Choral Ballets

[Bluebird]

This evening and tomorrow evening, a new choral ballet is being performed  by the New English Ballet Theatre at the Peacock Theatre in London.  The following description is taken from the Peacock's website:

 

"World-renowned choreographer Wayne Eagling’s Remembrance is inspired by the story of Dame Marie Rambert’s life during the Great War. This moving, new ballet to commemorate the armistice is set to Handel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day and is played live by The English Concert Orchestra with chorus and soloists."

 

Edited to add a clip I just found on London Live.  Wayne Eagling and Alessia Lugoboni are interviewed about the production.  There are some rehearsal extracts shown (sadly without any sound)

 

https://www.londonlive.co.uk/news/2018-09-12/ballet-production-remembrance-commemorates-ww1

Edited September 28, 2018 by Bluebird

[FLOSS]

I would hazard a guess that the reason you may not be able to think of many ballets to choral music or to music involving singers is that they are not performed that often. This is  because of the additional cost involved in paying for the chorus or the solo singers required by the composer. The ballets in the Royal Ballet repertory that spring to mind  include Nijinska's Les Noces, Ashton's Daphnis and Chloe and MacMillan's Song of the Earth, Requiem and Gloria. The works which Monica Mason used to say were the ones she received most request to revive before she patiently explained that they are among the most expensive to stage. Unfortunately Kevin seems to be pretty indifferent to the artistic importance of Daphnis and Noces and seems to believe  that they are still capable of theatrical viability if they are only staged very occasionally. Les Noces is particularly expensive as it requires six soloists and four concert pianists all of whom have to be good rather than just about acceptable. while Daphnis requires the opera chorus.

 

 Pre-war Diaghilev staged Le Coq d'Or as an opera ballet, although it was not written as one, with designs by Gonchorova and choreography by Fokine who also choreographed the original version of Daphnis and Chloe, a ballet which requires a full chorus. The fact that the latter work is usually heard in the concert hall in the from of a suite which does not require a chorus may give some indication of how costly it is to perform in its original form. A composer who creates suites of music from a long work is generally engaged in a pragmatic attempt to ensure that he receives some income for all his compositional efforts. During the 1920's the Diaghilev company staged several works in which the action of the ballet was performed by dancers to a sung text. Those ballets include Massine's Pulcinella and Le Tricorne and Nijinska's  Les Noces all three of which  require one or more singers who are placed in the pit and then there is Le Rossignol in which I think the singers were originally placed on either side of the stage when Balanchine choreographed the work. When it was staged by the Met and Covent Garden with designs by Hockney Ashton provided new choreography and I believe the singers were in the pit. 

 

While it is true that the Royal Ballet stages both The Dream and Nutcracker with a children's chorus I am far from sure that the suggestion made in an earlier thread about the infrequent revivals of works like Daphnis and Chloe,  that an amateur choir might be engaged to cut the cost of staging them, is the answer. Daphnis and Chloe is one of the greatest ballet scores of the twentieth century and I shudder to think how an amateur choir would cope with the music particularly the section for the dawn chorus. I know that on the rare occasions it is staged the music loathers among the audience have taken to talking during that magical section of the score but that is no excuse for not trying to produce a musically satisfying account of the ballet as well as a theatrically effective one. I can't help wondering whether the ballet company might find itself in dispute with the musician's union if it took the amateur choir route, in much the same way as it would if it were to try to use recorded music as a cost cutting exercise, rather than on the rare occasions that it is actually required by the choreographer. It's one thing for an amateur choir to arrange a concert and pay for the services of an orchestra quite another for a major ballet company to hire amateur singers to cut its costs.

 

Among the other ballets which Ashton created to music for orchestra and chorus are Persephone set to music by Stravinsky and the original version of A Wedding Bouquet to a score by Lord Berners. A Wedding Bouquet is revived from time to time with a narrator replacing the chorus, a change which the composer must have accepted however reluctantly.Persephone has not been performed since the 1960's when it was danced by a cast which included Beriosova who danced and acted as narrator. In theory it would be possible to reconstruct Persephone as it was filmed. However I suspect that it is not the need to interpret the filmed movement which is the disincentive to its reconstruction but the fact that the score calls for a narrator and a chorus. I imagine that the fact that the score for Illuminations calls for a  good solo singer is one of the reason why it has not been revived since the 1990's.Another reason, no doubt, is the fact that it does not fit in with the stereotypical Ashton work which the company has taken to cultivating since his death 

 

It is pretty evident that the MacMillan repertory is somewhat better served by the Royal Ballet as far as revivals of works involving a chorus or solo singers are concerned but even Song which is arguably MacMillan's greatest work is no longer performed sufficiently frequently for its choreography and style to be embedded in the company's collective DNA. When it was revived during the  2014-15 season most of the performances looked more like open rehearsals than finished performances as the dancers in the corps were struggling to capture the style almost to the end of the run . But at least the company has not, as yet, gone to the bargain basement for its singers as I fear ENB did when it staged the ballet. I know it is choreographed movement that the majority of the audience goes to see but that is no excuse for not hiring good singers.The musical performance is just as important as that of the dancers and it is the prospect of hearing six or more performances of Song or the uncut score of Daphnis which brings non ballet goers to performances of these works.

