The breadth and depth of George Balanchine's genius are underscored in three remarkable works featured on Boston Ballet's Classic Balanchine program: Ballo della Regina, a fleet-footed exercise in virtuosity; the haunting, darkly romantic La Valse, a company premiere; and The Four Temperaments, one of the most important masterpieces of the twentieth century. Classic Balanchine runs at the Citi Wang Theatre from May 3-6.
"One of the most exciting aspects of this program is that these three ballets are not only great works, but they are so different from each other,"Â said Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen. "Ballo della Regina is a fun, bravura piece. La Valse is romantic and mysterious. The first part of the ballet is extremely atmospheric and sets up the second part, which tells an eerie story. And The Four Temperaments is one of the finest pieces of neo-classicism ever choreographed. This ballet recently turned 60 and is as contemporary as any work of recent vintage."Â
Ballo della Regina
Music: Giuseppe Verdi; Costumes: Ben Benson; Lighting: Alexander V. Nichols
Ballo della Regina (1978), set to the Act III ballet music from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Don Carlos, is a tour de force, a quicksilver, playful work inspired by and tailored to the talents of its original New York City Ballet (NYCB) leads, Merrill Ashley and Robert Weiss. The choreography that Balanchine created for Ashley is particularly inspired, and the intricate pointe work is what makes the ballet special. Ashley was one of NYCB's most secure and dazzling technicians for many years, and Ballo was, in essence, Balanchine's present to her.
In Don Carlos, the ballet - which is not included in most productions - tells the story of a fisherman who searches a grotto for the perfect pearl. Balanchine's version is plotless, although there are subtle, whimsical allusions to the ballet's "watery"Â beginnings in its blue costumes, diaphanous skirts, and evocative lighting. In the opera ballet, the perfect pearl proves to be Elizabeth, Queen of Spain. It is not a stretch to suggest that Balanchine's ballet is something of an homage to the perfect pearl - that is, his principal ballerina.
La Valse
Music: Maurice Ravel; Repetiteur: Francia Russell; Costumes: after Karinska; Lighting: Alexander V. Nichols
La Valse (1951) is one of Balanchine's most haunting creations, a neo-Romantic ballet in two parts danced to Maurice Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, followed by La Valse. The first half of the ballet is made up of a number of moody waltzes that create a sense of disquiet, even dread. The second part of the ballet takes place in a ballroom draped in black, where a beautiful girl in a white dress - originally danced by Balanchine's fourth wife, Tanaquil LeClercq (they would marry the following year) - finds herself helpless to stave off the beckoning of a Death figure.
In a preface to the score of La Valse, which Ravel called a "choreographic poem,"Â the composer wrote, "Drifting clouds give glimpses, through rifts, of couples waltzing. The clouds gradually scatter, and an immense hall can be seen, filled with a whirling crowd."Â He also quoted Comte de Salvandy in notes about the ballet, saying, "We are dancing on the edge of a volcano."Â All this is captured in Balanchine's ballet: like the music, it is achingly beautiful and full of foreboding.
Balanchine had a lifelong fascination with the waltz. He learned both social and theatrical waltzing in Russia, and his earliest waltz ballets - lost to history long ago - were choreographed when he was just 18. The waltz was always an integral part of his work for New York City Ballet, frequently as movement within a larger ballet - Serenade, for instance - where most of the choreography has nothing to do with waltzing.
He created three memorable, monumental waltz ballets: La Valse, Liebeslieder Walzer (1960), and Vienna Waltzes (1977). The range of his invention is dazzling. Liebeslieder Walzer, a ballet rich in poetry, is one of the most intimate and romantic works of art ever created. Vienna Waltzes epitomizes the splendor of Hapsburg Austria, which vanished with the advent of World War I.
The Four Temperaments
Music: Paul Hindemith; Repetiteur: Bart Cook; Lighting: Alexander V. Nichols
The Four Temperaments was choreographed in 1946 for Ballet Society, the forerunner to NYCB. Danced to a commissioned score by Paul Hindemith, the ballet is divided into a three-part theme, each performed by a different couple, and four variations: Melancholic, Sanguinic, Phlegmatic and Choleric. It is a plotless piece - its title notwithstanding - and Balanchine used the traditional ballet vocabulary as a springboard for steps and gestures and phrases that had never before been seen in classical dance. The movement is sharp and crisp and angular to the point of exaggeration. There are odd turns and steps at unusual angles, broken jumps and phrases, unfamiliar shapes and irregular rhythms, strange lifts and turns made in plié, hip thrusts and turned-in legs, sudden shifts in direction and all kinds of distortions. The fusion of traditional and contemporary was so complete that Balanchine seemed to be inventing a new language. And so he was. He would continue to explore this language in later works, including Agon, Episodes, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Symphony in Three Movements, and Kammermusik No. 2.
The original production of The Four Temperaments had scenery and costumes by the Surrealist artist Kurt Seligmann. The costumes were bizarre - capped by strange headpieces - and obscured the body: a writer for Time magazine once said that the dancers looked like "a macabre masquerade of Martians."Â When NYCB danced the ballet in 1951, the costumes were gone, replaced by simple leotards and tights. That same year, Balanchine also replaced Eugene Berman's original costumes for another of his seminal works, Concerto Barocco, with practice clothes. Thereafter, practice clothes were Balanchine's choice for a number of his most complex ballets, insuring that the choreography could be seen unencumbered. -- www.bostonballet.org
Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.
