Ballets that have aged badly

[Scheherezade]

7 minutes ago, LinMM said:

Having said that I wonder what Shakespeare would do with casting for his plays if around today

His works are informed by a profound understanding of all aspects of the human condition, from the comedic to the horrific, the latter painted uncompromisingly in all its gritty and ugly reality. He would surely have wanted the actor best able to portray that reality. I cannot imagine  that he would have made any concession to the over-sensitivity of the easily offended.

[Ondine]

8 minutes ago, Scheherezade said:

 cannot imagine  that he would have made any concession to the over-sensitivity of the easily offended.

 

Though he did have to concede to the fact women couldn't act in his plays and Othello's wife Desdemona was played by a man for decades. 

 

 

[Scheherezade]

28 minutes ago, Ondine said:

 

Though he did have to concede to the fact women couldn't act in his plays and Othello's wife Desdemona was played by a man for decades. 

 

 

Ah yes, but he didn’t have Gwyneth Paltrow to step into the breach to pretend to be a boy pretending to be a girl …

[Ondine]

6 minutes ago, Scheherezade said:

Ah yes, but he didn’t have Gwyneth Paltrow to step into the breach to pretend to be a boy pretending to be a girl …

 

I haven't actually seen the movie. She's bad enough as Emma.

 

A blackface Othello, a man dressed as a woman as his wife.  Shakespeare as originally performed?

 

More of Shakespeare and blackface, both historically and now, which is getting away from ballet but has relevance.

 

https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/othello-blackface/

 

 

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-10-20/blackface-othello-lawrence-olivier-bright-sheng

 

Remember, Peter Wright altered his RB Nutcracker Chinese dance and Arabian himself.  In his lifetime, ideas of presentation, representation, on stage have altered so much.

 

 

[Jan McNulty]

There's a rather lovely film called Stage Beauty in which Billy Crudup plays an actor who specialises in female roles in the time of Charles ll.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_Beauty

[FionaM]

6 hours ago, Pas de Quatre said:

The ballet Le Corsaire is set in Arabia which is East Africa, thousands of miles away from West Africa and the transatlantic slave trade.

I understood Arabia to be part of the Asian continent … it’s the peninsula to the east of East Africa.  It is/was connected to Africa only at the Sinai peninsula.  
 

 

[FionaM]

Le Corsaire’s themes of piracy and slavery are universal and still current, even in UK today.   In the traditional version it is not a ballet that touches our conscience or raises awareness of that.  Maybe someone should do a re imagining of this story that does?

 

Akram Khan’s reimagining of Giselle does just that.  Both have a place in a ballet company’s rep in my view.  

[FionaM]

Regarding animals

 

i don’t think they have any place on stage in a dance performance and that includes the pony in Fille or Ratmansky’s Giselle.  It reduces ballet to circus or pantomime in my view.  There are plenty of other stages for that.

 

The pigeons in Two Pigeons distract me from that beautiful ballet, as I get so uptight about whether they will or will not fly to where they should, nor stay there, that I miss the dancing.  I’d prefer it without. 

[Pas de Quatre]

1 hour ago, FionaM said:

I understood Arabia to be part of the Asian continent … it’s the peninsula to the east of East Africa.  It is/was connected to Africa only at the Sinai peninsula.  
 

 

Even if you do categorise it thus, my point was that the pirates and slavers plundered along the coast of East Africa. 

[Sophoife]

8 hours ago, Jamesrhblack said:

 

And Shakespeare’s Cleopatra was first played by a boy in a crinoline, “Cut my lace, Charmian…| etc etc etc

 

Not a crinoline in the early 1600s. A farthingale (which apparently originated in Spain and came to England through Mary I with her Spanish connections). Different construction and shape.

 

@Ondine said Leaving aside the Trocks, how soon will we be seeing a male Aurora, I wonder?

 

(Couldn't paste a second quote into an edited post)

 

To answer that question is impossible, but I do point people in the direction of Scottish Ballet's Cinderella, in which Christopher Hampson has cast both male and female dancers in the lead role.

 

Third response regarding pirates and slavers: both the western and eastern coasts of Africa were notorious for nests of pirates and slavers, who were European, native African, and (most vicious from my reading) Muslims from the north-eastern region (modern Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco for example). "Barbary pirates" were largely Muslim, and operated throughout the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic, down the west African coast, and historically as far north as Iceland.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Sophoife
Added second and third responses.

