LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE: RB June 2022

[MJW]

Rather late in the day...link to images by Alastair Muir

 

https://photos.alastairmuir.com/Ballet/Royal-Ballet/Like-Water-for-Chocolate/i-PJHQXfq

[Emeralds]

On 13/06/2022 at 00:54, AnticaFiamma said:

Well well well, Christopher Wheeldon just won a Tony Award

His second! (For M.J. The first was for An American in Paris of course. And the Olivier Award should have gone to him too.)

Congratulations to Christopher Wheeldon! 

[Stephenwolf]

Just left June 15 performance in a state of absolute euphoria. What an amazing experience. I read the book beforehand, but though helpful, I don’t think it’s necessary. The narrative is clear. It is a visually delicious interpretation of the novel. Yasmin was, as usual, brilliant. But I have to applaud Fumi. Dancing and portraying that character is tough call, but she showed what a good actress she is as well as great dancer. I’m stood in a Covent Garden pub coming down from the buzz! Last orders just rang. Time to go home. Time to dream of artistic beauty!

[Rob S]

Quite a standing ovation tonight 👏

[Sim]

1 hour ago, Rob S said:

Quite a standing ovation tonight 👏

And very well deserved!  
 

Nice to see Marianela Nuñez and Carlos Acosta in the audience (as if it weren’t hot enough already!).

 

Another stunning performance from Naghdi/Corrales/Kaneko/Calvert tonight.  I found myself very emotional during the final pdd.  
 

I also found myself thinking “I’ll have what she’s having” during the rose petal scene!  😅

[thewinelake]

Loved it last night, even though I'd not taken time to apprise myself of the story in advance. Beautiful dancing, and I agree that Kaneko stole the show for me (not to take anything away from Naghdi). The other one that won my heart with the sheer joy of her dancing in Act II was Meaghan Grace Hinkis. Also loved the music. The dance seemed to fit with every beat - more so than with any other ballet I've seen. Very fresh.

First time at ROH since Covid, and I felt a little disorientated - being surprised at how small it seemed!

[JennyTaylor]

I went last night too, for the 3rd time, and for the 3rd time of seeing this cast too (accident rather than design).  I certainly find it difficult to see how anyone could surpass the quality and passion of their dancing and acting: they were all were all magnificent and fully deserved the standing ovation. 

 

As for the ballet itself, sadly it still failed to move me, and I still haven't found a tune in the music which I can latch onto, although it's all perfectly pleasant. I do now have favourite moments, such as Yasmin and Will Bracewell's pdd at the start of Act 2 and Joseph Sissens (just watch those hips move!!).  So, it's the dancers themselves which make it for me, rather than the ballet itself. 

[Nogoat]

I was underwhelmed on my first viewing of two recent works (‘The Weathering’ and Osipova’s ‘Carmen’) only to have the scales fall from my eyes on the second and so emerge from the auditorium a convert.

I also came out of opening night of Like Water For Chocolate underwhelmed, but I thought it best to reserve judgement until I’d seen it a second time, which was last night.

Unfortunately, any clarity that the second viewing afforded the complex narrative was offset by the harsh glare this shone on the deficiencies and limitations that were lurking in the shadows on opening night. That’s not to say there weren’t things (or performances) to like, but on balance it didn’t deliver what I expected from a major new full-length ballet co-produced by two of the best companies in the world.

So first a few plaudits…

I thought the efforts to help the audience understand the complexities of the story and its presentation were a breath of fresh air. The three hours of ‘insight evenings’ were helpful, though it did seem a bit of an (ex)critic’s and creatives’ love-in at times – more incest than insight? And was Peloton a sponsor as well as Rolex, btw…? 🤔

The programme set a new standard in design and layout, well worth £8 – highlights being the large-font contents page, character sketches and plot synopsis, evocative use of photos, and lots of background articles (which I’ve promised myself I will read one day, probably the day before the stream…). More of the same, please, for Mayerling etc next season, not just new works!

For a ‘magic realism’ production, I just loved the visual trickery of the long line of figures depicting and switching between death and life, and the way they remained in the background and oversaw some of the action. 

