LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE: RB June 2022

[Pas de Quatre]

In the more spectacular lifts the person being lifted is usually able to give a good push off as if going into a jump.

[LinMM]

So here’s my take on the new ballet from Wednesday night …and will try to not shoot myself in the foot in the process!! 
First I have to admit that the book would probably be nearly the last I’d pick up in a book shop…it’s just not my kind of reading… but having read through the synopsis to the ballet at least half a dozen times for each act  I’m in awe of anyone who would want to make a ballet of this in the first place …so some respect to Wheeldon!! 

There are some ballets which touch your soul because of the sheer beauty of the movement and choreography or because there’s a very moving story told where you identify so much with the characters that you get drawn in and lost in their story and often put through the emotional wringer in the process. 
And there are some ballets which are just very light hearted but satisfying from a sheer entertainment point of view but not great movers and I think I put Chocolate into this latter category as in fact I tend to put other Wheeldon ballets….nothing wrong with this we need Ballet Companies to have a wide variety of works or perhaps I should say…I do. 
When I went on Wednesday I didn’t have great expectations which may be why I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. 
I was pleasantly surprised by the music perhaps because of some of the more Latin elements in the score and really enjoy those rhythms…though could be a bit strident at times. 
I loved the sets, the lighting, the staging and mostly the costumes too so all that was okay and of course some of the special effects ….who could forget that ending!! ( I won’t reveal for those who haven’t seen it yet but it is pretty spectacular) 

So now to the all important dancing!! 

I really love classical ballet it has been the style which has given me the most in watching and doing over the years. 

 

But I also love the film West Side Story …the original…what a production that was…and the dancing though not really classical in style was terrific and even though I’ve seen it many times it still makes me cry every time as you are so moved by the central characters. 
Im mentioning this only because some people have suggested this was the Royal Ballet only dancing at “west end theatre” level …musical theatre. 
But at it’s best as in say West Side Story this is no second best! 
So the choreography for Chocolate is not purely classical but there is still some pretty good dancing in it! Plenty to enjoy! I was certainly never bored on Wednesday. 
However inspite of the wonderful

dancing of the main characters..on Wednesday (the dancers were Naghdi and Corrales in main roles Fumi Kaneko as the mother and Claire Calvert and Meghan Grace Hinkis as the other two sisters and Bracewell as the Doctor ( disappointed in this role but not Bracewell’s fault) I felt as if I was just an observer watching all the goings on I really didn’t get drawn in until right at the end. So strangely detached but nevertheless a sort of enjoyable detachment in this instance. 

So not the intense involvement of a West Side Story where the characters were concerned. 
I particularly enjoyed  the return of Gertrudis Titas sister scene, Gertrudis admirably played by Meghan (including in the earlier erotic fantasy scene) …she has surprised me again recently as enjoyed her as Vera in Month as well…the mother Elena as a young women scene, …. loved the music here too…. ( Fumi showing her unique acting talents here) and also Fumi as a grotesque ghost!!  Claire Calvert, as Rosaura’s, death scene, and the final pas de deux ….though both Naghdi and Corrales caught my eye in various bits of the dancing throughout whether together or not. 
The things I was puzzled by …was at the beginning a baby is being born which I assume was Tita? I think this scene is a bit irrelevant and also who were the masked ones sitting along the back of the stage…were they supposed to represent mother Elena type figures or youngest child figures doomed to stay at home! 
Another bit which was puzzling is the 20 years after scene! Rosaura had died 20 years before so why was it only now that Tita and Pedro were free to be together? Perhaps this is clearer in the book. I just don’t believe Tita and Pedro waited 20 years to consummate their ‘affair’ 

So I did find Chocolate very entertaining and would see it again but whether it’s a great ballet probably not …but only further viewings can really decide that for me …you can miss a lot on just one viewing when it’s a new ballet .

There are some ballets in the Royals Rep which I quite enjoy seeing every so many years for completely opposite reasons and I’m sure this will be one of those rather than one I want to see almost every year.
But Christopher Wheeldon obviously enjoys a good old challenge and I think he has more or less pulled it off!! 