[Jamesrhblack]

17 minutes ago, Sophoife said:

 

Not a crinoline in the early 1600s. A farthingale (which apparently originated in Spain and came to England through Mary I with her Spanish connections). Different construction and shape.

 

@Ondine said Leaving aside the Trocks, how soon will we be seeing a male Aurora, I wonder?

 

(Couldn't paste a second quote into an edited post)

 

To answer that question is impossible, but I do point people in the direction of Scottish Ballet's Cinderella, in which Christopher Hampson has cast both male and female dancers in the lead role.

 

 

 

I do indeed mean a farthingale, my point being that there was a corset whose lace strings could be cut to relieve a palpitating heart …

[Sim]

3 minutes ago, Jamesrhblack said:

 

I do indeed mean a farthingale, my point being that there was a corset whose lace strings could be cut to relieve a palpitating heart …

....and a heaving bosom, no doubt!!  

[CHazell2]

8 hours ago, Pas de Quatre said:

The ballet Le Corsaire is set in Arabia which is East Africa, thousands of miles away from West Africa and the transatlantic slave trade.

From my understanding, Le Corsaire is set in the Aegean sea area between Greece and Turkey. I could be wrong though.

 

Also, why is Checkmate considered to be outdated? - it is a ballet about a game of Chess, pretty universal I would have thought.

[zxDaveM]

11 minutes ago, Jamesrhblack said:

 

I do indeed mean a farthingale, my point being that there was a corset whose lace strings could be cut to relieve a palpitating heart …

 

Le Corsetaire!!

[Sim]

14 minutes ago, CHazell2 said:

From my understanding, Le Corsaire is set in the Aegean sea area between Greece and Turkey. I could be wrong though.

 

Also, why is Checkmate considered to be outdated? - it is a ballet about a game of Chess, pretty universal I would have thought.

Things can be universal and still be outdated stylistically.   

[Fonty]

5 hours ago, Ondine said:

 

Though he did have to concede to the fact women couldn't act in his plays and Othello's wife Desdemona was played by a man for decades. 

 

 

 

I thought the female parts in Shakespeare were played by boys rather than men?  Or at least, by very young men who could pass as female more easily.  I believe that once they got past a certain age, their days of playing the female roles were over?

 

I suppose this is slightly off the original topic, but as Shakespeare has been mentioned, he very rarely describes what his characters look like physically.  However,  the description of Othello is very specific.  He is a Moor.  Obviously if there is a black actor they would be the obvious choice.  Having said that, if they are playing the lead in Othello, then  I would expect to be seeing them in other leading roles where the characters are of a similar age - Macbeth, say, or Hamlet.  I would have no problems whatsoever with seeing a black actor play either of these two characters.  By the same token, I have no problems watching actors (or dancers) who are on the mature side playing Romeo and Juliet.  I saw Carlos Acosta as Romeo several times; it never bothered me that everyone else in Verona was white.  Didn't even give it a thought.  

 

Now here comes the controversial bit, but I'll say it anyway.  Supposing there is no non white actor of sufficient calibre to play Othello?  Does the company put the play on hold until there is? Or cast someone purely because of their skin colour?  Why should one of the leading Shakespearean actors of their time be denied the chance to perform a terrific role if they don't happen to have naturally very dark skin?  Apparently the Moors had a variety of different complexions.  The Encyclopaedia Britannica says they were variously  described by Europeans as black, tawny or swarthy in skin colour.  Actors routinely wear make up and wigs to alter their appearance, and that description covers a lot of different possibilities. 

I'll wait for my post to be moderated after someone objects.......

[LinMM]

Ha ha zxDaveM 😂

Thanks for the bit of light relief! 
 

And no …I agree Fonty for me a play should not be put on hold because of skin colour! If there is a great actor highly suitable for the role whether it’s a white Othello or black Hamlet it should go ahead. 
I loved Acosta in Fille mal Gardee ….one of my faves in that role …and didn’t think of skin colour at all just his cheeky interpretation of the character. 

Edited November 25, 2023 by LinMM

[Jamesrhblack]

3 hours ago, Sim said:

....and a heaving bosom, no doubt!!  

 

Unlikely if, as originally, played by a boy 😉

[Sim]

10 minutes ago, Jamesrhblack said:

 

Unlikely if, as originally, played by a boy 😉

I thought they might have had falsies of some kind if they were costumed as women!  

