Ballets that have aged badly

[zxDaveM]

3 hours ago, Fonty said:

 

There speaks someone who has obtained one of the cheaper seats or standing tickets?    You might feel differently if you've paid over £100 to see the performance.......

 

that is very true - and yes, a stander I am 🙂

 

[AnneMarriott]

5 hours ago, LinMM said:

Well Anne Marriott let’s hope it’s put either first on the bill so you can have time for an extra tea/wine in the bar or at the end so you can get home a bit earlier lol! 

Yep - that would be my plan!

[Fonty]

I notice that the thread has concentrated on much older works that used to be performed by the RB.  I try to avoid MacGregor works as a rule.  Have his ballets aged badly, do you think? 

[AllAboutTheJourney]

46 minutes ago, Fonty said:

I adore Bourne's Swan Lake.  Wonderfully moving.  Interesting though, that when he did the Sleeping Beauty, he didn't feel the need to alter the male and female roles.  I suppose there is room for an inventive choreographer to do a complete role reversal, and have Aurora seeking out her sleeping prince.  

 

Slightly off topic, sorry, but Scottish Ballet's new production of Cinders was mentioned above and this role reversal is what Christopher Hampson has done. It's not a 'male Cinderella', in the sense that a potential male Aurora was mentioned, but some nights the titular character in the story will be man (played by a male principal) and other nights it will be a woman (played by a female principal). 

 

When Cinders is a man, he will meet a princess at the ball etc etc, and when Cinders is a woman, she will meet a prince - so it's somewhat 'traditional' in that sense.

 

They have not publicised casting in advance so for most people it will be a surprise when the curtain goes up as to whether Cinders will be a male principal or a female principal that night. 

[Sophoife]

8 hours ago, LinMM said:

I never thought I’d be reading that the Ballet Marguerite and Armand should be consigned to the attic as such!!!

---
Id love to see this ballet again now. 

 

You can.

 

AusBallet's stream from 21 November is available until 5 December at this link. Cost is AUD$29 or 26 if you're a subscriber.

 

Includes The Dream and a bunch of interviews with conductor Barry Wordsworth, dancers, répétiteurs and stagers, medical/physio staff etc.

 

Amy Harris as Marguerite and Nathan Brook as Armand, with Steven Heathcote as Armand's Father. Ako Kondo as Titania and her husband Chengwu Guo as Oberon, with Brett Chynoweth as Puck.

 

Edited to add that I've seen Tzu-Chao Chou dancing Aurora's solo from act I en pointe in a studio and OMG he can so dance it!! He was doing it for fun but took it totally seriously.

 

Also, of course, although the Trocks ham it up, they've got technique underlying the fun and their pointe work is on point as it were.

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by Sophoife
Added bits about men en pointe.

[LinMM]

You literally just beat me to it Sophoife! 
Id just seen an advert on my Facebook page for the streaming of Australian Ballet in the Dream with Marguerite and Armand and was going to report here. 
Lucky you lot in Australia then as presumably somebody there will be seeing it for real? 

[alison]

1 hour ago, Fonty said:

I notice that the thread has concentrated on much older works that used to be performed by the RB.  I try to avoid MacGregor works as a rule.  Have his ballets aged badly, do you think? 

 

I don't think I would say so.

[Sim]

2 hours ago, Fonty said:

I notice that the thread has concentrated on much older works that used to be performed by the RB.  I try to avoid MacGregor works as a rule.  Have his ballets aged badly, do you think? 

Chroma certainly doesn’t seem as far out and groundbreaking now as it did in 2005.  I was bowled over by it back then; when I see it now I still enjoy it but I get that ‘meh’ feeling.  

[LinMM]

The Cinderella of Scottish Ballet sounds really interesting and the idea definitely works in the modern era. Does it still use the same music as the Ashton one? 

[AllAboutTheJourney]

3 hours ago, LinMM said:

The Cinderella of Scottish Ballet sounds really interesting and the idea definitely works in the modern era. Does it still use the same music as the Ashton one? 

Yes I believe so. And sorry maybe this is best placed on another thread but there is an interesting article with their guest principal, Jessica Fyffe, on the Hardcorps podcast this week where she mentions there is an additional Prokofiev piece added in for a pas de deux. 