 

 

 

[Richard LH]

1 hour ago, LinMM said:

Another bit which was puzzling is the 20 years after scene! Rosaura had died 20 years before so why was it only now that Tita and Pedro were free to be together? Perhaps this is clearer in the book. I just don’t believe Tita and Pedro waited 20 years to consummate their ‘affair’ 

The "20 years later" tag in the ballet differs from the book, because in the book Rosaura and Pedro are married for some 21 years before Rosaura's death, and there is another year before Esperanza and Alex are married, the ceremony being delayed for that period out of respect for Rosaura's memory.  Tita and Pedro will then be freer since Esperanza will be leaving Tita's care.

But Tita and Pedro haven't waited until Rosaura's death, or for 20 years, to consummate their affair! Indeed in the book, Tita initially thinks she has become pregnant by him soon after her engagement to John! This first fulfillment of passion is also depicted in the ballet,   in Scene 3 Act 2,  although the ballet does not include the  later false pregnancy aspect.

It may be that the ballet changes the details of Rosaura's death because in the  book it is particularly unpleasant (as was her condition leading up to it).

Edited June 10, 2022 by Richard LH

[LinMM]

I did feel that somehow I should have been feeling more for Rosaura than I did as her solo at the end was evidence of such a tortured soul but I couldn’t see it suggested in the ballet that Tita and Pedro were actually “having it off” as it were before she died. So instead of that supreme pain she was reduced to a bit of a caricature of the mother I thought in the end so I had less sympathy than was perhaps required!! 
Im still digesting it all and I’m not sure how seriously Wheeldon wanted us to take these characters as they didn’t really involve me that much to be honest …… there were too many entertaining distractions to get involved too deeply! 

[Richard LH]

2 minutes ago, LinMM said:

I couldn’t see it suggested in the ballet that Tita and Pedro were actually “having it off” as it were before she died

It is the scene in which they remove their tops....😮

[LinMM]

Yes I now see it says in the synopsis in scene 3 in Act 2 that the two are carried off into a passionate tryst!! So much for me re reading the synopsis through several times 🙄

Still although it is apparently different to the book it does seem unnecessary in the ballet for them to only truly come together after 20 years when they’ve probably been having it off all that time anyway!! 
I think it was a bit of poetic license so as to be able to end the ballet with that fabulous pas de deux! 
 

[Sophie_B]

17 hours ago, Richard LH said:

The "20 years later" tag in the ballet differs from the book, because in the book Rosaura and Pedro are married for some 21 years before Rosaura's death, and there is another year before Esperanza and Alex are married, the ceremony being delayed for that period out of respect for Rosaura's memory.  Tita and Pedro will then be freer since Esperanza will be leaving Tita's care.

Thank you!! My friend was wondering that at the premiere and I've forwarded her the explanation. I have started reading the book but not sure I can finish in time for my next and final viewing of the ballet on Wednesday. I've owned the book for 10 years just never got round to reading it. Maybe Wheeldon can do War and Peace next since that's a big book I've never had the motivation to get through  

[LinMM]

Don’t encourage him lol!! 

[DoctorDerry]

Just wanted to say thank you all for your many and varied comments on this ballet that I chose not to see. If it lasts in the repertoire I might make an effort on the future.

There is always an inbuilt problem when a ballet is based on a book. In this case I had really disliked the book when a read it about 10 years ago and found it a very poor representation of the magic realism genre .So when I heard about the ballet being created I read it again and still did not see any great value in it. Added to that I find Joby Talbot’s music trivial. While I have loved Wheeldon’s abstract one act ballets  I have not liked either of the three act narrative works, with the notable exception of the scene with the Queen of hearts in ‘Alice ‘, which I love.

so it seems sensible sometimes just to say’ this is not my thing’

Even so I would have liked to see this wonderful company again this season.

[LinMM]

I think it’s wise always to give a ballet at least one shot!! Because you never know when genius may emerge!!! 
And at least then you are judging from your own experience. 
Definitely give it a whirl next time it’s on even if you then decide never ever to see it again!! 

