Why so much misery in ballet and opera?

[DVDfan]

I mean, why can't Siegfried and Odette defeat von Rothbart and reign happily ever after? Can't Manon survive the swamp? Why doesn't Juliet wake up in time (OK, I know that's fiddling with Shakespeare), but why can't Tita and Pedro marry eventually (Like Water for Chocolate)? Wolf Works is very good, but, I mean, two suicides! The only recent new work that I can think of with anything approaching a positive ending is Dante Project, and that contains a hell of a lot of misery before we get there.

Whilst some endings are what the story is about, (Giselle, Mayerling) I do feel that others are contrived and unnecessary. Opera is almost wall-to-wall sex and death - ROH's idea of a good Christmas showing seems to be La Boheme followed by Tosca!

And there seems to be  a dominant strand of thought in theatre that happy endings are somehow low-brow and unworthy. Now why is this, when our lives are so much enhanced by shows like Nutcracker and Fille? A good evening in the theatre with one of those does you more good than a dozen bottles of pills and tonics. It puts you in touch with hope and the goodness in human nature.

Can it be that it is actually easier to pull off a sex-and-death story than a happy one?

 

[Pas de Quatre]

It has long been said that Comedy is harder to portray than Tragedy.

[Sophoife]

Some versions of Swan Lake do have a "happy ending", most notably the Mariinsky's.

 

Juliet may be Shakespeare, but Manon is the Abbé Prévost.

 

Laura Esquivel didn't let Tita and Pedro marry in her novel.

 

Woolf Works: Septimus in Mrs Dalloway and actual Virginia Woolf took their own lives.

 

On the other hand, The Merry Widow (previously derided on this forum by some people) has a gloriously happy ending.

 

Harlequinade, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty...

[Jan McNulty]

7 minutes ago, Sophoife said:

 

 

Harlequinade, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty...

 

Fille Mal Gardée, Two Pigeons (so happy it makes me cry), The Dream, Hobson's Choice, The Nutcracker...

[DVDfan]

I take Sophoife's point about Manon and LWFC, so I'll rephrase mine as, why choose those novels to dramatize, instead of ones with a happy ending? To what feels like the exclusion of those stories with a happy ending.

 

Jan, those are lovely ballets, but apart from Nutcracker, when was the last time they were performed? Hobson's choice in particular seems to have fallen out of the rep. The happy works seem to be neglected.

[Sim]

The Dream will be performed by the RB in June, along with Les Rendezvous and Rhapsody.  

[DVDfan]

Well, if the programs are getting rebalanced towards happy works, that's good news. About time too, I might say, if I was being curmudgeonly!

[San Perregrino]

6 minutes ago, DVDfan said:

Well, if the programs are getting rebalanced towards happy works, that's good news. About time too, I might say, if I was being curmudgeonly!

 

is there a ballet of 'A Christmas Carol' ?

 if not, perhaps it's time for one? it has a happy ending.

the magical stage production at the Old Vic now in it's 7th season never fails to fill everyone with joy and goodwill. we always leave with elevated spirits and feeling better than we went in. 

[bridiem]

7 minutes ago, DVDfan said:

Well, if the programs are getting rebalanced towards happy works, that's good news. About time too, I might say, if I was being curmudgeonly!

 

I don't think you were being curmudgeonly, DVDfan! It does seem to be the case that comedy and happiness are more difficult to portray than drama and tragedy; but I think that there's also a sense especially in contemporary dance that it's terribly important to be serious and to be seen to be serious. (Whereas in fact, all aspects of life are equally important. How would we understand tragedy if we didn't also know happiness?).

[Melody]

35 minutes ago, PeterS said:

 

is there a ballet of 'A Christmas Carol' ?

 if not, perhaps it's time for one? it has a happy ending.

the magical stage production at the Old Vic now in it's 7th season never fails to fill everyone with joy and goodwill. we always leave with elevated spirits and feeling better than we went in. 

I remember seeing a Christmas Carol ballet by Northern Ballet, if memory serves. I enjoyed it a lot, but there's something about that story that doesn't seem to translate to ballet as easily as some others.

 

Drama always seems to be more important in the arts than comedy, from novels to plays to dance to music. I remember reading a biography of Sir Arthur Sullivan, where people were constantly telling him he was wasting his time writing the G&S operettas and ought to be concentrating on serious music if he ever wanted to really make his name. I also remember interviews with Sigourney Weaver and Allison Janney, both of whom are somewhere in the region of 6 ft tall, where they said that early in their careers they were told that all they could expect in their careers was to be cast in comedy (and science fiction), because nobody wanted to see tall, gawky, not conventionally beautiful women as dramatic leads. I'm wondering if the people who make the decisions about what's important in the arts are taking serious material more seriously because it makes them feel more serious and important.

[Guest oncnp]

1 hour ago, PeterS said:

 

is there a ballet of 'A Christmas Carol' ?

 if not, perhaps it's time for one? it has a happy ending.

the magical stage production at the Old Vic now in it's 7th season never fails to fill everyone with joy and goodwill. we always leave with elevated spirits and feeling better than we went in. 