On opening night, Corrales stole the second half of Act 2 (and maybe even the show) as the ‘revolutionary soldier’, Juan; a blazing, percussive solo effort that seemed to lift, in perfect synchrony, those around him and even, it seemed, the orchestra pit. And what a marvellous, Rhapsody-like touch at the end when he just dismissed his whole, perfect effort with a wave of his hand and what seemed like a shrug of his upper lip. (there’s a counter-argument to be made that, as a minor character, and with no similarly strong, virtuoso pieces for the main characters, a strong Juan unbalances the narrative flow and actually exposes some of its deficiencies.)

Last night I was really impressed with Naghdi’s Tita; such a strong character, yet forced by tradition, obligation and domination to suffer.

I was also very pleasantly surprised by Clare Calvert’s Rosaura, especially in the cruel madness brought on by sickness just before she died.

While not reaching the same brief supernova brightness of Juan on opening night, Corrales burned consistently brightly throughout as Pedro last night.
I first saw Laura Morera then Fumi Kaneko as the appalling Mama Elena, a victim of her own history. Trying to choose one over the other is like asking to choose between, er, water and chocolate? Morera’s spiteful, physical cruelty versus Kaneko’s more sly, psychological viciousness; I’ll have both, please!

The score contained several good, strong passages, and I loved the use of a song to finish the performance - though for me it seemed to impart more emotion than the final duet itself. (Much of the rest of the music was not only predictable, but confusing familiar – see below.)

 

 

However, however, however…

I haven’t read the book or seen the film, but from the insights and programme we are told there are deep, dark, and complex familial, sexual, and violent undercurrents ebbing and flowing throughout the story presented on stage. But, quite frankly, this is no Mayerling.

 

The success of Mayerling as a psycho-sexual drama obviously depends on the successful blending of the ingredients of staging, music and choreography into, literally, a recipe for disaster. OK, Mayerling has the ‘bonus’ of being set against a broad sweep of imperial history, but LWFC has the ‘bonus’ of magic-realism to bolster its impact. 

I have problems with all three main ‘ingredients’ of LWFC, separately and together, as well as aspects of the ‘magic’. 

I felt the staging was rather sparse. One could argue the approach brought focus to the important elements (especially the tables!) onstage, and perhaps helped represent the expansiveness of rural Mexico. On the other hand, it just looked a bit cheap; great for touring, but less so for evoking atmosphere for that audience at that time (though some of the projections were effective – eg the animations of hills and mountains moving to suggest travel). One reason I prefer the RB production of Manon over that of ENB is the sparse settings used in the latter – they fail to convey the claustrophobic sense of decadence and decay that is so important to the narrative.

The magic-realism effects were quite well executed, but I got a sense of déjà vu in places...
- An autocratic, cruel head of all she surveys, appearing larger-than-life (or death) to wreak havoc? The Red Queen in Alice. 
- A large, celebratory ensemble piece visited by a malevolent being who can only be seen by the hero/heroine but cannot raise the alarm as the dancing and music gains in tempo and momentum? That’ll be Act 3 of Frankenstein. 
- A single on-stage tree in the background adorned with ‘stuff’? The Winter’s Tale (and at a push the ‘waiting room mural’ of Act 2 of Dante).

As far as the dancing is concerned, I can understand choreographers wanting to establish their own ‘style’, but with Wheeldon I sometimes think this is at the expense of narrative flow/communication. I’ve moaned before about his tendency to interject ‘ugly’ movements such as holding the foot at right angles to the lower leg, and it predictably and annoyingly kept cropping up in this production. For me it adds nothing and detracts a lot; it’s the ballet equivalent of spreading the credits through the first 10 mins of a film – all it does is shout ‘look at me!’ (at least Shostakovich integrated his musical ‘signature’ into his compositions, rather than just get a tuba to blast it out in the quiet bits.) 

I also found the choreography a bit episodic and literal (an example might be the ‘ballet sex’, which came across as a bit tacky – again, see Mayerling for how ‘it’ should be done).

Some of this might be explained by the complexity of the final story, despite trimming, but Wheeldon did manage to get a good sense of choreographic flow in Alice, which is just as episodic if not more so.