[Sophoife]

6 hours ago, LinMM said:

You literally just beat me to it Sophoife! 
Id just seen an advert on my Facebook page for the streaming of Australian Ballet in the Dream with Marguerite and Armand and was going to report here. 
Lucky you lot in Australia then as presumably somebody there will be seeing it for real? 

 

I saw it three times and am working on a detailed report.

 

Season now ended, and Swan Lake opens on 1 December.

 

Jessica Fyfe's podcast episode is available at

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by Sophoife
Added podcast info

[Josette]

Marguerite and Armand is being performed by San Francisco Ballet in February along with Song of the Earth.  My Mother took me when quite young to see Marguerite and Armand with Fonteyn and Nureyev and I have not seen it since, except for the film of Fonteyn/Nureyev, which does not do justice as to what I saw them do on stage.   I have tickets to see two casts in San Francisco.  

[capybara]

6 hours ago, Josette said:

Marguerite and Armand is being performed by San Francisco Ballet in February along with Song of the Earth.  My Mother took me when quite young to see Marguerite and Armand with Fonteyn and Nureyev and I have not seen it since, except for the film of Fonteyn/Nureyev, which does not do justice as to what I saw them do on stage.   I have tickets to see two casts in San Francisco.  

Ooooh, lucky you. What a Bill!!!

[LinMM]

Yes agree that’s a terrific double bill. 

[Sim]

9 hours ago, Josette said:

Marguerite and Armand is being performed by San Francisco Ballet in February along with Song of the Earth.  My Mother took me when quite young to see Marguerite and Armand with Fonteyn and Nureyev and I have not seen it since, except for the film of Fonteyn/Nureyev, which does not do justice as to what I saw them do on stage.   I have tickets to see two casts in San Francisco.  

Enjoy it, Josette….and please report back!  

[JennyTaylor]

I had this conversation last week and 3 ballets that were mentioned were the Judas Tree,  The Invitation and La Fille (very sadly). 

 

These days it seems that it's so easy to offend someone, anyone, with a wide variety of content and we have seen the rise of "wokeness" and cancel culture.  

 

So, does aging badly mean this - that it offends someone with its content, or does it just mean it looks old fashioned.  I take it with the 3 ballets I mentioned that it's content, in which case there's a lot more that could come into that category:  bullying an old man in Coppelia,  the Rudolf and Stefanie pdd in Mayerling, suggestive sexual content in Mayerling and Manon - the list could go and on. 

 

Yet, are we being too sensitive about ballet? This type of content is regularly available on TV channels every evening.    

[Blossom]

1 hour ago, JennyTaylor said:

I had this conversation last week and 3 ballets that were mentioned were the Judas Tree,  The Invitation and La Fille (very sadly). 

 

These days it seems that it's so easy to offend someone, anyone, with a wide variety of content and we have seen the rise of "wokeness" and cancel culture.  

 

So, does aging badly mean this - that it offends someone with its content, or does it just mean it looks old fashioned.  I take it with the 3 ballets I mentioned that it's content, in which case there's a lot more that could come into that category:  bullying an old man in Coppelia,  the Rudolf and Stefanie pdd in Mayerling, suggestive sexual content in Mayerling and Manon - the list could go and on. 

 

Yet, are we being too sensitive about ballet? This type of content is regularly available on TV channels every evening.    

 

I have it on good authority that Fille hasn't been cancelled. Next season perhaps?

I think it's a wonderful sunshine ballet and a great first ballet for kids. Would love to see this danced by the new cohort of principals promoted since the last run.

[bridiem]

1 hour ago, JennyTaylor said:

I had this conversation last week and 3 ballets that were mentioned were the Judas Tree,  The Invitation and La Fille (very sadly). 

 

These days it seems that it's so easy to offend someone, anyone, with a wide variety of content and we have seen the rise of "wokeness" and cancel culture.  

 

So, does aging badly mean this - that it offends someone with its content, or does it just mean it looks old fashioned.  I take it with the 3 ballets I mentioned that it's content, in which case there's a lot more that could come into that category:  bullying an old man in Coppelia,  the Rudolf and Stefanie pdd in Mayerling, suggestive sexual content in Mayerling and Manon - the list could go and on. 

 

Yet, are we being too sensitive about ballet? This type of content is regularly available on TV channels every evening.    