[Lizbie1]

25 minutes ago, LinMM said:

I think it’s wise always to give a ballet at least one shot!! Because you never know when genius may emerge!!! 
And at least then you are judging from your own experience. 
Definitely give it a whirl next time it’s on even if you then decide never ever to see it again!! 

 

I don't know... When travelling up to London is expensive and time consuming (as it is for me) I'd rather see an extra Romeo and Juliet than something I know I'm unlikely to enjoy.

[Janite]

I feel that most people here have a strong preference for classical ballet, and nothing wrong with that.

While I love the classics I also love modern and contemporary ballet. 
In Chocolate I felt many emotions, ie love, anguish, passion, hate, fear, power etc. I wondered how the last act would play out after the heightened emotions of the previous two and I was not disappointed. It shows a mature yet still passionate love. 
back to see the main cast next week, can’t wait .

[art_enthusiast]

Akane is absolutely effervescent in this role, and I do wish all of the casts were being filmed!

[capybara]

17 minutes ago, Janite said:

. 

back to see the main cast next week, can’t wait .

Main cast?

Excellent characterisations tonight from Takada, Campbell, Mendizabal, Grennell, Clarke and, of course, Morera. Takada is a very special Tita.

Mention has been made above of Tita’s and Pedro’s mature love in Act 3 and I have felt their journeys and the passage of time far more with Naghdi/Corrales and Takada/Campbell than with the first cast.

 

On Wednesday I was surrounded by youthful enthusiasm; tonight, my neighbours were fans of West End shows and they were thrilled by LWFC.

[Rob S]

 

 

 

Thank you Capybara, I’m now singing West End Shows to the tune of West End Girls 

 

[FionaM]

My first viewing and I absolutely adored Akane and Alex and Laura’s portrayals of Tita, Pedro and Mama Elena respectively.  High quality threesome.  
 

 I particularly loved the pdd where Tita and Pedro don’t touch … the passion was palpable.  There was lots of other inventive choreography and yes lifts and moves from other ballets … but these are just the ‘alphabet’ of ballet … it’s how they are put together in each ballet to portray those characters that is unique.  

Very impressed by the sets and costumes, and was less enamoured by the music.   I guess that might take time to grow on me.  

 

I do think that the family dresses were a little too long so we lost sight of their feet too often.  A few inches shorter would make all the difference, without detracting from the length necessary for the setting.  

 

I didn’t have a problem with the story … (didn’t read the synopsis) as I’d seen the movie before and re-watched it recently in anticipation. 
 

So many touching and gentle moments … including from Reece Clarke as Dr Brown, the two children, Christina Arestis as the loving guiding cook, and tragic passion Mama Elena’s backstory with super sexy Joe Sissens.  
 

I came away with an overall feeling of peace and love.  

[JohnS]

I saw Thursday’s performance with the opening night’s cast, albeit Meaghan Grace Hinkis replaced Anna-Rose O’Sullivan as Gertrudis. I haven’t seen any reference to the substitution and good luck to the team editing a film for the cinema as I think they were filming two performances which have different dancers for both Gertrudis and Juan.

Second time around I was more impressed with the production and very much enjoyed the performance including the music. It was good to see it from Row A in the Orchestra Stalls. There’s an enormous amount going on and I thought the Tita, Nacha, Chencha, (plus young Esperanza and Alex) kitchen scenes delightful. I also think the Tita/Pedro and Tita/Dr Brown relationships very engaging and convincing. The back story to Elena is also extremely effective with Tita’s reading of Elena’s diary brought to life for us to see.

 

I still find the Elena ghost too prominent, undermining the sympathy we might have for Elena’s backstory. I thought Tita had forgiven her mother once she understood what had happened to her and Jose but the ghost appearances rather break the notion of forgiveness/reconciliation and Elena’s comeuppance is complete when Tita confronts her with the diary. I really don’t think the exaggerated references to Queen of Hearts for Elena’s ghost help. To me they flag up that Wheeldon can’t quite decide whether Like Water for Chocolate is more Alice or Winter’s Tale.

 

And I see that as the problem with Gertrudis/Juan who come across as no more than caricatures, not really adding anything to the Tita/Pedro central story. I wondered if the ballet might have been tauter had Gertrudis/Juan and the revolutionaries been cut allowing more time for the essential characters.