[Dawnstar]

12 hours ago, offmenu said:

With Othello at least, there seems a fairly easy and obvious fix - hire a black actor/performer.

 

That may be possible for Othello the play but is a lot harder to do for Otello the opera. Given how difficult the role is, there aren't many tenors of any skin colour who can sing it well enough so companies can't just always go & easily hire a black tenor. The current favoured solution seems to be to have the tenor not made up in any way & presumably the audience are supposed to just imagine that he's a different race to all the rest of the characters even if he's not. (Side note: I discovered recently that the farce Lend Me A Tenor, which involves mistaken identity due to 2 characters being in costume & make up as Otello, has been re-written to change the opera being performed to Pagliacci so the characters would be in clown make up instead.)

[CHazell2]

4 hours ago, Sim said:

Things can be universal and still be outdated stylistically.   

Why do you think that Checkmate is stylistically outdated - could you explain that a bit further?

[MAB]

As an admirer of the music of Arthur Bliss it distresses me that Checkmate, a British classic in every sense of the word, should be considered outdated.  I accept I'll probably never see a ballet by Massine again but from comments here it sounds as if Fokine will soon be thrown on the scrap heap too.

[Sophoife]

2 hours ago, Sim said:

I thought they might have had falsies of some kind if they were costumed as women!  

 

Antonia Forest's The Player's Boy and The Players and the Rebels were researched and written at the time of the Shakespeare quatercentenary (1964). The player's boy of the title is apprenticed with the Lord Chamberlain's Men and there is information on costume. Think wadded-up lengths of cloth.

[AnneMarriott]

12 hours ago, Sim said:

Things can be universal and still be outdated stylistically.   

Can I tentatively add Marguerite and Armand to the list of stylistically outdated?  Even if I am alone in my opinion it surely counts as a ballet that has aged badly on the grounds of giving offence to wig-makers.

[DVDfan]

I completely agree with the point made above, that a great play/opera/ballet should be performed using whatever performers are available, regardless of the colour of their skin and that of the historical characters represented, if any. Not to is to cancel part of our culture and to deny performers the chance to 'give' their Othello, Macbeth etc. It also keeps skin colour to the forefront of our thinking, when it should, in an ideal world, be fading into insignificance.

Of course, if what you are saying is that white actors shouldn't 'black up', but play with minimal make-up, that's a valid suggestion, I think, given that 'black face' has been used to denigrate black people in the past.

 

Returning to the subject of outdated ballets, for myself I feel that Anastasia qualifies, and has done since it has been known for certain that Anna Andersen was not the Grand Duchess Anastasia. I think the plot is so rooted in the belief that she was that it can't be performed to an audience who know she was not. I also believe that most historians are now convinced that the Tsarina was not in a physical relationship with Rasputin and that the Tsar was faithful to his wife after marriage, so the passages suggesting otherwise in act II strike a discordant note. 

All this is in stark contrast to Mayerling, which is well grounded in fact, though obviously as a show lasting less than 3 hours, has to be  a bit selective in its portrayal and interpretation.

[Jamesrhblack]

1 hour ago, DVDfan said:

 

 

Returning to the subject of outdated ballets, for myself I feel that Anastasia qualifies, and has done since it has been known for certain that Anna Andersen was not the Grand Duchess Anastasia. I think the plot is so rooted in the belief that she was that it can't be performed to an audience who know she was not. I also believe that most historians are now convinced that the Tsarina was not in a physical relationship with Rasputin and that the Tsar was faithful to his wife after marriage, so the passages suggesting otherwise in act II strike a discordant note. 

 

An interesting point, and I can see its validity at one level. However, Anna Anderson was always very clear in her assertions that she knew well who she was (whether or not this was a sly reference to the fact she knew she was a fraud or she really did believe in her claim) and I think the ballet still works as an examination of identity. The redesigns certainly make it clear that the entire ballet is set in the hospital with the skewed angles emphasising we are watching Anna’s version of her “past.” This is, of course, a personal point of view and not offered as fact…

 

 

[Scheherezade]

2 hours ago, DVDfan said:

I completely agree with the point made above, that a great play/opera/ballet should be performed using whatever performers are available, regardless of the colour of their skin and that of the historical characters represented, if any. Not to is to cancel part of our culture and to deny performers the chance to 'give' their Othello, Macbeth etc. It also keeps skin colour to the forefront of our thinking, when it should, in an ideal world, be fading into insignificance.