 

Yes - it's very strange that there's such sensitivity around given that I personally can find very little to watch on TV that I don't find gratuitously violent, overly sexual, needlessly explicit in various ways, or just coarse and depressing with absolutely no serious artistic intent. Give me ballet any day.

[San Perregrino]

2 hours ago, JennyTaylor said:

the Judas Tree

i have read about The Judas Tree frequently on BCF but never seen it until I watched it on ROH Stream last Sunday. It is a marvellous thought provoking piece of narrative choreography and, prefaced by Monica Mason’s introduction it is sadly and tragically relevant to today’s gang culture and the present time. I would welcome a revival of this piece onstage. 

[Scheherezade]

36 minutes ago, PeterS said:

i have read about The Judas Tree frequently on BCF but never seen it until I watched it on ROH Stream last Sunday. It is a marvellous thought provoking piece of narrative choreography and, prefaced by Monica Mason’s introduction it is sadly and tragically relevant to today’s gang culture and the present time. I would welcome a revival of this piece onstage. 

I absolutely agree that dance has to be able to present the ugly and unpalatable aspects of humanity as well as it’s pretty side, and I feel that the darker side of human nature is portrayed truthfully if disturbingly by The Invitation, but I have to say that I have never felt quite as queasy and disturbed as those thankfully limited occasions when I have seen The Judas Tree on stage. Not sure that I could stomach it again. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Scheherezade

[Fonty]

I have only seen The Invitation once, but I thought it was a very powerful piece of drama.  And brilliantly danced by Naghdi on the occasion I saw it.  On the other hand, I have seen the Judas Tree several times, and personally I  just find it a bit over the top.  Having said that, if it was on a triple bill I wouldn't walk out.  

[San Perregrino]

1 minute ago, Fonty said:

I have only seen The Invitation once, but I thought it was a very powerful piece of drama

Having already seen and been moved by The Invitation, I once went to a Saturday matinee where it was the middle part of a triple bill.  Parents were bringing young children along. When I asked one of the ushers if it was suitable viewing they said that they flagged it up to the parents but were generally told that either a) it would be beyond the child's comprehension or b) the child had seen much worse on TV or computer games. Parents know best it would seem.

[Fonty]

31 minutes ago, PeterS said:

Having already seen and been moved by The Invitation, I once went to a Saturday matinee where it was the middle part of a triple bill.  Parents were bringing young children along. When I asked one of the ushers if it was suitable viewing they said that they flagged it up to the parents but were generally told that either a) it would be beyond the child's comprehension or b) the child had seen much worse on TV or computer games. Parents know best it would seem.

 

That reminds me of a story I read, possibly written by a dance critic, I can't remember.  A very small child was in attendance, and at that crucial moment a small voice piped up loudly "What are they doing now, Mummy?" 

[Melody]

Original post deleted.

 

Just wanted to say that I think that while it may be a worthy endeavour to hire more directors and producers who can create more diverse modern productions that speak to our current culture, we're still somewhat restricted in terms of producing what audiences want to see. We know what the bums-on-seats shows are, and they're generally traditional and generally European. Hopefully we can tolerate having top-rate performers from anywhere in the world cast in roles that were originally written for Europeans. As for how far we go to make actors of one race look like characters of another race is a different and currently pretty thorny issue, but it's no reason to avoid the production or the particular casting altogether.
 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Melody

[alison]

On 28/11/2023 at 02:07, Josette said:

 I have not seen it since, except for the film of Fonteyn/Nureyev, which does not do justice as to what I saw them do on stage. 

 

There are two films, aren't there - I think one is black and white and the other in colour?  Which did you see, Josette, can you remember?

[FLOSS]

 

I tend to think that the neglect of works like Job, Checkmate,The Rakes's Progress and the Prospect Before Us has far more to do with Kevin's personal taste and his ambition to be remembered as the company's great moderniser than their innate quality; theatrical viability or the  audience's personal taste, although this nebulous concept of audience taste is often invoked  in support of a director's decision to neglect a work or a whole tranche of once popular repertory. No one ever confronts the artistic powers that be to ask how they have arrived at their conclusion about the current audience's taste in the absence of  audience surveys or to point out that it is rather difficult  to have a worthwhile opinion about the quality of a type of repertory or an individual work that you have never seen in live.performance in the theatre with a decent cast.