 

Now you mention it, the Finnish National Ballet is livestreaming their production today 

 

Link in the Events calendar

Edited December 22, 2023 by oncnp

[Sim]

1 hour ago, PeterS said:

 

is there a ballet of 'A Christmas Carol' ?

 

Chris Hampson (now AD of Scottish Ballet) put on a version at the Royal Festival Hall in London about 22 years ago.  It starred the inimitable Kevin Richmond (ENB) as Scrooge.  If I remember correctly, Oxana Panchenko was also in it.  Kevin was such a brilliant actor that he made it work.

[Jan McNulty]

3 hours ago, PeterS said:

 

is there a ballet of 'A Christmas Carol' ?

 if not, perhaps it's time for one? it has a happy ending.

the magical stage production at the Old Vic now in it's 7th season never fails to fill everyone with joy and goodwill. we always leave with elevated spirits and feeling better than we went in. 

 

 

Northern Ballet has a production of A Christmas Carol produced by Christopher Gable and choreographed by Massimo Moricone (the same team as for Romeo and Juliet).

 

It is a joy from start to finish.  Possibly the best evening I ever spent in a theatre was in December 2009, celebrating Northern Ballet's 40th Anniversary.  It was an "alumni" performance of Christmas Carol with many of the original cast dancing their original roles led by the non-pareil Jeremy Kerridge.  During the curtain calls more and more ex-dancers came onto the stage - by the end there were at least 150 of them on the stage...  It still brings a tear to my eye thinking about it!

 

It was shown by the BBC one Christmas Day and IIRC it was available on video.  The whole ballet can be found on YouTube with a bit of searching.

 

I have high hopes that it will be revived before too long.

[Tango Dancer]

7 hours ago, Sophoife said:

Some versions of Swan Lake do have a "happy ending", most notably the Mariinsky's.

 

 

 

Swan Lake has several different endings which is one of the things I like about it.  There used to be a Youtube video with all the different versions in which ranged from happy, sad to one where Rothbart compels Siegfried to marry Odile and keep his word (Danish ballet I think) which I thought was fascinating.  

[Mary]

Mark Morris seems to have spent much of his career trying to counterbalance all the misery, and is amusing on the subject of 'why on earth does modern dance have to be so miserable'. His work often has a sense of humour and a lot of joy.

 

[Amelia]

9 hours ago, Sophoife said:

Harlequinade, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty...

 

9 hours ago, Jan McNulty said:

Fille Mal Gardée, Two Pigeons (so happy it makes me cry), The Dream, Hobson's Choice, The Nutcracker...

 

I think there are more ballets with happy or more or less happy endings:

 

Don Q., The Bright Stream, The Three-Cornered Hat, Raymonda, The Pharaoh's Daughter, Coppelia, The Firebird, The Flower Festival in Genzano, Napoli,

The Taming of the Shrew, The Golden Age, Sylvia, The Stone Flower, Le Corsaire,

The Winter's Tale........

Edited December 22, 2023 by Amelia
layout

[bridiem]

37 minutes ago, Mary said:

Mark Morris seems to have spent much of his career trying to counterbalance all the misery, and is amusing on the subject of 'why on earth does modern dance have to be so miserable'. His work often has a sense of humour and a lot of joy.

 

 

Yes, Mark Morris is an honourable exception. As is Paul Taylor.

[Scheherezade]

8 hours ago, bridiem said:

I think that there's also a sense especially in contemporary dance that it's terribly important to be serious and to be seen to be serious.

You are being very diplomatic, Bridiem. I would call it preaching, and sadly there seems to be no escape from it these days. 

[Jan McNulty]

36 minutes ago, Amelia said:

 

 

I think there are more ballets with happy or more or less happy endings:

 

Don Q., The Bright Stream, The Three-Cornered Hat, Raymonda, The Pharaoh's Daughter, Coppelia, The Firebird, The Flower Festival in Genzano, Napoli,

The Taming of the Shrew, The Golden Age, Sylvia, The Stone Flower, Le Corsaire,

The Winter's Tale........

 

 

Oh my goodness me - how on earth could I forget about Napoli.  Act 3 is so full of joy.

[Tango Dancer]

47 minutes ago, Scheherezade said:

You are being very diplomatic, Bridiem. I would call it preaching, and sadly there seems to be no escape from it these days. 

 

I agree so much of modern dance is preachy and depressing.  I'm not sure why there's so little joy in any of it.  I am always pleasantly surprised when anything contemporary is at all upbeat.  It's why the latest Ballet Black programme was such a pleasant surprise to me.  

[Pas de Quatre]

I love Mark Morris! Another joyful choreographer is Richard Alston, but I don't know whether much of his repertoire will survive.

[jmhopton]

I'd love to see more happy ballets choreographed or performed today. I LOVE THe Merry Widow and its so disappointing never to have seen it live. The lockdown Argentinian version with Marianela Nuñez is my favourite version but I also love the Canadian and Australian versions. Keep fantasising about RB casts though I know it will never happen. 

