Royal Ballet: The Two Pigeons, Monotones I & II, November 2015 & Rhapsody January 2016

[BristolBillyBob]

I saw this programme on Friday evening, and it was a real treat. I'll keep my thoughts short! Well, ish.

 

I've never been a fan of Monotones I (I've got the blu ray of it). It doesn't really 'speak' to me in any particular way and the long, held poses don't do much to add to the elegance of it where it seems determined to undo any unwary dancer that goes anywhere near it. On this occasion, the trio, while dancing it very well individually, didn't seem to move completely as one. I put this down to probably having little time to rehearse together due to Emma Maguire's substitution, so I guess it's understandable.

 

Monotones II, however, is a wonderful piece. Like all the best abstract ballet, it is an intriguing puzzle of shapes, movement and emotions. Danced as beautifully as it was by Christina Arrests, Ryoichi Hirano and Nemeniah Kish, it was pure, liquid perfection. I have to echo echo Mary's thoughts above, Arestis was indeed a revelation. She was simply divine, owning the piece completely and moving as though she were a direct conduit for the music. I can't wait to see more of her in the future.

 

The Two Pigeons was one I've been looking forward to seeing, having heard it spoken about so fondly on these forums elsewhere. And it didn't disappoint. McRae and Salenko danced it wonderfully, the warm comedy of the opening scene communicated deftly with a real chemistry between them. Salenko was great, and really lived the part; at one stage a gold 'coin' flew off one of the male dancers' costumes (as it detached itself, he even managed to inadvertently punch it mid-spin in a remarkable ballet trick shot) and Salenko subtly scooped it up. Sitting forlornly at the side of the stage, she examined it sadly in her hands as though it was a metaphor for these interlopers stealing her love away. It was these little touches that make Salenko such a watchable performer. 

 

I enjoyed the choreography, but I can't help but feel that it's the ensemble pieces that are the most fun in this ballet. The costumes, particularly for the gypsy girls, are probably the best I've seen. With long, colourful feather-like skirts that flow like waves on the spins, the group pieces are explosions of colour and movement. It reminded me a lot of La Valse, the way the dancers fill the stage with motion. 

 

Finally, I think the ending was probably the sweetest thing I've ever seen in a ballet. It's beyond me how they train those little birds so well, my hat is completely off to the team at Amazing Animals.

 

What a great little ballet The Two Pigeons is.

 

One more thing to add... I don't think I've heard the Royal Opera House Orchestra sounding so good before. The conducting was spot-on and the players performed beautifully both in the solo passages and as an ensemble; the quieter passages in Monotones II in particular were performed with a gossamer delicate touch. They were a complete joy to listen to. 

 

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

[Coated]

Monotones II really didn't work for me on Fri night. Whilst the matching in height was nice, I felt that only Arestis brought something to the ballet with her beautifully expressive upper body and regal aura. Monotones I was more enjoyable, albeit a little bit wonky at times.

 

Two Pigeons smoothed my Monotone ruffled feathers beautifully. McRae and Salenko were alive and characterful, with Salenko really going for the goofy aspects of the girl without worrying about looking pretty. I thought they had lovely chemistry in this one, something that hasn't always been evident to me in other ballets.

 

Fumi Kaneko just rocked the Gypsy girl, I don't know whether I liked her dancing or her attitude best.

 

But best of all, I thought the whole company looked like they are really enjoying themselves on stage. I spent a fair amount of time looking at the young ones, particularly Chisato Katsura, and they all seemed to have a little extra sparkle in Pigeons.

And it was nice to see Reece Clarke back on stage, I hadn't seen him since his Symphonic Variations.

[capybara]

One more thing to add... I don't think I've heard the Royal Opera House Orchestra sounding so good before. The conducting was spot-on and the players performed beautifully both in the solo passages and as an ensemble; the quieter passages in Monotones II in particular were performed with a gossamer delicate touch. They were a complete joy to listen to. 

 

 

Well, Barry Wordsworth was conducting - nuff said :-)

[Fonty]

Monotones II, however, is a wonderful piece. Like all the best abstract ballet, it is an intriguing puzzle of shapes, movement and emotions. Danced as beautifully as it was by Christina Arrests, Ryoichi Hirano and Nemeniah Kish, it was pure, liquid perfection. I have to echo echo Mary's thoughts above, Arestis was indeed a revelation. She was simply divine, owning the piece completely and moving as though she were a direct conduit for the music. I can't wait to see more of her in the future.

