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Nao shines through the gloom
You pays your money and you takes your choice: Victoria Marr as Fière, Jonathan Payne as the foppish suitor Monsieur Cochon and Samara Downs as Vanité. Picture: Roy Smiljanic Beauty and the Beast Birmingham Royal Ballet Birmingham Hippodrome **** THE centuries' old fairy tale is brought to life in this magnificent dark, brooding, gothic, sumptuous ballet created by Birmingham Royal Ballet's director David Bintley who added a few twists of his own to the tale of the evil prince who finds redemption through love. The folk tale is a simple one. A prince who is
self centred, arrogant, cruel and any other nasty description you can
think of, is out hunting with his boorish, yobbo, ASBOS-R-US mates and
is about to kill a vixen when she is rescued by a kindly, but wrathful,
woodsman with a flair for magic. The woodsman with a sweep of his cape – a cape
the size of Dudley incidentally – turns the vixen into a beautiful, red
haired wild girl and the Prince into a beast and all his mates into wild
animals because that is how he sees them. Meanwhile a merchant with three daughters, loses
all his wealth and to put the tin hat on it has a run in over a rose
with the now beastly prince and, in return for his miserable life,
has to agree to send his youngest daughter to his castle. She arrives, the beast falls in love, she leaves,
he pines and is about to die, she returns tells him she loves him, the
curse is lifted, he is the handsome, but now chastened prince, and they
all live happily ever after and everyone goes home. Nao Sakuma is a delight as Belle, the beauty of
the piece. She is every little girls' vision of a ballerina and defies
logic by seemingly stretching the boundaries each time she appears. She
can be demure, graceful, funny, mischievous, full of pathos and tragedy
or tender and romantic and she dances with that indefinable something
that lifts technical excellence into another realm. The wonderful Robert Parker was to have been the
Beast in a sort of swansong, or as this is ballet perhaps a dying
swansong, before he takes up his new role as artistic director of
Elmhurst School of Dance. But Hull's, and indeed one of Britain's finest
has knackered his back so the part was left in the more than competent
hands of Iain Mackay who brings an athleticism to any role and who gave
us a sympathetic beast as well as two very different versions of the
same prince – quality stuff.
Their first pas de deux, danced beautifully,
shows a mix of repulsion and tenderness as Belle sees what she has been
lumbered with by her father and it dawns on the beastly prince just what
his errant past has denied him. Jonathan Payn was a comic delight as Monsieur
Chochon, the Tweedle Dum of a suitor for one - either will do really -
of Belles' sisters Fière and Vanité, danced with great charm by Victoria
Marr and Samara Downs while Michael O'Hare, as the girls' ruined
merchant father, looked suitably worried, frightened and finally
delighted as the story unfolded before him. As usual Marion Tait was a scene stealer, this
time as the crotchety, arthritic, grumpy old battleaxe of Grandmère who
seemed to have much in common with Giles' cartoon granny. She managed to give pretty well everyone a whack
or prod with her stick or a telling glare through the prinz-nez. Get on
the wrong side of her at your peril. There were telling contributions from Ambra Vallo
as the Wild Girl, the human form of the rescued vixen, and also by
Joseph Caley as the Raven, one of the beastly friends of the beastly
prince. The cuddly vixen, incidentally, was danced by Laura-Jane Gibson. As we have come to expect from Birmingham Royal
Ballet the scenery was magnificent with huge monolithic cliffs come
castle walls which glided around the stage, a magic claret jug pouring
on its own and even a line of birds on a wall which suddenly became
animated.
With hardly a pause we find ourselves in a
merchant's house, a forest, under dark and brooding cliffs, in a gloomy
castle or as guests at a glittering ball all in a magical fluid set
complemented by rich and glorious costumes designed by Philip Prowse. It
is almost worth a visit just to see Prowse's handiwork. Mark Jonathan's lighting is more of a moot point.
It is a personal thing but I am not a great lover of dark and gloomy
although I do accept that they are the hallmarks of gothic and that the
brilliant sparkles on Belle's dress, and glints of light out of the
darkness would have been lost on a brighter stage. The gloom and half light certainly gives a
dramatic contrast to the warm, rich golden lighting of the ball scene. As I said it is a personal dislike and that aside
I can appreciate the skill and work that has gone into the lighting
which all added to the effect and the story. The score, by contemporary Canadian composer
Glenn Buhr, is not one of the most memorable in ballet – no tunes to hum
on the train home here - but it is suitably dramatic when needed and
lyrical for the more tender moments, and Paul Murphy and the Royal
Ballet Sinfonia can never be faulted on either delivery or
interpretation. It is a ballet which was premiered by BRB in 2003
and has toured Britain three times as well as being taken to Hong Kong,
Japan and China and has grown into a solid narrative ballet in the BRB
armoury which is beautifully danced and magnificently staged. To
02-09-11 Roger Clarke **** DON'T mistake this
production for the musical of the same name, even though the much-loved
fairytale has the same happy ending with the beast transformed back into
a handsome prince. No human teapots, cups and
saucers, clocks or candelabra here, and the story opens with the cruel
prince coming under the spell of a mystery woodsman who saves a pretty
vixen from thoughtless huntsmen. The first half of the ballet
is more beastly than beauty, full of anger, dark costumes and scenery as
well as a darkened stage, and even bailiffs turn up to confiscate
furniture from the home of Belle's debt-troubled merchant father whose
ships haven't come in. There is, however, a complete
transformation after the interval when the lavish gold decorations
inside the Beast's castle simply glow as a gathering of people also
turned into remarkable creatures dance beautifully at a special ball. Here the brilliant lighting
effects designed by Mark Jonathan come into their own, and the costumes
are superb, too. David Bintley's choreography, as ever, is a delight. There are outstanding
performances from Nao Sakuma (Belle) and Iain Mackay (The Beast), while
Glenn Buhr's music is perfectly delivered by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia,
conducted by Paul Murphy. To 02.10.11 Paul Marston
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