 

Now I wouldn’t expect something like Alice to venture too far into the sea of deep emotions, but stick to the shallows; I would, however, expect LWFC to try to pull us like a riptide into deeper and more dangerous waters as befits the material’s potential (and as semi-successfully done in Winter’s Tale).

I got absolutely none of that; I was (mostly) entertained, but no more.

Staging aside, what drags us into the emotional depths of the narrative is the combination of choreography and music; Manon, Giselle, Mayerling, etc – the list of ballets able to reduce half the audience to tears is, thankfully, a long one.

Even given I regard the choreography for LWFC as weak, I’m sure it was the music that was the real (anti!) siren call that kept me paddling in the emotional shallows on both nights.

I actually like Joby Talbot’s musical style, and it’s definitely identifiable as his own. The problem is, it’s way too identifiable. I became increasingly convinced I’d heard much of the music to LWFC before (maybe not note-for-note, but enough to trigger the connections to his other scores – though I accept I might not have a sufficiently discriminatory musical ear to prevent that).

I loved his orchestrations of the White Stripes for Chroma, and his score for Alice was a brilliantly paced and nuanced accompaniment to the on-stage action, helping to make an already colourful staging more vivid. Yes, he did ‘borrow’ bits (there was one section taken almost note-for-note from the Moody Blues Days of Future Passed) but that was more a musical joke or homage. Alice came across as new and fresh and innovative.

I quite liked his music to The Winter’s Tale, though it didn’t have the instant appeal of Alice.

A major problem with LWFC, for me, was I kept making associations between what I was hearing and parts of the scores for his previous two ballets – not helped by his use the ocarina again!

It completely messed up my ability to relate the music to what was happening onstage (in fact, I saw Ed Watson in the Amphi Bar on opening night, just before it started, and I’m glad I did as 10 mins into LWFC I could quite easily imagine him appearing onstage as a metamorphosing white rabbit!).

It could be similar for anyone who has seen the film The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for which he wrote the score. I haven’t seen the film, but I explored bits of it on Spotify today and there are tracks there that have the same ‘feel’ as, in particular, the score for Alice (eg Arthur Wakes Up, Destruction of Earth, Space, Vogon Command Centre).

It all started to sound a bit ‘samey’, and that has a detrimental effect in terms of the music supporting the narrative – at least for me.

On reflection, I’m left with the impression that the ‘creatives’ involved in LWFC are either running out of steam, out of innovation, or are simply playing it safe. I’ve also felt that way about the resident choreographer for a while – although I’m really looking forward to Woolf Works next year.

As I alluded to in my post about Osipova's Carmen, the evolution of dance and the repertoire, like real evolution, will leave a trail of mistakes and dead ends, and our view of the genesis of the established repertoire will be skewed by not having easy access to those past failures.

So, yes, we shouldn’t expect every new full-length ballet to be a ‘keeper’, but I do worry we are in a bit of a cul-de-sac as far as the current set-up is concerned.

That’s not to say LWFC is bad.

Someone we spoke to during an interval thought it was absolutely wonderful, and the general audience reaction was febrile in its enthusiasm for both performances. But that person absolutely adores West End musicals, and I think that is the issue here. LWFC is more Matthew Bourne than Kenneth MacMillan, and in the same way that Mayerling would not suit a West End theatre used to delivering musical blockbusters, so LWFC might be more suited to that brash, sugar-rush environment than to that of the ROH.

That sounds awfully elitist, but there’s only one ROH and it needs very careful curation and cultivation so it can continue to help bring to fruition what will ultimately be seen as the ‘fittest’ by future generations.

I won’t be there in that future, but I’m pretty sure Mayerling will be and LWFC won’t.

 

[Rob S]

36 minutes ago, JennyTaylor said:

 

 

As for the ballet itself, sadly it still failed to move me, and I still haven't found a tune in the music which I can latch onto,

 

The music for the first wedding?

[bridiem]

Thank you for your fascinating review, Nogoat.