 

Christina has been with the Royal Ballet for 20 years, which must make her in her mid to late 30s.  If she is going to be given more, it will have to be sooner rather than later.

[FLOSS]

Something else, equally old fashioned and refreshing,which I forgot to mention about Pigeons, the designs, which  do the job that ballet design is supposed to do; create the mood  of the ballet and tell you where it is set. The characters express themselves in the steps that they dance and need do no more than dance them in the appropriate style. Morera is pitch perfect with luck the other dancers who have danced it and those who are due to do so will fully acquire the style. The Ashton biography says that the ballet was made at a time when Ashton was coming to terms with the end of an affair but I can't help wondering whether this ballet is not also another one of those occasions on which Ashton created a work which was , in part at least, a response to the work of a younger choreographer, in this case MacMillan's  Invitation first seen in 1960. After all Ashton is on record saying that he thought that the choreographer "should deal with that which is spiritual and eternal rather than that which is material and temporary. " * You can't help wondering what his choreographic response to some of the dance works that have been staged this year such as Untouchable  would have been..

 

The world created in Two Pigeons is wholly artificial making no pretence to be realistic or relevant in any way. But then all art is artificial and of the theatrical arts ballet and opera are the most artificial.In this work Ashton seems to revel in ballet's artificiality his gypsies are,intentionally and deliberately, French stage gypsies straight out of a nineteenth century  ballet or opera. From the comments on this site this ballet still seems to work as far as audiences are concerned. I do wonder about the lighting, particularly that of the scene set in the Gypsy  camp, I seem to recall it being considerably less "atmospheric".

 

*Quoted by David Vaughan in Frederick Ashton and His Ballets 1976

Edited November 29, 2015 by FLOSS

[sarahw]

Floss - maybe you should write a book explaining ballets to novices........ I learn a lot from your posts.

[Fonty]

Me too.  Keep them coming, Floss, I find them so interesting. 

[Lindsay]

For those (a minority here) who disliked the Two Pigeons revival, Ismene Brown offers us some support:

 

http://new.spectator.co.uk/2015/12/is-twitter-now-in-charge-of-the-royal-ballets-artistic-programming/

[GTL]

Plus a swipe at "social-media botherers" who "include some of the most trenchant Middle Englanders of the ballet crowd, the most grimly set in their convictions that 50 years ago we never had it so good in ballet and The Two Pigeons represents all that is great about British art".

Who could she possibly be thinking of?????

[aileen]

Ismene Brown never minces her words. She does raise an interesting question about the extent to which ADs should listen to / canvas the opinions of their audiences.

[capybara]

But, surely, Kevin O'Hare was half way there with Two Pigeons (having danced it and liked it himself) so he was ready to be persuaded on that one.

 

I very much doubt that the views expressed on here and on the ROH website will do much more than cause a ripple of interest among the powers that be at the RB.

[alison]

IIRC, Kevin O'Hare (at the Ballet Association?) said that he'd had a number of letters requesting him to bring back Two Pigeons.

 

It does appear, though, that people on Twitter, and maybe other social media sites, do have a disproportionate amount of influence on all sorts of things these days.  I've lost count of the number of times, when something has gone wrong, someone has said "tweet about it and they'll get it put right", and things tend to get resolved very quickly - rather more quickly than if you send an email or a letter.  I think it must be the public shame/embarrassment factor.

[MAB]

Ismene Brown doesn't like it?  Must be good then.

[Tony Newcombe]

Ismene Brown doesn't like it?  Must be good then.

Spot on MAB

[FLOSS]

Of course as a critic Ismene Brown is not seeking to impose her views on others.I wonder whether  the problem is that as a critic she sees herself as merely expressing the views  of well informed ballet goers and as such entitled to say what the company should and should not be dancing? If you don't agree with her enlightened view of things then you are reactionary..And we wonder why the Russian audience gets its knickers in a twist over what seems to us to be interesting attempts to recover some aspects of  performance practice when reviving nineteenth century classics.such as recovering the choreography which Petipa set  while not imposing the nineteenth century style of dancing it.

 

i wonder where she stands on issues such as historically informed performance practice as applied to nineteenth and twentieth century ballets or how she would react to an announcement that a ballet company was about to revive a Henri Justament ballet?

