|
|
|
|
|
The King Dances/Carmina Burana
Birmingham Hippodrome
***** DAVID Bintley has marked his two decades
as director of Birmingham Royal Ballet with a spectacle, an event as
much as a new ballet, a world premiere full of drama, colour, dark,
shade and life. The King Dances
might not be ballet as we have
come to know it but it would certainly be recognisable, if a little
moderne,
to the The steps, the dress and Stephen Montague’s music
all echoed the era of the dawn of ballet as it emerged as court
entertainment in Paris in the late 1500s. Bintley’s piece is
based on Jean-Baptiste Lully's Le
Ballet de la Nuit from 1653 when Louis
XIV made his court debut at the age of 14 as Apollo, the sun god,
earning the young ruler the sobriquet of The Sun King.
The ballet ran for 12 hours; mercifully
Bintley has dispensed with that element of authenticity, managing to get
his message across in a little over four per cent of that, half an hour,
but he still breaks the ballet down into four quarters, the first,
second, third and fourth watches, which would have lasted three hours
each from when the original ballet started at six pm. If nothing else
17th century court audiences, and dancers, had stamina. We open with eight flaming torches as the sun
disappears and night approaches in the shape of Iain Mackay as La Nuit.
Mackay is back to his best after his crippling injury 18 months ago and
makes the role look easy as he does with the more sinister Le Diable in
the darkest hours of night, the witching hours after midnight when
demons abound. Between night and the devil enters Le Roi, danced
by rising star William Bracewell, when we have a quite lovely, gentle
pas de deux between the king and Selene, la Lune, danced delicately by
Yijing Zhang. After the lovers and then the demons comes the
finale as night gives way to day and through a huge, golden orb enters
the Sun God, announced in great ceremony by Cardinal Mazarin, danced by
Mackay again. The light has returned with the dawn and Le Roi-Soleil has
arrived. Katrina Lindsay’s
design is dark and sombre, as a royal palace would be in a 17th
century lit by candles and burning torches, while Peter Mumford’s
lighting accentuates that feel of a sumptuous royal residence at night,
breaking into glorious light as the king enters as the sun. The second part of this double bill is Bintley’s
first ballet for BRB from 1995, Carmina burana, based on Carl Orff’s
dramatic score opening with Céline Gittens as a c The piece is based on
satirical mediaeval poems which warn of the dangers of lust, gluttony,
drinking to excess and the fickleness f fate and there is plenty of fun
in the piece including almost a homage to Monty Python’s
Mr Creosote as five enormously obese gluttons
are set to eat a rather lively roast swan danced by
Daria
Stanciulescu while Mathias Dingman as
Boiling Rage tries to save her.
We had Naïve Boy Jamie Bond, who runs the
gauntlet of washing lines and pregnant women before falling for Lover
Girl Elisha Willis but the real passion comes when Tyrone Singleton, a
man of the cloth, rejects his calling and strips to his underpants in
the court of love where he dances a beautiful, slow and sensuous pas de
deux with Gittens only to find fortune is a hard mistress and Fortuna
returns alone for Orff’s dramatic finale. There is plenty of humour in the piece and a huge
cast as well as Birmingham Ex Cathedra choir with Katie Trethewey,
soprano, Jeremy Budd, tenor and Grant Doyle, baritone. The evening celebrating
Bintley’s 20 years as director also saw two conductors for the always
impressive Royal Ballet Sinfonia with Paul Murphy conducting
The King Dances
and Koen Kessels Carmina burana.
Two very different ballets in two different styles, twenty years and
perhaps three ahdna half centuries apart, and with not a tutu in sight.
Roger Clarke
The King Dances and Carina Burana runs to Saturday, 20 June
BOOK
Sylvia runs from Wednesday, 24 June to Saturday 27, June. BOOK 17-06-15
|
|
|
Contents page Hippodrome Reviews A-Z Reviews by Theatre Tweet |
|
|
|
17th century court of Louis XIV.