 

I didn't in the end go to LWFC. I had a ticket for the first night and had every intention of going, but having read the very long (irritatingly long, I'm afraid) synopsis the day before the première I realised that I couldn't find anything at all that attracted me to the story, and having greatly disliked the recent revival of DGV I was also feeling rather jaded about Wheeldon. So all in all I thought that I would be unlikely to give the ballet a fair viewing and I returned my ticket. But I've been reading all the reviews here with great interest. I'm very glad the dancers have had such a good reception and I'm sure they've done a brilliant job, but I find that I still don't actually feel drawn to seeing this since some of the doubts that have been expressed were exactly what I was afraid I was going to experience. (I also find that I give a lot more credence to the range of views expressed on this forum than I do to the reviews in the press.) But I'm glad that many members have enjoyed it (and yes, I know I should see it and judge for myself. Maybe I will do that when it comes back. Or maybe I'll save my money for something else. Who knows?!).

 

[JennyTaylor]

24 minutes ago, Rob S said:

 

The music for the first wedding?

No, nothing. Usually, after a ballet, the music goes round and round in my head, not because I choose to let it, it does just it automatically.  I haven't had a single note of LWFC repeat in my head, nor can I remember it at all even when I try. Very disappointing actually, because the music plays a big part in the emotional experience for me. .    

[Josette]

I had several sections of the music playing in my mind after seeing it the first night.  I went to the General Rehearsal and the following four performances and saw all casts, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the dancers' immersion in their roles and the exuberance of the production as a whole.  The performance that most affected me and that I found especially poignant was Matthew Ball's - remarkable as Dr. John.  There are many details in all the dancers' performances as choreographed that are discoverable on repeat viewings. 

 

I will be able to see Like Water for Chocolate in March of 2023 when ABT performs it in California, where I reside.  I am slightly dreading seeing who will be cast as these characters who were each so beautifully delineated by the Royal Ballet dancers. 

[Sim]

I am looking forward to reading your review, Josette.  😀

[JohnS]

I very much enjoyed last night’s final performance and thought the audiences’s reception tremendous which I’d like to think is a reflection on the Royal Ballet’s entire season.

 

Delighted to have found yet more to admire in Like Water for Chocolate with each performance I’ve seen. I think Tita, Pedro, Elena, Dr Brown, Nacha, and Chencha, thoroughly engaging as characters brought to life through the choreography, and all fabulously portrayed. And the young Alex and Esperanza certainly played and danced their parts in the drama. I’m sorry only to have seen three performances (the first cast twice and the Yasmine Naghdi cast once). 
 

I still find Rosaura a desperately difficult role as there’s such unremitting misfortune and I continue wincing a bit about Gertrudis/Juan despite the gusto Anna-Rose O’Sulivan brought to the extravaganza last night. Some very short scenes do little more than highlight the narrative, for example Gertrudas returns home and I think there’s a bit too much fast walking around the stage in Act 3 Scene 1.
 

But overall I’m struck by the boldness and theatricality of the production and how it’s held together by Tita’s progression from birth to immolation, with Francesca Hayward captivating. Audience reactions have been astonishing and it will be very interesting to hear how it’s received in US by ABT. I’ll look forward to the cinema performance and would certainly be up for seeing a revival in due course: I wouldn’t be as confident as Nogoat in suggesting that Like Water for Chocolate won’t be around in the long term.

[art_enthusiast]

10 hours ago, JohnS said:

 I’ll look forward to the cinema performance and would certainly be up for seeing a revival in due course: I wouldn’t be as confident as Nogoat in suggesting that Like Water for Chocolate won’t be around in the long term.

 

Indeed - I very much hope it will be around for as  long as possible. Usually if I have seen a performance live a few times then I am unlikely to view it in the cinema, however in this case I certainly will. I found the music intoxicatingly beautiful, and very much enjoyed the dramatic interpretations of all three casts. I really hope that the score might be released somewhere separately as well.

[zxDaveM]

The season ends with two weddings and a funeral (and a bonfire of the vanities?).