I was thinking of watching Northern Ballets Christmas Carol this weekend along with Alistair Sims Scrooge. Jeremy Kerridge is so like Alistair Sim it's uncanny. Both give world class performances and Northern Ballets production is so wonderful and true to the book, scary too in parts. Really beautifully life affirming at the end and Carl Davis' musical collection of carols are just perfect.

Hobsons Choice is definitely my favourite David Bintley ballet by far and its terrible the way it has fallen out of rep and sadly I'd be surprised if it makes a reappearance soon (though I'd love to be proved wrong, Carlos). I'm looking forward to seeing his Christmas Carol on Arte and would love to see the Comedy of Errors he did for Sarasota.  Is this the only full length comedy ballet commissioned and choreographed recently? If so, that's very sad but not surprising given the prevailing artistic attitude towards anything fun and light hearted. I like a good drama as much as anyone and am coming to several performances of Manon and Giselle, and would have paid to see many more performances of Vadim in Mayerling but it would be great if they could be matched by more fun ballets that make you laugh and feel happy and optimistic and good about yourself and the world.

[Jan McNulty]

Beauty and the Beast:

 

David Bintley’s version is Gand and dark with THE most beautiful final pdd.

 

David Nixon’s plays for laughs but also brings pathos.

[Jan McNulty]

David Bintley’s re-worked production of Sylvia for BRB is full of joy.

 

David Bintley’s Far from the Madding Crowd.

 

We seem to have a good mix of “happy” ballets and dramas with happy endings being brought out.

[San Perregrino]

9 hours ago, jmhopton said:

Hobsons Choice is definitely my favourite David Bintley ballet by far and its terrible the way it has fallen out of rep and sadly I'd be surprised if it makes a reappearance soon (though I'd love to be proved wrong, Carlos)

We saw this in Birmingham in June 2019 so, allowing for the delays and disruption in scheduling due to the pandemic, not that long ago. Perhaps a bit premature to say it has fallen out of the rep?

Edited December 23, 2023 by PeterS

[MAB]

With regard to operas, the opera buffa is hardly a rare genre and many baroque operas, regardless of historical facts, inevitably end with a jolly ensemble. 

 

I can think of a number of ballets with happy endings. we just don't see them danced.  As for modern dance, I think Martha Graham excelled in angst and that rather created a trend, but Paul Taylor created much that was upbeat and has there ever been a more uplifting work than Alvin Ailey's revelations?

 

It's all down to programming.

[Sophoife]

So true. Programming is all.

 

Speaking of dark humour, Béjart's Le Concours. AusBallet did it years ago, with Steven Heathcote as Columbo in a saggy macintosh/trench coat, and Gina Brescianini as a murder victim. It was great!

 

Robert Helpmann's The Display has a rape, and at the very end the Girl is overwhelmed by the Lyrebird. One of the most fabulous costumes I know, the Lyrebird.

 

First pic by Jeff Busby of Madeleine Eastoe and IIRC Calvin Hannaford, second by Vic Grimmett of Kathleen Gorham and Barry Kitcher.

[Scheherezade]

18 minutes ago, MAB said:

has there ever been a more uplifting work than Alvin Ailey's revelations?

It is one of those works that I never tire of seeing. 

 

And Arielle Smith’s Jolly Folly has to be one of the most uplifting post-Covid pieces that I have seen. 

 

Shifting back to angst, both Alvin Ailey and Ballet Black manage to present serious issues in a manner that is thought provoking and engaging without being preachy. 

[FionaM]

Any time the lead male dancer swears his eternal love (usually 2 fingers raised to Heaven with other hand on his heart) in an early part of the ballet …. you know it’s not going to end well!   
 

Giselle, Swan Lake, Bayadere

[alison]

3 hours ago, PeterS said:

We saw this in Birmingham in June 2019 so, allowing for the delays and disruption in scheduling due to the pandemic, not that long ago. Perhaps a bit premature to say it has fallen out of the rep?

 

I think the indications were that it wasn't in Acosta's plans once he took over.  But then, he does appear to have changed his mind on certain other ballets since then, so who knows? 

[Jan McNulty]

2 hours ago, alison said:

 

I think the indications were that it wasn't in Acosta's plans once he took over.  But then, he does appear to have changed his mind on certain other ballets since then, so who knows? 

Fingers crossed.

 

He did say in 2 zoom talks he gave that we would not see any of the existing rep for 5 years… (Apart from Nutcracker).

 

Fortunately to a certain extent we are seeing some of the existing rep but there is such a rich history of works to choose from I hope we see more.

[Sophoife]

Uplifting ballet: Jiří Kylián's Sinfonietta which I saw in Denver this year.

[Lizbie1]

One trend in straight theatre that we have occasionally seen copied in ballet (I'm thinking of the recent ENB Raymonda) and opera is for the original "happy ending" of Miss X marrying Mr Y being subverted by the director/producer in the name of feminism. Call me unsophisticated but I hope this fashion passes - it's so preachy!