Edited December 3, 2015 by FLOSS

[Tony Newcombe]

So most of the other critics are not enlightened then with regards to 2 pigeons

[Fonty]

"At least, as it is danced by today’s Royal Ballet dancers, who are brisk modern creatures with very little fantasy in their sensible heads."

 

Ah, that's the problem, the ballet dancers of today would rather be doing something more realistic.  Like Swan Lake, for example, or the Sleeping Beauty.  Good sensible story lines in both of those, much more suitable for the RB of today.  

 

I don't mind IB saying she doesn't like it, but I do object to any critic saying that people who do like it are stuck in some sort of misty, 1950s time warp, and need to get out more.  So, the real, knowledgeable fans are those who appreciate more up to date stuff.  Like Raven Girl, presumably.   I don't recall this sort of reaction to any of the delightful performances of 2P by the BRB. 

[alison]

Precisely because they *have* been delightful, perhaps?

[Sim]

I think the RB's have also been delightful.

[Jan McNulty]

I think the RB's have also been delightful.

 

 

As I am sure I will find on Saturday evening!

 

Yes 2P may look twee and possibly even dated but Sir Frederick Ashton creates characters you care about and he can transport you to another world with just the tiniest of gestures.  I don't think I have seen a single BRB 2P performance where I haven't had tears in my eyes if not been outright sobbing by the end.  I am bringing LOTS of tissues with me!

[Two Pigeons]

Given that Two Pigeons is about to have much wider exposure due to the cinema relay I would not be at all surprised if a number of European ( and possibly American) companies suddenly start performing it. Given that Ashton's work is having something of a renaissance, if not his true style, the work may become very popular in all sorts of places.

 

Incidentally, back to the arguments about the portrayal of gypsies as exotic but dangerous outsiders, I was thinking how often this appears in 19th century works. It is in operas such as Carmen and Il Trovatore and then I saw a version of Emma at the weekend. Even Jane Austen portrayed them as such. It must have been a fairly widespread view at the time.

[Fonty]

I think the RB's have also been delightful.

 

I've only seen one, Sim, and I enjoyed large amounts of it, but I did find some bits didn't quite gel for me, although I am not sure why. 

[Two Pigeons]

I have just seen Fonty's last post. I get really irritated when people snipe at the 1950s as though it was the decade from Hell. (I realise entirely that this was a quoted view and not the poster's own.)

 

You get this all the time on anything relating to Radio 4, especially The Archers. There was much that was very good about that decade which we could do with a bit more now.

 

If there was an element of a desire for escapism I cannot see that there is anything wrong with that. I do accept that 2Ps isn't for everyone but I agree wholeheartedly that there is no need to decry the people who do like it.

 

If I get a bit worked up about this my nom-de-plume may indicate where my loyalties lie.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Two Pigeons

[annamk]

I find Ismene Brown's reviews refreshing reading. Rather than just giving an uncomplicated critical appraisal of the performances she sees, she raises worthwhile and sometimes contentious points. Whether I agree with her or not I like that she offers a more thought provoking view. I enjoyed 2Ps but I didn't love it and I found a good deal of truth in her references to it being overly twee. 

[SwissBalletFan]

Plus a swipe at "social-media botherers" who "include some of the most trenchant Middle Englanders of the ballet crowd, the most grimly set in their convictions that 50 years ago we never had it so good in ballet and The Two Pigeons represents all that is great about British art".

Who could she possibly be thinking of?

 

I am sorry to be very dim-witted, but who could she be thinking of?

[Ian Macmillan]

It is, I suppose, just within the bounds of possibility that she might (NB the conditional tense) have the views of some here in mind - though I do not doubt that she may feel she encounters 'trenchant Middle Englanders' elsewhere as she goes about her days.  I've no idea which pubs she frequents, for example, or who she meets at dinner parties, assuming these are still in vogue in her circles.

 

 (Me - I'm Scottish by birth and I was doing Skiffle back in the later 1950s, so I definitely feel I'm excluded.)

[bridiem]

Plus a swipe at "social-media botherers" who "include some of the most trenchant Middle Englanders of the ballet crowd, the most grimly set in their convictions that 50 years ago we never had it so good in ballet and The Two Pigeons represents all that is great about British art".