Overall I really enjoyed the production; liked the music (loved in parts, especially the guitar parts), found the lighting effective - and bright enough! - and thought some of the pdds were heavenly, and group dances fun and exciting. Also found the story telling effective, though yes, it did help reading the synopsis (and knowing the dancers playing each role). Some caveats though, as at times it looked a little under rehearsed (not finished?), and some of the effects a little clunky (that horse didn't do it for me, nor the clambering onto the lift thing at the very end, though once raised it did look effective). Also helped that it was so wonderfully cast, with many of my favourite dancers involved, which never hurts!

Hope it comes back, sooner rather than later - and that a few tweaks here and there make it even better when it does.

[capybara]

So it's 'goodbye' to LWFC.

Having been somewhat dubious earlier on, I can now see many positives, especially when the second and third casts were  performing. (I don't understand why the first cast couple didn't do it for me) and I do have some passages of music running through my head.

I agree with those who suggests that there is scope for some tweaking. I would reduce the length of Nacha's death/flashback sequence for starters.

Clearly, as a theatrical whole, the work was a crowd pleaser and it wouldn't be at all surprising if it were to come back into the rep. quite quickly.

Importantly, it felt as if the Company went out on a high after so long a period of uncertainty.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by capybara

[Terpsichore]

Having spent much of the morning writing about Wheeldon's ballet I watched the film this evening. I can well understand why Wheeldon loved it so much.

Watching the film prompted me to order the book.   I am sure that I shall like that too.   

 

I only managed to see the ballet once but was enchanted by it even though .I did not fully appreciate it.  I understood it better after watching Judith Mackrell's Insight videos and more still after seeing the film.   I will look out for it when it is screened in cinemas and look forward to seeing it on stage again when it is next performed.

[Terpsichore]

Reflecting further on the plot of Like Water for Chocolate it was not uncommon  for the youngest daughter to stay at home to care for her parents in this country in the early part of the 20th century.   That was partly out of filial duty but also because so many young men had perished in the First World War.  Muriel Spark mentioned that generation of unmarried young women in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie".   Some found satisfaction in their careers but most did not.   

It even happened in my own family.   I  had an elderly maiden aunt who was born in the early 1900s who stayed at home to look after my grandmother.   After my grandmother died in the early 1950s her home was sold by her siblings and my aunt had to find employment as a housekeeper.   Like Tita she was a good cook and good at housekeeping,   I don't think she ever had a Pedro in her life but then I would never have known if she had.   She died in a retirement home in the early 1980s.

 

There must have been many such stories with emotions bubbling like boiling water on a stove and perhaps some will be the stuff of future drama.

[Jeannette]

It also happened in my family, in Puerto Rico, through my grandmothers’ generation.  Families were usually quite large then…as per tradition and religious obligations. All of the maiden-aunts who I knew died in the late-1980s…so these were women born ca- 1900/1910s.

 

Everything changed with my mom’s generation. Careers, fewer kids, etc.

 

Interestingly, one of the maiden aunts in my life was the only woman of her generation who had a driver’s license. She traveled a lot, too, when she wasn’t taking care of my great-grandma…during those periods, one of the other four sisters (including my grandma) temporarily moved in to keep great-grandma company. In many ways, Aunt Carmen had the most fun…now that I think back.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Jeannette

[akh]

10 hours ago, oncnp said:

Reminder LWFC is in cinemas (finally) tonight

 

ROH - Cinema

It was fabulous

[taxi4ballet]

It was fabulous, but did your cinema feed have a bit of a glitch in the matrix as well?

[balletgremlin]

Mine did. Lots of sound hiccups and we got two lots of the sexy quails and no end to act 1.

[Angela Essex]

14 minutes ago, akh said:

It was fabulous

Yes it really was wasn’t it? Francesca Hayward & Marci Sambe were utterly sublime. The score is amazing and the set design and lighting out of this world. Laura Morera danced beautifully and her acting was top notch. Meghan Grace Hinkis as Gertrudis - wow, wow, wow she is amazing in that role. A privilege to see. I really do hope it comes back to ROH soon as I’d love to see lots of other casts. It’d be great to see Marianela as Tita or even Gertrudis. Got to say it was pretty raunchy compared to every other ballet I’ve seen though  (which isn’t that many to be fair as I’ve only been going since lockdown lifted). Can’t actually believe Marci and Francesca were both topless at one point 😮

 

I love seeing backstage before the performance- spotted Alondra walking across with her son -  lovely to see a workplace that acknowledges the importance of family life - good on you ROH.