 

That might allow Rosaura more opportunity to develop her role. She’s presented as a victim of her circumstances: her husband only marrying her to be near Tita, unable to look after her baby, grieving mother, doubting Pedro and jealous of Tita; then finding she’s repeating her own mother’s child abuse and dying. Terribly bleak but I’d welcome extending her solo and giving her more dancing with Pedro and Tita to help show the relationships between them. That said I did find Claire Calvert impressive when I saw her in the first performance I attended.

 

I’m looking forward to seeing the final performance on Friday and it would be great to experience a similar step change in how I find Like Water for Chocolate. I’m also hoping Anna-Rose O’Sullivan is back dancing Gertrudis despite my qualms about the role.

 

[Richard LH]

On 07/06/2022 at 12:09, Richard LH said:

Tita and young  Esperanza, in Act III,  go through  the exact same joyful cooking/dance/splash sequence that beloved cook Nacha and the young  Tita had performed at the start of Act 1

Sorry, my mistake from the first viewing; I saw last night that it is  Tita and the maid Chencha who repeat this sequence.

 

 

[Richard LH]

7 hours ago, FionaE said:

....was less enamoured by the music.   I guess that might take time to grow on me.  

Yes I think that it does....on first viewing I categorised it more like a film score, but last night I noticed  several tunes which I was really enjoying in themselves.  Some great rhythms and inventive use of the instruments. The partnership between Alondra de la Parra (rapturously received again last night) and Joby Talbot  has been very fruitful. The score and the  dancing are very well intertwined as the dram unfolds. 

 

 

[capybara]

I think that the traditional flute has been missing this week?

[Richard LH]

9 hours ago, FionaE said:

So many touching and gentle moments …

One being the interaction between all the characters in the sequence when Rosaura is unable to feed her baby but Tita finds she can. This is done so sensitively....just another example of how dance can speak volumes, at times  more eloquently  than  words.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Richard LH

[LinMM]

Yes I agree. 

[Richard LH]

4 hours ago, JohnS said:

I still find the Elena ghost too prominent, undermining the sympathy we might have for Elena’s backstory. I thought Tita had forgiven her mother once she understood what had happened to her and Jose but the ghost appearances rather break the notion of forgiveness/reconciliation and Elena’s comeuppance is complete when Tita confronts her with the diary.

The problem may be that Elena is not really written in the book as a character to sympathise with.

Nor is Rosaura, I think, as she adopts the same controlling approach to her own daughter, and is characterised as increasingly physically repellent.

In the book the ghost of Elena only stops pestering Tita, departing for ever, when Tita tells her that she has always hated her...there is no obvious forgiveness and reconciliation between them. Perhaps Wheeldon wanted, or needed, to keep the characters as close to their depiction in the book as possible,  given that this is a book by a living author who was pretty closely involved in the ballet's production.

[Richard LH]

Any thoughts on why, or how, Pedro loses the rather splendid moustache that he was sporting at his daughter's wedding, for the final scene (assuming this is something that happens in each performance)?  

[JohnS]

Many thanks Richard. I’m very much taking the synopsis as my guide: Act2 Scene 2 ‘Aware now of the root of her mother’s unhappiness, Tita forgives her mother.’ I quite accept that Elena’s ghost (as imagined by Tita) may be somewhat removed from Elena but the presentation of Elena’s ghost does rather cut across Tita forgiving her mother. I think there are aspects of both Elena and Rosaura that elicit sympathy but that may be because I prefer characters to be more rounded. If they are both supposed to be unsympathetic and Gertrudis is little more than a revolutionary nymphomaniac, perhaps we have an Alyce extravaganza rather than a Winter’s Tale drama? I should say I like both Winter’s Tale and Alice but have always thought Like Water for Chocolate a drama with credible characters and I thought that was what Wheeldon and his team were wanting to portray.

[capybara]

48 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

Any thoughts on why, or how, Pedro loses the rather splendid moustache that he was sporting at his daughter's wedding, for the final scene (assuming this is something that happens in each performance)?  

