BALLETS BASED ON REAL LIFE

[Peanut68]

‘The Tales of Beatrix Potter’….I believe in the reality of Mrs Tiggywinkle!!

And actually was the Author featured in the ballet? 

 

Also ‘Alice’ as the original books were based on a real

little girl Alice Liddell 

 

‘The Three Sisters’ as I recall reading somewhere that Chekhov’s initial inspiration was the 3 Brontë sisters…. Possibly a bit tenuous….

 

[bridiem]

In a similar vein: MacMillan's Gloria - inspired by Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth.

[Amelia]

4 hours ago, Peanut68 said:

...   ‘The Three Sisters’ as I recall reading somewhere that Chekhov’s initial inspiration was the 3 Brontë sisters…. Possibly a bit tenuous….

 

 I am afraid it is a confusion. The work of Chekhov on "Three Sisters" is described in detail and it has never been mentioned by his biographers or researchers that he wrote this play with the Bronte sisters in mind.

Chekhov as a playwright is so extraordinarily popular and in demand that modern authors experiment with his works, "add" and "rewrite" them and create new, "secondary" literary texts. For example, the English playwright Blake Morrison wrote the play “We Are Three Sisters” where he showed the Bronte family and their entourage as characters in Chekhov’s “Three Sisters”. There, in a Yorkshire village, in the house of the parish priest Patrick Bronte, his three daughters Charlotte (Olga), Emily (Masha), Ann (Irina) and his only son Branwell (Andrey) live.  This story was not written by Chekhov. Therefore, the ballet “The Winter Dreams” have no connection with Bronte sisters at all.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Amelia
typo

[Sophoife]

@Peanut68 I don't know about the stage version, but the film of The Tales of Beatrix Potter certainly had Beatrix Potter in it. I think Mrs Tiggywinkle is her laundress! I'm told it was the first time I was taken to the cinema...I'd already seen live ballet at the ROH.

 

[Peanut68]

Amelia, thank you…. I did wonder at the link of Chekhov with Brontë sisters….

To throw in another curve ball one…. Dracula….. some say character based on Vlad the Impaler…..???

I think Rambert performed a ballet inspired by LS Lowry & his paintings…. Did it feature the artist within it? Certainly his paintings featured real everyday people! 
Again, tenuous I know!

 

 

 

[DVDfan]

According to a recent 'In our time' (BBC radio 4), vampires were originally low class and the idea of an aristocratic vampire first appeared in John Polidori's story 'The Vampyre', was named Lord Ruthen, and is thought to be based on Lord Byron. Count Dracula came later: I can't remember if the name is a deliberate link to Vlad the Impaler. 

Polidori was Byron's personal physician and was part of the house party in Switzerland where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. 

Now there's a group of people and an event to make a ballet!

[Jan McNulty]

9 hours ago, Peanut68 said:

 

I think Rambert performed a ballet inspired by LS Lowry & his paintings…. Did it feature the artist within it? Certainly his paintings featured real everyday people! 
Again, tenuous I know!

 

 

 

 

Rambert perform at The Lowry but it was Northern Ballet who performed A Simple Man choreographed by the late Gillian Lynne.

 

A Simple Man was commissioned by Salford City Council to celebrate LS Lowry and was first shown on TV (I think on ITV) starring Christopher Gable as LS Lowry with Moira Shearer as his Mother.  It was then performed on stage with Christopher Gable guesting with the company as Lowry and Lynn Seymour as his mother.

 

At the time it was being toured by Northern Ballet (NBT as it then was) Robert de Warren (the then AD) was due to leave and Christopher Gable was persuaded to become AD.  Not long after Christopher had taken over the company it was threatened with having its Arts Council grant taken away (to be given to a London-based company!) and Christopher Gable came on stage before every performance explaining what may happen and asking people to write and complain to the Arts Council chairman.  The company even had postcards printed up that people could just sign and send.  I persuaded ALL my colleagues to do that.  The result was that the Arts Council chairman was deluged with complaints and reversed the proposal!!  

