The Royal Ballet has committed whole-heartedly to cinema relays of their performances. In Britain, they are relayed live. Here, we get them whenever one of a handful of local movie theaters schedules them. I was especially excited about the triple bill presented this time: Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto, Frederick Ashton’s Enigma Variations, and Nureyev’s Raymonda Act III. And just to be clear, I was looking forward very specifically to Raymonda.
The program opened with Concerto. This ballet is MacMillan in Balanchine mode, fully abstract and fiendishly difficult. If your idea of fun is doing a pointe class onstage in a leotard and tights with no costumes or sets to distract from the choreography, which consists entirely of technique, then this ballet is for you. The first and third movements are so exposed. They make an excellent example, to students, of classroom steps translating directly to the stage. The cast, led by a cheerful Anna Rose O’Sullivan and James Hay, did their training justice.
[Watch an excerpt here.]
Sandwiched in between the brighter (both musically and visually) sections was a languorous pas de deux, equally difficult and exposing because of its slowness rather than despite it. It was danced by Yasmine Naghdi and Ryoichi Hirano, and as soon as it began I remembered watching it in rehearsal on World Ballet Day. The pas de deux, which has three echo couples upstage, is lovely. It draws you in and time suspends as you watch it. And you should, and you can. The rehearsal with Naghdi and Hirano can be seen here. Or, you can watch this performance footage of Marianela Nuñez and Rupert Pennefather.
Enigma Variations, with its Victorian costumes and gentle plot, was an abrupt shift from the minimalist Concerto. Set to the music of Edward Elgar, Ashton’s ballet is the story of an afternoon at Elgar’s with his friends, waiting to hear whether his latest composition is going to have a premiere. The score is a series of variations, each a musical illustration of a friend. The ballet follows that pattern, roughly, introducing us to the cast of characters as they come and go against the backdrop of the awaited telegram. It’s a charming enough ballet, and was well-danced, but it didn’t linger in my mind.
Raymonda Act III was for me the clear winner of the program. It should come as no surprise to anyone that this would be my favorite. Raymonda is a full-length ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa. What we have here is Nureyev’s restaging of Act III, from memory and with some adaptations. Of all three ballets on this triple bill, this was the one I wished I could have seen live. The opulence and majesty of the sets and costumes, and the intensity and energy of the dancing, doesn’t read through a screen in the same way it must have permeated the opera house. The act opens with a Hungarian folk dance, but it’s most famous for the grand pas de deux, in particular the ballerina’s solo. In the cinema broadcast, this was danced by Natalia Osipova (Vadim Muntagirov was her partner). It felt like I’d hit the jackpot. Because although the setting is Hungary, Raymonda is Russian ballet at its most classical. And so, to see it performed by two of the great Russian dancers of the day, trained in that style and technique, well—that was a treat.
[Watch Natalia Osipova dance the variation here.]
And we’re done! I wanted to keep it short for once and just give you some framework to watch the video clips.
To The Royal Ballet, my sincerest thanks for continuing to present these cinema relays from London. And to the local theaters here in the Bay Area (and elsewhere in the U.S.), thank you for continuing to screen them, even though attendance is always very poor.
The Royal Ballet: Concerto / Enigma Variations / Raymonda Act III
December 8, 2019, at 12 pm at the Smith Rafael Film Center
Concerto, Kenneth MacMillan; Enigma Variations, Frederick Ashton; Raymonda Act III, Rudolf Nureyev after Marius Petipa
Going to the Ballet 