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BRB produce the power and the glory
Passion and Ecstasy Birmingham Royal Ballet Birmingham Hippodrome ***** PASSION and
ecstasy and two very different ballets.Allegri diversi was BRB Director
David Bintley’s contribution to the Saddler’s Wells Royal Ballet’s
40th
anniversary season in 1987. It is set to Rossini’s music which, although
never written for dance, has a lyrical quality which leaves it open to
interpretation by Bintley’s inventive mind. The result is a ballet with no plot, story or
characters rather like the ballet equivalent of a musical
etude. Nao Sakuma and Joseph Caley
are the principals and their closing duet has a beauty all of its own
but the three women of the piece, Laura Purkiss, Samara Downs, Lei Zhao
and three men Jonathan Caguioa, Steven Monteith,
Christopher Rodgers-Wilson, are not there as support to make up numbers. They show some wonderful
technical ability and manage to weave some gloriously complex and
intricate patterns and interactions which are worth a round of applause
on their own. With no plot this is a chance
for dancers to show off and why not. The parts were written for specific
dancers almost a quarter of a century ago but that did not stop the
eight dancers from making the ballet their own and showing the depth of
talent and technique BRB can sport.
Carmina burana is a much
darker affair set to Carl Orff’s emotive cantata based on 254 mediaeval
poems from mainly the 11th and 12th centuries
found in a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria in 1803. The poems were
mostly written in mediaeval Latin, a few in old German and some in
Provencal. The collection was known as
known as Carmina Burana, latin for Songs from Beuern, which is the
shortened name for Benediktbeuern, the Abbey where the poems were
discovered. Orff set 24 of the poems to
music and called his composition by the same name with the premier in
Frankfurt in 1937 and it became a big hit in Nazi Germany. The opening, O fortuna,
is particularly dramatic, so much so it even appears on the album 99
Must Have Halloween
Classics. Victoria Marr as Fortuna
herself, dressed in a short black number, appears in a single spot
to set the scene before a group of Seminarians appear and three wander
off the paths of righteousness into the murkier highways and byways of
the real world. Women in spring gives you a hint of what can happen in an ungodly world with the dance of the pregnant women which has its comic moments before Alexander Campbell becomes the first of the trainee priests to fall off the wagon when he finds himself rejected by the object of his desires in a club and never seems to get over it, poor soul. Jamie Bond finds himself in
what appears to be a burlesque-style tavern surrounded by a collection
of Mr Creosotes where he is never quite sure whether he is trying to
save Nao Sakuma, who is served up as a roast
swan, or eat her. She appears rather like the girl who pops out of cakes
in Hollywood’s idea of a Mafia boss’s birthday party. The five gluttons in fat suits
manage some remarkably complex moves considering they struggle to get
within six feet of each other while the swan and Jamie weave in and out
amongst them There is no doubt in young
Jamie’s mind what happens next when he falls
in with a group of the local thugs though. He gets done over good and
proper. That’s what happens when you break your journey to salvation. Iain Mackay falls the furthest
of all in the Court of Love. He falls hook line and clothes, ending up
in just his Y-fronts, for our Fortuna who we discover is not so much the
girl next door as the local neighbourhood hooker and most of her mates
appear to be on the game as well. The ballet, according to
Bintley, who first performed it in 1995, is a modern Everyman
story about the struggle of faith and what can happen if you turn you
back on spirituality for rather more earthly
pursuits. The ballet has a huge cast
which at times look like an Andy Warhol pop art crowd scene but despite
the numbers it never looks crowded and the synchronisation was spot on. Each of the male leads gave us
their side of their fall from grace with some great dancing while
Victoria Marr as Fortuna, the tart with a heart, more or less, was just
incredible.
Adding to the effect is the
design by Philip Prowse which gave us 12 giant crosses, which reappear
tinged with what appears to be blood, a giant sun, a moon, an enormous
heart and a sheet which filled the stage as a billowing cloud. Behind it all was the
pulsating music from the Royal Ballet Simfonia under conductor Paul
Murphy and Birmingham’s own experts in early choral work, Ex Cathedra
with excellent soloists soprano Grace Davidson, tenor Jeremy
Budd and baritone Owen Webb. Carmina Burana is more than a
ballet; it is an experience. Roger Clarke Double bill of delight . . . **** WOW! What an incredible contrast
brilliant choreographer David Bintley has created in this double bill,
and rousing cheers from the first night audience underlined their
appreciation of a breathtaking event. It opens with a delightful classical ballet,
Allegri Diversi, starring Nao Sakuma and Joseph Caley, in which the
dancers perform a range of beautiful movements to Rossini's music,
played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conductor Paul Murphy. Sakuma and Caley are joined by six other superb
dancers, and at the close clarinetist Ian Scott is invited on stage to
receive well deserved acknowledgement for his exceptional solo
contribution. After the interval there is a stunning
transformation with Carmina Burana, danced to the music of Carl Orff. A
stranger to the ballet might have felt he had stumbled on a convention
of Vicars and Tarts as the Goddess Fortuna (Victoria Marr) tangles with
three Seminarians lured from their faith to pursue a more sensual
approach to life. Dog collars are torn off in the frenzy and at The
Court of Love Iain Mackay strips to his underpants as he dances with the
Goddess. Ballerinas even dance as pregnant women at one stage, and some
of the costumes border on the erotic. And let's not forget the magnificent singing of
Ex Cathedra, particularly Grace Davidson (soprano), Jeremy Budd (tenor)
and Owen Webb (baritone) Passion & Ecstasy ends on Saturday night 25.06.11 Paul Marston
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