Of course, if what you are saying is that white actors shouldn't 'black up', but play with minimal make-up, that's a valid suggestion, I think, given that 'black face' has been used to denigrate black people in the past.

 

Returning to the subject of outdated ballets, for myself I feel that Anastasia qualifies, and has done since it has been known for certain that Anna Andersen was not the Grand Duchess Anastasia. I think the plot is so rooted in the belief that she was that it can't be performed to an audience who know she was not. I also believe that most historians are now convinced that the Tsarina was not in a physical relationship with Rasputin and that the Tsar was faithful to his wife after marriage, so the passages suggesting otherwise in act II strike a discordant note. 

All this is in stark contrast to Mayerling, which is well grounded in fact, though obviously as a show lasting less than 3 hours, has to be  a bit selective in its portrayal and interpretation.

 

 

40 minutes ago, Jamesrhblack said:

An interesting point, and I can see its validity at one level. However, Anna Anderson was always very clear in her assertions that she knew well who she was (whether or not this was a sly reference to the fact she knew she was a fraud or she really did believe in her claim) and I think the ballet still works as an examination of identity. The redesigns certainly make it clear that the entire ballet is set in the hospital with the skewed angles emphasising we are watching Anna’s version of her “past.” This is, of course, a personal point of view and not offered as fact…

 

 

 

And performances could be preceded by statement making it clear that the work is based upon what was asserted by Anna Andersen, which may or may not have reflected what she knew to be the truth.  

[MJW]

4 hours ago, AnneMarriott said:

Can I tentatively add Marguerite and Armand to the list of stylistically outdated?  Even if I am alone in my opinion it surely counts as a ballet that has aged badly on the grounds of giving offence to wig-makers.

 

True! But I think they have got rid of the hideous wigs now (certainly for the supporting men). Same applies to the men in the Nutcracker and Kolia's wig in A month in the Country (whose wig seemed to have been inspired by Worzel Gummidge)

[DVDfan]

As I understood it, at the end of Anastasia, when she is scooting around the room on the bed, this is supposed to be a moment when she is truly certain of her identity - but if she still thinks she is Anastasia, she can't be as this is a delusion, and therefore the poor woman is in fact trapped in a false identity haunted by implanted, traumatic memories. 

 

I'd like to add that I only said it was outdated, I didn't say it should never be performed.

[Fonty]

With regard to ballets seeming outdated now, I wonder if in part it is because the performers themselves don't quite understand what is required of them? Surely it takes a while for dancers who are unused to a certain choreographer to really get to grips with it.  I expect we have all seen certain ballets resurrected after many years, and been disappointed by something that looks rather dull and uninspiring.  Yet I go on Youtube, and see exactly the same ballet danced by the original creators, and the ballet comes to life and sparkles.  

 

With regard to Checkmate, I saw Bussell as the Black Queen.  I loved the set and the costumes, but I did think she was miscast.  Nobody can question her technical abilities, but I didn't get any sense of menace from her at all.  I didn't get a chance to see Yanowsky in the role, I suspect I would have enjoyed her performance much more as she was wonderful at playing these sorts of characters.  

 

I thought Pineapple Poll was great when I saw it with the BRB.  Lively, fun, sent me off on a high.  I also really enjoyed ENB's Le Corsaire.  I don't care if a ballet features pirates, slave girls, men playing women.  No different to watching ballets about fairy tale princesses, fairies, ghosts, lively happy peasants in clean clothing.  Just give me fantastic dancing and wonderful music and I am happy.  On the other hand, I never, ever want to see the Judas Tree again.  It might be deep and meaningful, but I find it dreadfully boring.  And the same goes for a lot of other newer, more modern stuff as well.  

[capybara]

4 hours ago, AnneMarriott said:

Can I tentatively add Marguerite and Armand to the list of stylistically outdated?  Even if I am alone in my opinion it surely counts as a ballet that has aged badly on the grounds of giving offence to wig-makers.

Haven’t the offending wigs been ditched now?

[Jan McNulty]

I believe I last saw Checkmate in 2012 when BRB visited Munich.

 

The performances were amazing and it looked wonderful on the enormous stage - definitely stylised but in no way outdated IMHO.

[Ondine]

7 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

I thought Pineapple Poll was great when I saw it with the BRB.  Lively, fun, sent me off on a high

 

I think the Royal Ballet would be wonderful in this. Ham it up, great fun, a bit of pathos.  It's not intended to be serious. Lots of opportunities for younger dancers, great music.