Well, Tita and Pedro take off their top clothes when surrounded by the wedding guests. There’s no way a fake moustache (presumably added to make Pedro look older) would gel with final pas de deux .(Far too Charlie Chaplain and Campbell’s was a bit crooked last night, I think!) In any case, the scene changes once more …….

 

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by capybara

[LinMM]

I’m sure the last pas de deux is sort of symbolic in some way a lovely finale to their story so probably the moustache becomes a minor detail but it does seem a bit daft to have bothered with it at all. Perhaps small touches of greying hair here and there could have been okay instead though they were only in their 40’s presumably?  

[Richard LH]

1 hour ago, JohnS said:

I’m very much taking the synopsis as my guide: Act2 Scene 2 ‘Aware now of the root of her mother’s unhappiness, Tita forgives her mother.

Good point...but I suppose her forgiveness has no effect on the ghostly Elena, who still tries to control Tita. I don't think ghostly Elena is just something in Tita's imagination, as that wouldn't fit with it also harming Pedro, which also occurs in the book.

[art_enthusiast]

1 hour ago, LinMM said:

I’m sure the last pas de deux is sort of symbolic in some way a lovely finale to their story so probably the moustache becomes a minor detail but it does seem a bit daft to have bothered with it at all. Perhaps small touches of greying hair here and there could have been okay instead though they were only in their 40’s presumably?  

 

Indeed - the book states: "Tita looked splendid. The twenty-two years that had passed since Pedro married Rosaura had not even touched her. At thirty-nine she was still as sharp and fresh as a cucumber that had just been cut."

 

So presumably she didn't change too much! I see the final pas de deux as Tita and Pedro going back in time almost, to their youth where they first met, and reclaiming those lost years. So it makes sense if they revert to their younger selves physically.

[Richard LH]

4 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said:

So presumably she didn't change too much! I see the final pas de deux as Tita and Pedro going back in time almost, to their youth where they first met, and reclaiming those lost years. So it makes sense if they revert to their younger selves physically

Yes that does make sense....! I was wondering if the tash removal was a health and safety requirement in view of the forthcoming incendiary sequence...😂

[LinMM]

Ha ha does the moustache disappear for other dancers? Perhaps Cesars just fell off lol!! 

[AnticaFiamma]

Well well well, Christopher Wheeldon just won a Tony Award

[Blossom]

It’s taken me a while to have the thinking space to collect my thoughts on LWFC.

I saw back to back performances on Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th, originally booking only the 2nd cast as I had other commitments on the 9th. 

Overall found that Naghdi/Corrales absolutely shone dramatically in these roles, much preferred Fumi Kaneko’s Mama Elena and that Claire Calvert was also absolutely superb in her role as Rosaura and both nights Megan Grace Hinkis was also superb as Gertrudis.

 

The second night disappointed slightly - the opening cast had really been built up for me by the promotion for this new ballet but I just didn’t find that the usually wonderful Hayward and Sambe really carried the ballet as well as Naghdi/Corrales. I even found I much preferred William Bracewell’s Dr John (Naghdi/Corrales night -he brought such lyricism to his brief solo) to Matthew Ball’s. The standout in terms of dancing were Joseph Sissens as Jose and Cesar Corrales as Juan. 
 

Loved the designs and costumes and the quality of the acting (esp first night) but perhaps found the choreography a little lacklustre (this is by no means Ashton, MacMillan or even Scarlett standard and I didn’t mentally dance out of the theatre). I am not a fan of Joby Talbot, although on the whole it was decent incidental music but not a score to listen to, indeed, entirely forgettable.
 

Very much enjoyed first night as an overall performance and of course was well received by an audience which seemed much more diverse than usual - notably in terms of the mix of ages present (I am 42 and usually feel like I am on the younger end of the spectrum). I have to admit though that on second viewing I was rather bored.

 

I do see what people mean about Mama Elena in act 2 a seeming recreation of the Queen of Hearts. I actually found that to be much more the case with Laura Morera than Fumi Kaneko. Morera throughout seemed more of a caricature while Kaneko was strikingly mean for such a usually sweet and lovely dancer (definitely meaner than her devil in Dante).