ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET: RAYMONDA

[Sophie_B]

Just catching up on some of these posts, thank you everyone for all the detailed reviews and opinions! I saw the Saturday performance a few weeks ago with Kase / Cirio / Hernandez after which Kase got her well-deserved promotion on stage. Obviously some of the story is still thin / implausible, but I found the whole evening very enjoyable overall, particularly Cirio's solos, the Hungarian dances (more below on that), the dream scenes (I liked the nod to the Bayadere ramp), and (somewhat surprising since it took me a while to figure out who was even dancing) Natascha Maier's delicate Sister Clemence. I thought the whole ballet also had enough showy dancing and ensemble numbers to draw in people who might not have started out as ballet fans - I always wonder what ballets are good for taking people to who haven't seen much ballet before.

 

Obviously the presence of the Hungarians on the estate was a bit unexplained, but I have to say that I found it refreshing to see represented on stage a group of costumes and dances that actually felt recognisably Hungarian, my family being from there. Elements of proper hearty traditional peasant dancing befitting the new setting rather than the Swan Lake type versions which are obviously lovely but are so "balletified" in their costumes and steps that Poles and Russians and Hungarians all become essentially the same. Reading the notes in the programme, it's clear that they made an effort with the refreshed national dances.

 

I have a question for the "music types" here about some of the score written for the Saracen / Ottoman General character - would we still call the score itself Orientalist in parts despite the refreshed setting? I'm not saying it's not beautiful, but I mean, one of the dances is literally called Danse Orientale, the 19th century wasn't subtle - but I don't know if that music is considered any more "stereotypical" than the usual nods to Hungarian / Polish / Spanish music in your average 19th century ballet. I'm sorry if I missed a discussion about this already - trying to read 10 pages of forum commentary at once is a bit mind blowing! 

[Geoff]

On 05/02/2022 at 18:11, Emeralds said:

 

I’d say about 30% of the original Petipa is preserved. Thankfully the 70% or so cut includes the worst bits. Maybe Jonathan Gray thinks 30% is “little remains of”.  

 

Thank you very much for your most informative and detailed reply Emeralds. Much appreciated. Things I asked earlier are now getting clearer.

 

As you corrected me for referring to a 27 minute video as “half an hour”, you obviously think accuracy is important when it comes to numbers. So it’s likely you thought carefully before suggesting this production retains “about 30%” of the original Petipa. That is less than a third and maybe explains why I raised the question at the outset.

 

Sorry for not posting a link to the video, by the way: this can get one’s posts deleted from here, in a somewhat unpredictable way, so I didn’t want to risk it. In any case I would encourage people to view the whole La Scala recording, as well as others. 

[Emeralds]

On 07/02/2022 at 08:08, Geoff said:

Thank you very much for your most informative and detailed reply Emeralds. Much appreciated. Things I asked earlier are now getting clearer.

 

As you corrected me for referring to a 27 minute video as “half an hour”, you obviously think accuracy is important when it comes to numbers. So it’s likely you thought carefully before suggesting this production retains “about 30%” of the original Petipa. That is less than a third and maybe explains why I raised the question at the outset.

 

Sorry for not posting a link to the video, by the way: this can get one’s posts deleted from here, in a somewhat unpredictable way, so I didn’t want to risk it. In any case I would encourage people to view the whole La Scala recording, as well as others. 

Ah,ok, thanks for clarifying why you didn’t post the link, Geoff. Must admit I seldom open video links on any forums (so I hadn’t noticed this forum’s rule about not posting videos) because it takes too long to download but yours was the only one I tried.

 

It wasn’t a criticism or an admonishment, just that I tried to look up all the 30 minute videos and there are many, many 30 minute videos posted by die hard fans of Novikova and other ballerinas  each declaring they have the best video  or the best parts video of Raymonda! It took me 3 days to find yours. The comment about 27 minutes was more of a pointer in case someone else tried to search for it too, and got lost in the black hole of 30minute videos like I did!

 

(My goodness,there are tons and tons of Novikova fans out there. Well deserved of course, as she’s brilliant, but oh my goodness, what a lot of videos....! )

 

My “about” a third includes steps that are obviously recognisable from the standard “canon” of danced choreography in current productions of  Raymonda. So I included the Act 1 passage (both a solo and both a short section danced with/partnered by others) which is almost unrecognisable because she’s in the soldiers’ camp but is actually from her entrance (the section where she picks up roses in the La Scala version - but not in the Bolshoi version). 

 

I haven’t counted parts where the performers walk back and forth because to me that isn’t choreography but just crowd management- others might insist it is. So what I call 35%, others might disagree and say it should be more like 30% because they counted the walking around bits. Hence a third seems accurate enough without laying claims to it being exactly 31%, 33% or 36%. 

