.  I believe it was the score of Tannhauser that was sent back to Wagner to add more ballet music as the Opera couldn't be staged without enough ballet.

 

Roland Petit choreographed a delightful version of Die Fledermaus.

[MAB]

ENB nee Festival had a version too, Ronald Hynd?

[alison]

The plot of Pineapple Poll does not come from a light opera - though of course the score is stitched together from several - but from one of WS Gilbert's "Bab ballads", although that same source inspired parts of HMS Pinafore. Hmmm... I'd love to see it again. Wonder if BRB might think of bringing it back?

 

It's only a couple of years since they last did it, IIRC.

[alison]

Got a feeling Bejart did a ring ballet

 

Ring um den Ring, wasn't it?  Didn't Berlin Ballet bring it to Edinburgh, or something?

[MAB]

Never saw it myself Alison, but I have a couple of pals that are rabid Wagnerites and they hot-footed it over to Berlin to see it.  I believe they liked it (natch).

[Irmgard]

ENB nee Festival had a version too, Ronald Hynd?

Yes, it was Ronald Hynd's "Rosalinda". 

This is not quite ballet to opera but ballet before opera:  "Giselle" (1841) came before Puccini's first opera "Le Villi" (1884) and both used the same legend although the heroine in Puccini's opera was not so forgiving as Giselle - she actually invites the Wilis to destroy her faithless lover.  It is very rarely done, presumably because the soprano dances the tenor to death and furiously dancing is not something you'd get many opera singers to do!  On the same line, the de Valois ballet "Rake's Progress" (1935) preceded Stravinsky's opera by almost twenty years (it premiered in 1951).  In this instance, I much prefer the one-act ballet to the rather long-winded opera!

Although it is not quite "Orpheus in the Underworld",  Antony Tudor did a lovely ballet called "Offenbach in the Underworld" (similar to Gaite Parisienne) which I saw the National Ballet of Canada perform many times in the 1970s.

[Jan McNulty]

Ring um den Ring, wasn't it?  Didn't Berlin Ballet bring it to Edinburgh, or something?

 

 

See my post #16 - I saw it there!

[Alice Shortcake]

Going back to something else mentioned in the OP, I've often thought that the Powell/Pressburger classic A Matter of Life and Death would make an interesting ballet...perhaps as a project for Matthew Bourne, were it not for the fact that there are a few nods to the film in his version of Cinderella.