 

Christopher took the company from strength to strength and forged the company's current identity as a producer of story ballets.  After his premature death on 23 October 1998 (we were in Norwich that weekend seeing the company performing The Hunchback of Notre Dame (choreographed by Michael Pink) and if I told you the company danced their hearts out for Christopher the following day it is the understatement of the year) the company was in a bit of a doldrums until David Nixon was appointed in 2001 and he carried on, in his own inimitable way, the Gable legacy.

 

(Sorry for the digression) 

[Emeralds]

On 18/08/2022 at 23:50, Peanut68 said:

Amelia, thank you…. I did wonder at the link of Chekhov with Brontë sisters….

To throw in another curve ball one…. Dracula….. some say character based on Vlad the Impaler…..???

I think Rambert performed a ballet inspired by LS Lowry & his paintings…. Did it feature the artist within it? Certainly his paintings featured real everyday people! 
Again, tenuous I know!

 

 

 

The LS Lowry ballet, A Simple Man,  is definitely based on real people, as Janet has detailed above. I saw Northern Ballet Theatre (now called Northern Ballet) perform in London and Christopher Gable was magnificent as Lowry! Even friends who weren’t into ballet (but went because they liked his art) were impressed. The corps de ballet scenes were great too. Never met or researched his mother so can’t tell how accurate the story was to real life, but it was a memorable and lovely piece...relies a lot on the two leads (Lowry and his mum) being portrayed by outstanding dancers though.

 

Dracula I’d have to say is probably more fictional - “inspired by” only? 😁😈

[Emeralds]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this but I think I would add Anton Dolin’s production of Jules Perrot’s Pas de Quatre. Although the original version by Perot never listed Taglioni, Cerrito, Grisi and Grahn as actual “characters” but only they ever danced their own roles in the ballet, which had a very short run, as far as we know, of only four shows.

 

They essentially portrayed themselves/were themselves in the ballet. When Dolin reconstructed the ballet approximately a century later, the roles in the ballet were named as the ballerinas Taglioni, Cerrito, Grisi and Grahn, and the casting is meant to reflect that, eg Taglioni has to dance like the oldest ballerina, Grahn has to have an obvious Danish Bournonville style, and the older ladies had to look like they were visibly rivals (taking ages to milk the applause and trying to outshine each other and play to the audience, etc) but it has to look controlled and subtle by being elegant and ethereal...it’s both funny as well as a great display of Romantic Era dancing. 

 

I wish it could be revived again. I wonder who Belinda Wright and Jelko Yuresha (who were left the rights by Dolin’s heir, his nephew,I believe) left the rights to- Wright died in 2007, Yuresha in 2020.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Emeralds

[Angela]

If we are talking about real life dancers/choreographers as themes of ballets: Did anyone ever make a ballet on Marius Petipa?? In John Neumeier's Nutcracker, the figure of Drosselmeyer is based on Petipa, but does he appear in other ballets?

[Jane S]

On 09/08/2022 at 20:54, Pulcinella said:

The Grand Tour by Joe Layton based on an imaginary cruise but featuring Noel Coward, Mary Pickford, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas among others. 

 

Joe Layton also made a piece called O.W., about Oscar Wilde,  for whatever the touring RB was called in 1972 - the New Group, I think.

[Jan McNulty]

1 hour ago, Angela said:

If we are talking about real life dancers/choreographers as themes of ballets: Did anyone ever make a ballet on Marius Petipa?? In John Neumeier's Nutcracker, the figure of Drosselmeyer is based on Petipa, but does he appear in other ballets?

 

Tchaikovsky was included in the prologue of Peter Schaufuss' Nutcracker for ENB(LFB).

[Angela]

1 hour ago, Jane S said:

Joe Layton also made a piece called O.W., about Oscar Wilde, 

 

A ballet called "A Wilde Story" about the poet will premiere in October at Hannover Ballet, choreography by Marco Goecke.

