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Britten shines under a rising sun
Blossom, a rising sun, Mount Fuji and the ladies of the court in stunning pink kimonos before their emperor in a pretty as this picture Prince of the Pagodas The Prince of the Pagodas Birmingham Royal Ballet Birmingham Hippodrome **** WITH an unfamiliar story and unfamiliar
music The Prince of the Pagodas was never going to be an easy sell but
David Bintley has succeeded in some way into making Benjamin Britten’s
57 year old score into a coherent ballet. The original, choreographed by John Cranko for
The Royal Ballet, with a new, darker production by Kenneth MacMillan in
1989, Darcey Bussell’s premiere in a principal role incidentally, drew
heavily on Shakespeare’s King Lear for inspiration. Thus an emperor must decide which of his two
daughters, the evil Belle Epine or the young and beautiful Belle Rose,
should inherit the throne. We all know how that will turn out with Rose
escaping with a bunch of frogs to the land of the Salamander before
returning for good to triumph over evil. Cheers, ovation, curtain. Bintley, BRB’s director, produced his version
initially for the National Ballet of Japan in 2011 and has turned the
story into a fairy tale fantasy with an evil She escapes with a strange fifth suitor, a scaley
salamander, really her brother, to dance with sea creatures and we see a
simple mime of how she played with her brother before he was turned into
a salamander by her evil stepmother.
This clever ploy gets around a section of music
that, with the best will and best dancers in the world, would be a
nightmare to dance to in any form, let alone classical ballet. Indeed that is a problem with the music that it
is not lyrical, not symphonic, not really flowing. No one would be on
their way home humming snatches of The Prince to themselves. The chances
of any part of the score appearing in TV ads or on any Classical hits
CD, until you get to Vol 60 or so, are so slim as to be discounted yet
they are the modern sources of popular familiarity. And although Cranko commissioned the work from
Britten one suspects that it was written without an intimate knowledge
of the intricacies of dance so Bintley is to be commended on making some
sort of sense of a difficult to work with score. Aided by some spectacular sets from Rae Smith,
perhaps best known for War Horse, he has fused modern and classical
ballet into a simple tale – a tale which is helped along enormously if
you read the synopsis first. Without it you may well feel some banned
substance or other was slipped into you pre-show drink. Japan’s Momoko Hirata is superb as Princess Belle
Sakura, the name means cherry blossom, the Cinderella character
threatened by her evil stepmother (what would fairly tales do without
them!) who believes her brother is dead while Joseph Caley revels in the
Salamander Prince,
Caley' salamander is the Prince of Pagoda land,
a land where we come across seahorses, deep sea creatures which looked
like sea urchins – making it somewhat brave of our heroine princess to
straddle their shoulders - sea horses, flames and, perhaps a homage to
the musical influences Britten encompassed in the score, four Balinese
ladies.
There were also four Yokai, supernatural monsters
from Japanese folklore, remember that was originally written for
Japanese audiences, who looked a little like something Hammer Films
would have come up with had they been asked to design the Teletubbies.
Strange creatures but fun in their own way. We hade the wooing of the kings, Mathias Dingman
as North, Chi Cao as East, James Barton as West and Tyrone Singleton as
South, with their gifts and pleas at the opening and their fight to the
death(ish) with the now back in human form Prince and Princess at the
end which also saw the final defeat of the deliciously evil Elisha
Willis, who danced beautifully in a purple dress which flowed so
wonderfully it was worth a curtain call all of its own. Rory Mackay gave us a doddery old emperor who by
the final act was ready to meet his maker until seeing his two children
again breathed new life into his ancient old bones and he helped in the
battle and even managed a little jig. The Lear influence was still there though with
the fool, played by Taiwan born Tzu-Chao Chou, who sits on the edge of
the stage to
The Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by Koen
Kessels were, as always, superb with special mention of some fine violin
solos, particularly in a beautiful solo dance by the Princess,
presumably played by the leader Robert Gibbs. If you have never seen a ballet before and would
like to, then this is probably not the place to start, it is more one
for the purists. Beautifully danced, often with music that it is
difficult to dance to, with fabulous designs, but only history will tell
if it will have any more success in entering into the popular ballet
repertoire than its two predecessors. Roger Clarke
Meanwhile at low tide . . . **** THERE must be times when parents seeking
a suitable arranged marriage for their daughters reach a state of
despair, and this ballet is one of them. Except that here it is wicked step mother,
Empress Epine, who plans to marry off Princess Belle Sakura to the
highest bidder, with four wealthy kings lined up to win the beautiful
young girl, impressively played by Momoko Hirata But she is strangely attracted to a weird
Salamander figure (Joseph Caley) who turns out to be her much-loved long
lost brother, cursed to live out his life as the scaly character and
become Prince of Pagoda land. The ballet, performed to Benjamin Britten’s
music, has not always had a particularly enthusiastic reception, but
this new interpretation by choreographer David Bintley has many
powerfully exciting periods, despite an occasional dip in pace here and
there. A beautiful set designed by Rae Smith, of War
Horse fame, has a mountain backdrop, pretty Japanese flowers circling
the stage and a huge sun, while the costumes are a delight, particularly
in the final scenes involving ballerinas in stunning kimonos twirling
pretty parasols. When the Salamander first appears, he is
accompanied by an entourage of extraordinary creatures who might have
put the wind up Dr Who, and later the audience are treated to a clever
dance by four seahorses. Fine performances from Elisha Willis (Empress
Epine), Rory Mackay (The Emperor) and the four kings, Chi Cao, James
Barton, Mahias Dingman and Tyrone Singleton, plus some wonderful comedy
spots featuring Tzu-Chao Chou as the Court Fool. Music is by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted
by Koen Kessels. To 01.03.14 Paul Marston
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stepmother empress turning her stepson into a salamander and trying to
force her daughter into a marriage with one of the kings of a very much
stylised north, south, east or west.
slinking
about the stage on all fours, as any good lizard should, in a black and
white striped body stocking; he really does give an elegant, reptilian
feel to his role.
introduce
the orchestra and interact with the audience before becoming part of the
court, neither bad nor good, but introducing the events as they unfold.