 

I am not convinced that any of de Valois' surviving ballets are any more old fashioned than Balanchine's Prodigal Son which Kevin programmed for revival only a few season's ago. The Prodigal Son like the de Valois ballets I have already mentioned is a work which is concerned with narrative and the depiction  of character which uses a dance vocabulary based on a combination of recognisable dance steps and a mixture of grotesque and natural body language rather than a display of classically based choreography

 

Of course you may easily be persuaded that a work has passed its sell by date and is "hopelessly old fashioned" if you are repeatedly told as much and you then see a revival where more care has been given to casting popular dancers and securing healthy box office receipts than anything else. if an unfamiliar work is staged after years of neglect but insufficient care is given to capturing the work's mood and little or no effort has been put into getting the casting right the audience may well end up believing that.what they have been told is true and the work is weak and its neglect well justified. If you had only encountered Checkmate with Bussell as the Black Queen or The Rake's Progress with Kobborg as the Rake you would have found both works weak and theatrically ineffective and you would have wondered why anyone had bothered to revive them. However the problem had little to do with the viability of the works and everything to do with the casting. Both Bussell and Kobborg were hopelessly miscast. Those who saw Kobborg as the Rake did not see the character  or the ballet that de Valois had created.Those who saw Samodurov in the role were far more fortunate but  I always suspected that  Samadurov was really a demi-character dancer rather than a danseur. Neither Bussell  nor Kobborg progressed beyond reproducing the steps as if their accurate reproduction was an end in itself rather than merely being one of the choreographic elements from which de Valois intended her dancers to create her characters. Indeed I seem to recall that Clemebt Crisp was so unimpressed by Kobborg's performance that he declared that the company was no longer able to dance The Rake's Progress.That was not entirely true but it did seem that the Kobbirg cast was unduly burdened with self conscious dancers most of whom seemed far from convinced that what they were being asked ro do was worth their time and effort.

Morera as the Betrayed Girl was fine but was not able to counter the impact  what was going on around her. The second cast led by Samodurov was much more effective largely because both he and Hatley, his Betrayed Girl, had a firm grasp of the essential nature of the work which de Valois had intended to be  evocation of Hogarth;s version of  eighteenth century London.

 

Statements from management that a work is "outdated" or is "old fashioned" seem to me to be little more than feeble attempts to justify decisions in artistic terms which have been prompted by the demands of the marketing department or the personal taste of the artistic director. I can't help wondering whether such statements influence the audience's opinion of works to which such labels are attached?

 

One thing that puzzles me is when and in what circumstances Ashton's ballets  began to be described as "twee" and to which of his ballets this label is to be applied? I don't recall this description being in circulation in the late eighties when MacMillan's ballets began to be promoted and the amount of stage time allocated to the Ashton repertory began to be reduced. I recall reading an article  by John Percival in which he reported that he had heard dancers being encouraged by colleagues to "camp up" the Ashton choreography which they had been learning. Did that lead to his works increasingly being thought of as "twee" and "silly"?

 

Having seen  nearly every surviving Ashton ballet the only works that I can think of which might be thought to deserve being categorised as "twee" are the cloyingly sentimental Nursery Suite which was created for a  royal celebration and was not intended to have an after life  and  The Tales of Beatrix Potter which Ashton created for a film and did  not intend should be staged.We have Dowell and Ashton's nephew to thank for the artistically ill judged decision to stage Beatrix Potter an action which has probably done more than anything else to tarnish Ashton's reputation as a serious choreographer since at one time it was probably the one Ashton work that an unsuspecting audience was most likely to encounter on a regular basis.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by FLOSS

[capybara]

As far as I am concerned, Job should be consigned to history.

[Ondine]

For those who have not seen it.  Magnificent costumes and masks, imagine dancing in them!

 

 

 

[Ondine]

The sweat and feather problems!

 

 

 

[Pas de Quatre]

I have a vague memory of a TV interview where Wayne Sleep was talking about the mask and costume problems.

[capybara]

One of the reasons this ballet doesn’t work is that the masks obscure facial expressions.

[LinMM]

It was one of those a delight to see once but not one you’d want too many repeats of!! Nice for kids though. 
 

[Dawnstar]

4 hours ago, capybara said:

As far as I am concerned, Job should be consigned to history.

 

Please could we have one more revival first because I'd really like to see it!