Who could she possibly be thinking of?

 

Accusing people who like The Two Pigeons of being 'Middle Englanders' (i.e., presumably, reactionary and narrow-minded) is pretty offensive (in various ways). I'm sure many ballet-goers (of whatever class, age and nationality) love 2Ps and Woolf Works, Ashton and MacMillan, Balanchine and Wheeldon, Fonteyn and Osipova, Tudor and Hofesh Shechter, Dowell and Acosta, Robbins and Akram Khan, De Valois and Mark Morris - and so on. That doesn't preclude criticism of some current trends in ballet, or of some repertoire choices made by the Royal Ballet (or others).

 

And I'm sure that Kevin O'Hare would not have revived 2Ps based only on some letters he had received; he must also have believed it to be worth seeing again. (Similarly with the various works currently being suggested on the ROH website - he won't count up the 'votes' and schedule accordingly; he'll see how far the suggestions chime in with works he also wants to revive.)

[GTL]

SwissBalletFan, if English is not your first language you might miss that the terms "social-media botherer" and "middle-Englander" are a bit disparaging.

 

As to who she could possibly be thinking of?

 

Well, there are not many of us who discuss the Royal Ballet on social media: here, the Royal Opera House website and Twitter account but where else? There is the comments box at the end of "The Spectator" article which invites readers to respond, but to date it shows a zero take-up. We know it has not failed to attract any readers because several here have seen it, thanks to its exposure above and on our "Dance links" sub-forum. Perhaps the publication's own readers are in complete accord with it or totally indifferent to it - or put off commenting there by the prospect of being "social-media botherers", which does not bode well in these times when journalism is so dependent on "click-bait" to generate revenue, i.e readers interacting with their website.

 

As to the article itself, it is one thing to express reservations about such audience-led programming, another to dislike "The Two Pigeons", but something else altogether to denigrate those who like the ballet and who replied to the ROH's invitation for suggestions. The tone of the article was less than gracious.

[Sim]

The tone of the article was less than gracious.

 

 

It was a patronising generalisation.

[Colman]

Social media botherers displacing critics from their rightful place as arbiters of proper taste! Horror! Artistic directors worrying about opinions from mere mortals! Fall of civilisation. Whenever a critic talks about a silent majority you've got to assume that they mean the millions of readers they imagine hanging on every word they write.

 

There's a chunk of the established media that consider "Twitter" a disparaging term.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing Two Pigeons in the cinema - I like the Ashton stuff I've seen, even if it's not danced as well as in the good old days.

[tabitha]

I admire Mr O'Hare for trying to engage with the audience and this reflects the ethos of much of the public sector e.g. the NHS consults with patients on what services they want. Some of his scheduling and casting decisions to date appear to have been not well received, so why wouldn't he ask the public, rather presuming he is the single authority.

 

If the programming is going to take a different slant, perhaps with the revival of more heritage pieces, does he need to perhaps alter his dancer selection to fit?

[FLOSS]

I have, apparently, exhausted my free access to the Spectator so I could not get past the first page, if that, of IB's review. Perhaps someone could tell us whether in the course of her article IB tells us  proles what ballets we should be watching, Playground, Rituals or Valley of Shadows?As K Barber has  pointed out the indications are that very few people read the arts sections of newspapers and periodicals.Perhaps IB has,until now, taken the public's silence on her views about the RB's repertory as tacit agreement with her view of how the world should wag. It must come as a bit of a shock to discover that the people who she  sees as the beneficiaries of her pearls of wisdom are capable of independent thought.

 

For those too young to remember the fifties it was a time when the eight o'clock news brightened the lives of its listeners  by telling them about the latest underground nuclear tests  and the strontium 90 readings in cows' milk. I am not sure how complacent anyone was. I think that most people were happy that they had survived the war and had a job. . 

[RMM1]

In answer to a question Floss posed: Ismene Brown likes the final pas de deux of Two Pigeons but finds the rest of it fake and feeble. And I'm quoting a sentence from her review here:

 

The rest can be dismissed as (Ashton’s own phrase) ‘English goo’, with neither the athletic spice of Russian-school character dances — say, from Don Quixote or Le Corsaire — nor the affectionate zest of Ashton at his most engaged with the people’s ensemble, as in La Fille mal gardée or Daphnis and Chloë, say.