Royal Ballet Winter 2019/20 casting

[FLOSS]

It seems pretty clear to me that when Hayward was talking about the "classics" she was talking about the five nineteenth century ballets which de Valois acquired for her young company in the 1930's and chose to describe as "The Classics".  I have no idea whether or not Hayward wants to dance lead roles in Don Q or Bayadere only time will tell.whether she wants to dance them. In fact if she chooses not to dance them I would be tempted to ascribe her failure to sound artistic taste.

 

I think that we have to accept the sad fact that not all nineteenth century ballets are of equal quality musically or choreographically and some of them even if they have the Petipa label attached to them are more twentieth century constructs than nineteenth century ones as far as their choreographic texts are concerned. The obvious point of distinction between Don Q, La Bayadere and de Valois "classics" begins with the quality of the music to which they are set. The five works which de Valois selected have major scores and were acquired from an impeccable source as they were first staged for the company by the man who had been responsible for staging them at the Mariinsky in the years before the Revolution. The scores for all five of them are of importance in the development of ballet music and  all of them contain substantial passages of late nineteenth century choreography which embody the changes in technique which had taken place in Italy since the 1850's. They are works for which Petipa either created the choreography or are the work of other choreographers working in the same Franco-Italian style over which as the Ballet Master of the theatre. he had the final say as he had to approve them before they could be placed before the public.  

 

 Don Q and the full La Bayadere were  first danced by the company during Dowell's directorship and both present problems beginning with the music to which they are set . Their scores are the sort of workaday ballet scores which ballet composers churned out throughout the nineteenth century with little regard to the place in which the action of the ballet for which they were composed was set. La Bayadere 's score does not really get any further east than the Hungarian plains. As far as the choreographic texts of those works is concerned it is difficult to know what if any part of Don Q can now safely be attributed to Petipa as it was given a major overhaul by Gorsky during Petipa's life time and people have been tinkering with its text ever since. Acosta, is merely the latest, would be, choreographer to do so. The version of La Bayadere which the company currently performs is a mangled salvage account of the original with some Soviet style pyrotechnics thrown in for good measure. I should not be at all sorry if the company were to quietly drop them and then spent more time on keeping its Ashton  and Nijinska repertory in good condition . I am still not convinced that Don Q with its in your face bravura technique really suits the company or its artistic traditions that well. It is going to be interesting, to say the least, to see how BRB''s dancers cope with  Acota's Don Q. As far as La Bayadere is concerned I could happily live with Nureyev's staging of the Kingdom of the Shades on its own. If the company has to have a full length version of the La Bayadere  then it should try to get Ratmansky to stage a reconstruction.for it. His reconstruction for Berlin is  far more interesting and sophisticated choreographically than Markarova's production which is largely based on the Soviet text  which she danced when she was at the Kirov.

Edited March 6, 2020 by FLOSS

[Richard LH]

RB's Don Q and La B are two of my favourite ballets - partly because of the wonderful Minkus music! 

It would be awful to drop these  beautiful productions from the repertoire. 

[ninamargaret]

I admit to a certain liking for the Minkus scores, even though the ball are not my favourites.

[Jamesrhblack]

22 hours ago, FLOSS said:

It seems pretty clear to me that when Hayward was talking about the "classics" she was talking about the five nineteenth century ballets which de Valois acquired for her young company in the 1930's and chose to describe as "The Classics".  I have no idea whether or not Hayward wants to dance lead roles in Don Q or Bayadere only time will tell.whether she wants to dance them. In fact if she chooses not to dance them I would be tempted to ascribe her failure to sound artistic taste.

 

I think that we have to accept the sad fact that not all nineteenth century ballets are of equal quality musically or choreographically and some of them even if they have the Petipa label attached to them are more twentieth century constructs than nineteenth century ones as far as their choreographic texts are concerned. The obvious point of distinction between Don Q, La Bayadere and de Valois "classics" begins with the quality of the music to which they are set. The five works which de Valois selected have major scores and were acquired from an impeccable source as they were first staged for the company by the man who had been responsible for staging them at the Mariinsky in the years before the Revolution. The scores for all five of them are of importance in the development of ballet music and  all of them contain substantial passages of late nineteenth century choreography which embody the changes in technique which had taken place in Italy since the 1850's. They are works for which Petipa either created the choreography or are the work of other choreographers working in the same Franco-Italian style over which as the Ballet Master of the theatre. he had the final say as he had to approve them before they could be placed before the public.  

 

 Don Q and the full La Bayadere were  first danced by the company during Dowell's directorship and both present problems beginning with the music to which they are set . Their scores are the sort of workaday ballet scores which ballet composers churned out throughout the nineteenth century with little regard to the place in which the action of the ballet for which they were composed was set. La Bayadere 's score does not really get any further east than the Hungarian plains. As far as the choreographic texts of those works is concerned it is difficult to know what if any part of Don Q can now safely be attributed to Petipa as it was given a major overhaul by Gorsky during Petipa's life time and people have been tinkering with its text ever since. Acosta, is merely the latest, would be, choreographer to do so. The version of La Bayadere which the company currently performs is a mangled salvage account of the original with some Soviet style pyrotechnics thrown in for good measure. I should not be at all sorry if the company were to quietly drop them and then spent more time on keeping its Ashton  and Nijinska repertory in good condition . I am still not convinced that Don Q with its in your face bravura technique really suits the company or its artistic traditions that well. It is going to be interesting, to say the least, to see how BRB''s dancers cope with  Acota's Don Q. As far as La Bayadere is concerned I could happily live with Nureyev's staging of the Kingdom of the Shades on its own. If the company has to have a full length version of the La Bayadere  then it should try to get Ratmansky to stage a reconstruction.for it. His reconstruction for Berlin is  far more interesting and sophisticated choreographically than Markarova's production which is largely based on the Soviet text  which she danced when she was at the Kirov.

 

Many thanks for as typically informed and illuminating response. I always really enjoy reading your thoughts.

[Shade]

11 hours ago, Richard LH said:

RB's Don Q and La B are two of my favourite ballets - partly because of the wonderful Minkus music! 

It would be awful to drop these  beautiful productions from the repertoire. 

I would be sorry to lose either of these productions. I don’t want to wait for the Russian companies to tour them. I would be very interested in Ratmansky’s reconstruction of Bayadere though. 
 

I think Minkus has a bad press! 

[Shade]

A further thought - it would be a tragedy if the current wonderful RB dancers didn’t get the opportunity to dance in these productions in their home theatre for their home audience