[Peanut68]

On 19/08/2022 at 07:21, DVDfan said:

According to a recent 'In our time' (BBC radio 4), vampires were originally low class and the idea of an aristocratic vampire first appeared in John Polidori's story 'The Vampyre', was named Lord Ruthen, and is thought to be based on Lord Byron. Count Dracula came later: I can't remember if the name is a deliberate link to Vlad the Impaler. 

Polidori was Byron's personal physician and was part of the house party in Switzerland where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. 

Now there's a group of people and an event to make a ballet!

Yes , yes , yes!!!

I had the wonderful honour to play Mary Shelley many years ago in a production of Howard Brenton’s play ‘Bloody Poetry exactly based on these events & have often over the years mused at how fantastically well this could be adapted into a ballet! 

Most certainly I could see this as one for Northern Ballet (thinking perfect fit for Kenneth Timdal choreo…) I’d even been thinking recently about this & wondered how one ever suggests to companies ideas/scripts for adaptation? 
When I was in the play we had a truly inspirational Director with a very clever minimalist set which also would completely lend itself to a ballet interpretation.
Jan, you seem tk have the ear of powers that be at NB….. 

I am definitely a frustrated Ballet Impresario…oh to win big on the Euromillions;- I’ve got 3 good to go (in my head!!) productions!!

[capybara]

10 hours ago, Peanut68 said:

Yes , yes , yes!!!

I had the wonderful honour to play Mary Shelley many years ago in a production of Howard Brenton’s play ‘Bloody Poetry exactly based on these events & have often over the years mused at how fantastically well this could be adapted into a ballet! 

Most certainly I could see this as one for Northern Ballet (thinking perfect fit for Kenneth Timdal choreo…) I’d even been thinking recently about this & wondered how one ever suggests to companies ideas/scripts for adaptation? 
When I was in the play we had a truly inspirational Director with a very clever minimalist set which also would completely lend itself to a ballet interpretation.
Jan, you seem tk have the ear of powers that be at NB….. 

I am definitely a frustrated Ballet Impresario…oh to win big on the Euromillions;- I’ve got 3 good to go (in my head!!) productions!!

 

Peanut68 - Federico Bonelli is talking to The London Ballet Circle via Zoom at 7.00pm on Wednesday 28th September. You could join in an put a slightly loaded question to him.

Members will receive the Zoom link automatically at no charge; the cost to non Members is: £5

Here is the link for booking a place: https://www.tlbc.org.uk/events/in-conversation-with-federico-bonelli-via-zoom

[Odyssey]

I came across a reference to the cowboy ballet’ Billy the Kid the other day so thought this would fit into the growing list .Commissioned by Lincoln Kirsten with a score by Aaron Copland, it was choreographed in 1938 by Eugene Loring  for Ballet Caravan, a touring company - an ‘early version ‘ of New York City Ballet. 

[bangorballetboy]

This webpage might be of interest

[Don Q Fan]

A couple more for the list from Dutch National Ballet and SB Berlin 

1. Frida (which is the extended version of ENBs Broken Wings)

 

2. Mata Hari. 

 

3. Years ago, when Vladimir Malakhov was still AD,  I saw a ballet called Tchaikovsky at Staatsballet Berlin about the composer, and that was really good. 

 

 

[Angela]

12 hours ago, Don Q Fan said:

a ballet called Tchaikovsky at Staatsballet Berlin

 

Oh, I had forgotten that one! "Tchaikovsky: the Mystery of Life and Death" was made by Boris Eifman for his own company in 1993, he brought it to Staatsballett Berlin in a new, revised version in 2006. I did not see it, but from the reviews of that time it seems as if the biography focuses on Tchaikovsky's love life. Petipa doesn't show up.

The trailer is still online:

 

 

[Don Q Fan]

I really enjoyed Tchaikovsky I think I saw it twice, I loved that it included bits from all his ballets and the ending sticks in my mind. I don't particular recall the love theme, but it was a while ago now! I am pretty sure I even saw Malakhov himself in the title role in one performance.