 

Unfortunately where I was the film stopped midway through tita & pedro’s pdd in act 1 scene 5 and rewound to earlier in that act but when it got to the pdd again it cut to the interval so didn’t see all of the act 1 scene 5 pdd and the whole of act 1 scene 6 was missed out completely. The cinema manager told us it was nothing to do with the cinema and that everyone everywhere watching would be having the same issue as the fault was with the broadcast from roh itself. Not sure if that is true though so I’d be interested to know if anyone else experienced similar this evening.

[ChrisG]

19 minutes ago, Angela Essex said:

The cinema manager told us it was nothing to do with the cinema and that everyone everywhere watching would be having the same issue as the fault was with the broadcast from roh itself. Not sure if that is true though so I’d be interested to know if anyone else experienced similar this evening.

Here in Chester we got everything without interruption - I think they may have been telling you porkies! 

 

And yes, wasn’t it wonderful?! When I saw it live I was up  in the amphitheatre and wasn’t 100% convinced by it, but seeing it up close on the screen the excellence of Wheeldon’s storytelling came through loud and clear.

[taxi4ballet]

37 minutes ago, Angela Essex said:

Unfortunately where I was the film stopped midway through tita & pedro’s pdd in act 1 scene 5 and rewound to earlier in that act but when it got to the pdd again it cut to the interval so didn’t see all of the act 1 scene 5 pdd and the whole of act 1 scene 6 was missed out completely. The cinema manager told us it was nothing to do with the cinema and that everyone everywhere watching would be having the same issue as the fault was with the broadcast from roh itself. Not sure if that is true though so I’d be interested to know if anyone else experienced similar this evening.

That's what we got as well - having not read the synopsis beforehand, I'd been wondering what it was that we missed!

 

I went to speak to a member of the cinema staff in the interval, and he said that as far as he was aware it was an issue with the feed and not a problem in the cinema. I then overheard another staff member telling some other people that it was all over twitter, and that's how they found out it was a widespread issue.

[Nina99]

There was no glitch in the cinema in Croydon where I watched it. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Being a rather cinematic work I thought  LWFC really benefited from being seen on the big screen where are you could see their expressions and really appreciate the performances which were universally excellent.
 

I was slightly confused at one point having not read the synopsis beforehand.  We were actually given a piece of paper with the cast list and a QR code on it which provided a link to the full synopsis but unfortunately I couldn’t get the link to work. 
 

This is the second ballet that I’ve seen at the cinema, and although nothing beats the thrill of seeing a live performance, I still found it a really enjoyable experience to see ballet this way, and at a fraction of the cost of a seat at the ROH.
 

 

 

[akh]

10 hours ago, taxi4ballet said:

It was fabulous, but did your cinema feed have a bit of a glitch in the matrix as well?

No it was all good and much appreciated by the audience

[zxDaveM]

To those that experienced glitches - complain (politely)! Explain what went wrong and how it spoilt the evening for you. You had payed for a premium performance, and didn't get it. The very least they can do is offer you a refund (even if it's in voucher form)

[taxi4ballet]

It wasn't the fault of the cinema, it was outside their control. I wouldn't want to complain to them anyway, as they are a small local independent cinema, and tickets for ROH screenings are cheaper there than at other cinemas within reach (and the atmosphere much nicer). 

[maryrosesatonapin]

On 19/01/2023 at 23:57, taxi4ballet said:

That's what we got as well - having not read the synopsis beforehand, I'd been wondering what it was that we missed!

 

I went to speak to a member of the cinema staff in the interval, and he said that as far as he was aware it was an issue with the feed and not a problem in the cinema. 

Same glitch where I was too.

[akh]

You wonder why the feed was OK to some cinemas and not others.

[alison]

Receiving equipment? One cinema I used to frequent had it somewhere inaccessible on the roof, and if there was bad weather it could get dislodged.