 

I think one one thing that struck me about the new production was how well danced the solos were, compared to performances of Nureyev’s one act  version called Raymonda Act 3 (technically a misnomer as it’s not actually Act 3 but solos from Acts 1, 2 and 3). My family laugh as whenever we get tickets to see it, I insist on calling it “Raymonda-Act-3-which-is-really-Raymonda-Suite”. Most of the time there’s always someone wobbling in one of the slow solos. I wonder if dancing the solos spread out across the ballet makes them less daunting hence no wobbling in Rojo’s production?

 

Fun fact: Glazunov’s music for Raymonda must be among one of Balanchine’s top favourite scores, because he made not one, not two, but 3 entirely different ballets to the music (as opposed to three revivals/productions of the same work)- Pas De Dix, Cortège Hongrois and Raymonda Variations.

All short one act works set to excerpts of the score, mostly the solos and other divertissement dances. Yet he never felt inclined to remake the entire full length ballet.

 

If he hadn’t already left this world, it would have been nice to ask him why not the whole thing. All 3 are still in the active repertoire of New York City Ballet and a few other American companies. As far as I can see, he’s never done as many as 3 different ballets to music from any other score. 

 

 

[Emeralds]

On 05/02/2022 at 19:19, Sophie_B said:

Just catching up on some of these posts, thank you everyone for all the detailed reviews and opinions! I saw the Saturday performance a few weeks ago with Kase / Cirio / Hernandez after which Kase got her well-deserved promotion on stage. Obviously some of the story is still thin / implausible, but I found the whole evening very enjoyable overall, particularly Cirio's solos, the Hungarian dances (more below on that), the dream scenes (I liked the nod to the Bayadere ramp), and (somewhat surprising since it took me a while to figure out who was even dancing) Natascha Maier's delicate Sister Clemence. I thought the whole ballet also had enough showy dancing and ensemble numbers to draw in people who might not have started out as ballet fans - I always wonder what ballets are good for taking people to who haven't seen much ballet before.

 

Obviously the presence of the Hungarians on the estate was a bit unexplained, but I have to say that I found it refreshing to see represented on stage a group of costumes and dances that actually felt recognisably Hungarian, my family being from there. Elements of proper hearty traditional peasant dancing befitting the new setting rather than the Swan Lake type versions which are obviously lovely but are so "balletified" in their costumes and steps that Poles and Russians and Hungarians all become essentially the same. Reading the notes in the programme, it's clear that they made an effort with the refreshed national dances.

 

I have a question for the "music types" here about some of the score written for the Saracen / Ottoman General character - would we still call the score itself Orientalist in parts despite the refreshed setting? I'm not saying it's not beautiful, but I mean, one of the dances is literally called Danse Orientale, the 19th century wasn't subtle - but I don't know if that music is considered any more "stereotypical" than the usual nods to Hungarian / Polish / Spanish music in your average 19th century ballet. I'm sorry if I missed a discussion about this already - trying to read 10 pages of forum commentary at once is a bit mind blowing! 

I don’t know if I’m qualified enough to be a music type, Sophie_B, but as someone who’s both studied and played music as well as having heritage from the east, I would say that if it’s good music it is not a bad stereotype.

 

For example in another thread we discussed stereotypes in The Nutcracker and the movement by many ballet companies to remove offensive or negative stereotyping in their productions during the last 3 years. I would say that the worst bit about negative stereotypes is that Tchaikovsky’s score for the Chinese, Arabian, Spanish, Russian dances are beautiful (I'd be thrilled if one of the pieces of music were to represent my culture) but so often choreographers cop out or appear to have a brain paralysis when it comes to creating dances for these sections. Having just made decent or even inspired Waltz of the Flowers, Grand Pas de deux and Mirlitons/Shepherdess dances, they then seem to turn to cheap music hall or  revue stereotypes for the Arabian, Chinese or Russian dances that are completely inferior to and at odds with the music. Many choreographers and artistic directors often don’t have sufficient character dance/national dance teaching and training (learning the syllabus dances in character shoes alone isn’t training) so it looks obvious that they’re trying to cobble it together as they go along.

 

The music for Abdul/Abderakhman doesn’t have to be authentic Turkish or Ottoman - or it would become a documentary rather than a ballet. I think it is meant to tell a story of the character’s emotions and motivations rather than to be a national dance. For that reason, I’m not expecting a national or folk dance, but a dance that depicts his personality, aspirations and emotions. I think the new dances for Abdur are brilliant, exciting and full of virtuoso detail. I think it helped that Rojo created the role with Jeffrey Cirio, who is an brilliant virtuoso who usually  dances the hero and male leads rather than a character artist who often takes the villain roles, so the steps are very much for a second “goodie” rather than a “baddie”.  I don’t have a problem with the name Danse Orientale. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Emeralds

[FionaM]

@Emeralds completely agree on the accomplished performances of the many difficult ballerina solos.   I’ve been thinking it’s because they were performed by principals (Mair) or should-be / will-be principals (McWhinney, Khaniukova, Conway, Adams, Velicu, etc)

 

It is possible to mask balance, control and turnout issues in a longer skirt than in the traditional tutu … where there is nowhere to hide!