 

Other "choral" works include La Fete Etrange by Andre Howard which dates from the 1940's and Michael Corder's  L'Invitation au Voyage which was  created in the early 1980's. Corder  incorporated the mezzo-soprano soloist into the action of his ballet set to music by Duparc. The ballet did not work half as well when it was revived during Mason's directorship. Andre Howard's La Fete Etrange set to music by Faure was badly served when it was revived in a mixed bill which included Pierrot Lunaire . Both ballets require a solo singer. Fete was badly lit and its casting left a great deal to be desired. It was almost as if the company had gone out of its way to find the dancers least suited to the roles they were given. Then there is  the Seven Deadly Sins which has tempted a significant number of choreographers over the years beginning, I believe, with Balanchine in the 1930's and revived in the 1950's. MacMillan made a version for Western Theatre Ballet and later another for the Royal Ballet both of which were criticised for lacking the necessary satiric bite. I imagine that it is tempting to think that you can bring something original to staging the latest to try to do so being Will Tuckett.

 

As has been pointed out elsewhere , in spite of the additional costs involved, choreographers are still using vocal and choral music for their ballets. One of the most effective of the more recent creations is Mark Morris' L'Allegro. Il Penseroso et Il Moderato  created to a score setting poems by Milton and Jennens written by GF Handel . I think that it is more a pastoral than an oratorio, but then I tend to associate the word "oratorio" with musical works  dealing with religious themes. It is a wonderful dance work which displays Mark Morris at his best. If you  ever have a chance to see it in a live performance, you should do so. It is available on DVD and YouTube. Another work by Morris which his company brought over on its last tour is Socrates which uses a score by Satie scored for four singers, although the music is  less effective when there is no sense of dialogue, it can be performed by a soloist at a pinch. Then there is Morris' Wooden Tree set to music by Ivor Cutler which is great fun. I imagine "dancing masters", now known as choreographers, have been involved in staging operas since the artform escaped from  the court masque and began to take shape as an art in its own right. Ashton staged operas as a director as well as choreographing from the 1930's until the 1970's . He was actively engaged in the world premiere of Britten's final opera Death in Venice creating the choreography for Tadzio who is both the boy with whom the rational von Aschenbach falls in love, but never speaks to. and the Angel of Death.

 

When Morris and his Dance Group were based at La Monnaie he staged a number of operas in which dancers performed the action of the opera in choreography he created; he was famous for his portrayal of Dido. While  stagings of operas using dancers to portray the characters can be successful they can, on occasion, seem like little more than a distraction which intrudes on what should be the sole province of the singers. Morrice's staging of King Arthur is an example of how staging an opera with dancers can fail but even worse examples were provided by Wayne Mc Gregor's stagings pf Dido and Aneas and Acis and Galatea where the dancers' presence was completely superfluous. 

 

I find it strange that anyone should find vocal music or the presence of singers on the stage with the dancers at all distracting. It seems to me that if the choreographer intended the dancers to experience the singer's  physical presence on stage in performance it is not for the audience to question that artistic choice. There is a simple solution for those who dislike the sound of the human voice in ballet performances. Those who object to the use of vocal music or the presence of singers on the stage during performances need to remember that the choreographer has chosen to use the score in question knowing that it includes singing and has been sufficiently inspired by it to make the work you are watching and has decided where the singers should be during the performance. In those circumstances to remove the singers from the stage would be as much a revision of the ballet in question as it would be if you were to remove several bars of music or change the steps .

Edited September 28, 2018 by FLOSS

[Ian Macmillan]

May I, on behalf of my colleagues in the Cambridge Philharmonic chorus, suggest that a non-professional choir can be perfectly capable of performing in Daphnis and Chloe, and pass on that they did just that in March of this year?  Thank you.

[Mary]

Very good you were too!

[Ian Macmillan]

Mary, That's kind of you.  (But, for the record, I had to pull out from that day's performance.  We had quite a dump of snow that morning and my wife, one of those trapped overnight on the M11 on that infamous night back in 2002, declined to go!  A pity, as I was quite looking forward to the Poulenc Stabat Mater, also on the bill, and rather trickier than the Ravel to my mind.)

[alison]

9 hours ago, FLOSS said:

Among the other ballets which Ashton created to music for orchestra and chorus are Persephone set to music by Stravinsky and the original version of A Wedding Bouquet to a score by Lord Berners.

 

That reminds me - with apologies for the slight digression - that there is a concert coming up at the Festival Hall, I think next month, featuring a couple of "rare" Stravinsky ballet scores, although I can't remember off-hand whether they are choral ones.  I must go and look it up.