July 9, 2010

Review : Degas’ Little Dancer, Back at the Palais Garnier

Laura @ 16:47 —
Filed under: English, Reviews/critiques — Tags: , , , , , —

La petite danseuse de Degas
Choreography: Patrice Bart
Paris Opera Ballet
Palais Garnier
29 June 2010

“The Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” is one of the Musée d’Orsay’s best-known pieces. Perhaps even more than his numerous paintings of dancers, Degas’ small bronze statue with its inscrutable expression captures the ambivalence of a young ballerina’s dreams in the 19th century. The discovery of the model’s identity in the 1990s prompted the idea of a ballet based on her life: a romantic young girl studying at the Paris Opera Ballet School is pushed by her mother to seduce the “regulars” in a ballet world where sex is the route to preferment. And who better than the Paris Opera Ballet itself to dance the story of her demise?

The idea may have been excellent, but the resulting production, premiered in 2003, is almost fatally flawed. The score that Denis Levaillant was commissioned to compose is not dance-friendly – obscure and at times dissonant, it fails to evoke the lively atmosphere of 19th-century Paris, not helped either by the set’s drab backcloths. The costumes, from the reproduction of the Little Dancer’s tutu to an eccentric take on bustle gowns in the second act, are charmingly sophisticated, a trademark of the Paris Opera, but the world Patrice Bart translates to the stage emerges with little resonance, historical or otherwise. (…)

» Read the full review in the Financial Times





May 1, 2010

Review : The empty quest of Siddharta

Laura @ 14:53 —
Filed under: English, Reviews/critiques — Tags: , , , —

Siddharta
Choreography: Angelin Preljocaj
Paris Opera Ballet
Opéra Bastille, Paris
11 April 2010

If you have been wondering what is wrong with the Paris Opera Ballet these days, don’t miss Siddharta. This lavish creation is the latest and perhaps most obvious symptom of the derailment of a system – a state-funded institution with a budget most other companies can only dream of, but with no artistic control other than that of its long-time director. A lot of money has obviously been thrown at this season’s major premiere, created in the large Opéra Bastille – with a commissioned new score, splendid sets, shiny new costumes and gorgeous promotional images, how could it go wrong? Well, it did, with some of the most blindingly mediocre choreography I have seen in a long time. Is there a captain onboard?

Siddharta is based on the mystical journey of the man about to become the first Buddha. We witness him unhappy at his father’s court and with his wife Yasodhara; an immaterial being, the Awakening, impersonated on stage by a woman, appears and persuades him to leave his material life behind to commit himself to an ascetic existence. In the end, having overcome tentation, he becomes one with the Awakening. Spirituality should shine through in this story, but the production does the opposite: it sacrifices content to form. The commissioned score by Bruno Mantovani, difficult and dark, is not without interest, and yet Preljocaj only ever uses it for cheap effects – the entrance of Siddharta to guitar riffs, for instance. The stunning sets created by Claude Lévêque are another missed opportunity. The enormous sphere hanging over the initial scene of decay, swaying back and forth like a monstrous reminder of time, filling the air with incense-like smoke, is the most striking image of the ballet. Without a choreographic response, however, it is little more than an empty vessel. (…)

» Read the full review in Ballet.co Magazine

Aurélie Dupont & Nicolas Le Riche in Siddharta © Anne Deniau

Aurélie Dupont & Nicolas Le Riche in Siddharta © Anne Deniau

Siddharta
Choreography: Angelin Preljocaj
Paris Opera Ballet
Opéra Bastille, Paris
11 April 2010If you have been wondering what is wrong with the Paris Opera Ballet these days, don’t miss Siddharta. This lavish creation is the latest and perhaps most obvious symptom of the derailment of a system – a state-funded institution with a budget most other companies can only dream of, but with no artistic control other than that of its long-time director. A lot of money has obviously been thrown at this season’s major premiere, created in the large Opéra Bastille – with a commissioned new score, splendid sets, shiny new costumes and gorgeous promotional images, how could it go wrong? Well, it did, with some of the most blindingly mediocre choreography I have seen in a long time. Is there a captain onboard?

Siddharta is based on the mystical journey of the man about to become the first Buddha. We witness him unhappy at his father’s court and with his wife Yasodhara; an immaterial being, the Awakening, impersonated on stage by a woman, appears and persuades him to leave his material life behind to commit himself to an ascetic existence. In the end, having overcome tentation, he becomes one with the Awakening. Spirituality should shine through in this story, but the production does the opposite: it sacrifices content to form. The commissioned score by Bruno Mantovani, difficult and dark, is not without interest, and yet Preljocaj only ever uses it for cheap effects – the entrance of Siddharta to guitar riffs, for instance. The stunning sets created by Claude Lévêque are another missed opportunity. The enormous sphere hanging over the initial scene of decay, swaying back and forth like a monstrous reminder of time, filling the air with incense-like smoke, is the most striking image of the ballet. Without a choreographic response, however, it is little more than an empty vessel.