[alison]

Having managed to get myself a £12 seat for BRB down at the Mayflower last week, and seen that various other dance companies were offering the same, I'd thought I might be able to go down and see Raymonda there again as well.  But as far as I can see the bottom price for that is £24, so unless I manage to get a bargain rail fare I think that'll be beyond me.

[Lizbie1]

11 minutes ago, alison said:

Having managed to get myself a £12 seat for BRB down at the Mayflower last week, and seen that various other dance companies were offering the same, I'd thought I might be able to go down and see Raymonda there again as well.  But as far as I can see the bottom price for that is £24, so unless I manage to get a bargain rail fare I think that'll be beyond me.

 

I don't know which date you're looking at, but the three I tried had £12 tickets available at the front of the stalls.

 

Edited to add: if they open the balcony at a later date (they have in the past) there will probably be some £12 tickets there as well.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Lizbie1

[zxDaveM]

1 hour ago, alison said:

Having managed to get myself a £12 seat for BRB down at the Mayflower last week, and seen that various other dance companies were offering the same, I'd thought I might be able to go down and see Raymonda there again as well.  But as far as I can see the bottom price for that is £24, so unless I manage to get a bargain rail fare I think that'll be beyond me.

 

If you go to a matinee, and don't mind a long train ride, you can get train tickets (from E Croydon to/from Southampton) for £5 each way

[alison]

2 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

I don't know which date you're looking at, but the three I tried had £12 tickets available at the front of the stalls.

 

Edited to add: if they open the balcony at a later date (they have in the past) there will probably be some £12 tickets there as well.

 

Oh, thanks.  I was going on the booking brochure from the Mayflower - hadn't actually checked the website!  That makes a difference, then.

 

29 minutes ago, zxDaveM said:

 

If you go to a matinee, and don't mind a long train ride, you can get train tickets (from E Croydon to/from Southampton) for £5 each way

 

Is that the Southern service via Havant, or whatever it is?  That's worth noting.  Thanks.

[zxDaveM]

1 hour ago, alison said:

 

Is that the Southern service via Havant, or whatever it is?  That's worth noting.  Thanks.

 

it heads towards the south coast, rather than cross country - can't remember if Havant is one of the stops en route

[Emeralds]

On 15/02/2022 at 09:23, FionaE said:

@Emeralds completely agree on the accomplished performances of the many difficult ballerina solos.   I’ve been thinking it’s because they were performed by principals (Mair) or should-be / will-be principals (McWhinney, Khaniukova, Conway, Adams, Velicu, etc)

 

It is possible to mask balance, control and turnout issues in a longer skirt than in the traditional tutu … where there is nowhere to hide!

I agree the long skirts can give one a lot more confidence, FionaE! I’ve also wondered if the fact that they perform the solos as part of a story rather than a divertissement means that it gives them a story to focus on rather than feeling that all eyes are on them scrutinising their technique might have something to do with it. I sometimes didn’t enjoy some performances of the Royal Ballet’s one act version as I could see a few of the soloists coming out with fear in their eyes before the solos, with no story or drama to “warm up” with. (Not in the recent run- this was over 15 years ago). I think everyone much prefers it when the artist seems to be enjoying herself or himself, rather than feeling intimidated by the piece.

 

What I loved about this production was that everyone looked brimming with confidence, really going for it, and had prepared so well that the end result was really spectacular. Critics might carp about the different setting, the rearrangement of the dances or music, the storyline, but really, at the end of the day we go to see the dancers giving a wonderful performance. I remember watching operas completely rebooted eg Gluck’s Orfeo set in the 20th century as a rock musician, Handel’s Agrippina as a contemporary scheming diva type....they looked nothing like they did at their premieres but when sung magnificently they are spectacular, they sell out and they are memorable. Likewise this Raymonda.

 

What was also incredible was that the standout performances weren’t just from principals and first soloists but when I rechecked the programme, some of the standout performers are still artists, first artists or junior soloists. I must also give credit to the coaches/repetiteurs who helped the dancers  prepare and rehearse their roles, especially during the musical chairs of cast changes that Covid put the company through this December and January. How they got through all that and still performed like seasoned stars is a feat in itself. When Tamara heads off to San Francisco, I hope we won’t lose ENB’s current team of excellent repetiteurs/coaches as well, and I hope the new artistic director can forge a happy working environment to help the company maintain its current peak form. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Geoff]

On 14/02/2022 at 16:09, Emeralds said:

So what I call 35%, others might disagree and say it should be more like 30% because they counted the walking around bits. Hence a third seems accurate enough

Just to revert briefly to a conversation from a year ago, for those who might like to see at least some of the 65%/70% of Raymonda missing from the current ENB production there was a super link posted elsewhere on the Forum last week, which has the whole of Act 3 (and very good it is too):—