December 24, 2009

Review : Chasing the character of the Ballets Russes

Laura @ 10:01 —
Filed under: English, Reviews/critiques — Tags: , , , , , , , —

Ballets Russes
Le Spectre de la Rose / L’après-midi d’un faune / Le Tricorne / Petrouchka
Paris Opera Ballet
Opéra Garnier, Paris
18 December 2009

The centenary of the Ballets Russes has provided ballet companies with the opportunity to revive great works, many of them routinely achieving what eludes most creations today: an alchemy born not only of choreography, but also of music and design. The credits for the Paris Opera Ballet’s latest triple bill form a Who’s Who of ballet in the 1910s: Nijinsky, Fokine, Massine, Picasso, Bakst, Benois, Stravinsky, not to mention the dancers that once shared the stage with them. Where the works stand, however, today’s performers don’t always relate to the character flavor of the choreography, despite the glittering array of Principals on display for the filmed performances of the run.

Le Spectre de la Rose is an important work, perhaps the first manifestation of a woman’s desire in classical dance, but it is also the one piece on the program that seemed in serious need of a new design. The girl’s bonnet is now faded, old-fashioned in an intrusive way, while the Rose’s pale unitard and its pink petals only serve to make the feminine lines of today’s performers more obvious. Or is it just that we have lost something essential – the rich metaphor once conveyed by Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina? On the basis of this performance, it is quite likely. Matthias Heymann turns the Rose into a jumping exercise – his eyes tend to go dead, and while he has clearly worked on his ports de bras, a certain stiffness remains. His partnering is also remarkably pedestrian – when the girl reaches out for him, he is happy to catch his breath for a minute behind her. His Rose is devoid of any perfume, but then – why throw him into a filmed performance so young, when comparisons will be made? Isabelle Ciaravola, now 37, but made an Etoile the same night as Heymann, gives a sensitive performance. Delicate and shy when she enters, she looks stunningly young as the young girl dreaming about her rose. There’s a hint of French 19th-century romanticism about her, and although she works her unnaturally arched feet to the point of distortion, her sense of wonder brings some meaning to a pale Spectre. (…)

» Read the full review in Ballet.co Magazine

Benjamin Pech in Petrouchka © Sébastien Mathé / Opéra National de Paris

Benjamin Pech in Petrouchka © Sébastien Mathé / Opéra National de Paris





November 20, 2009

Review : In Jewels’ Paris store (Ashley Bouder and Gonzalo Garcia at the Palais Garnier)

Laura @ 01:59 —
Filed under: English, Reviews/critiques — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , —

Jewels
Paris Opera Ballet
Palais Garnier, Paris
5 & 12 November 2009

The Paris Opera Ballet clearly loves Jewels. Since its French premiere, in 2000, the company has danced it nearly 90 times – easier to tour than a narrative full-length, but still evocative of the supposed grandeur of the institution, Balanchine’s triptych has been shown in Australia and a good number of French cities. In the meantime, portions of the ballet, dressed by Christian Lacroix, have also started to look like a VIP party – smart, scintillating, and about as poetic as the jewellery section of the nearby Galeries Lafayette, despite Ashley Bouder and Gonzalo Garcia’s welcome visit.

As it is, Emeralds may be quintessentially French, but it is not sophisticated Lacroix French, despite the rather fitting creations of the designer. A good many dancers seem confused about the atmosphere they’re supposed to impersonate – some go for the big smile, some for expressionless, but an uneasiness persists over the potential lyricism of this intimate jewel. Strangely, those mixed feelings still work well in the Molto Adagio that closes the ballet. At this point, the seven soloists seemed to me a new image of a decadent nobility hanging on to its delicacy of manners, the men absent princes, the women already in another world – as if the chain they form and re-form was already dead, buried by too many changes. (Whether that bodes well for the company is another matter.)

Clairemarie Osta was head and shoulders above everyone else in this fleeting ballet, which fits her like a glove. In the Sicilienne solo, she is entirely lost in her world – an underwater kingdom where playing and mourning are two sides of the same thing. Her curtseys are little surprises, invitations to the invisible, but the Ondine she impersonates so well has clearly discovered the weight of the years gone by. Later on, in the pas de deux, nostalgia wins – a nostalgia triggered by the absent presence of her partner (Benjamin Pech, at his most pallid). Her expressiveness and longing find no echo in him, and she seems again to be waiting for something that no longer exists – gazing into an empty path while walking delicately on pointe, her solitude magnificent.

» Full review on Ballet.co (Ashley Bouder, Gonzalo Garcia, Aurélie Dupont in Rubies, Marie-Agnès Gillot in Diamonds…)





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