Tribute to Jerome Robbins

Tribute to Jerome Robbins compilation of three single-act ballet pieces by Robbins and the world premiere of a single-act ballet by Benjamin Millepied. Performed 2008 at the Paris Opera (Palais Garnier) as a tribute to Robbins, who died in 1998. Works presented are:

1. En Sol by Robbins (24 minutes). Music is Maurice Ravel Piano Concerto in G major. Stars Marie-Agnès Gillot & Florian Magnenet. Elena Bonnay plays piano. Choreography overseen by Jean-Pierre Frohlich; sets and costumes by Erté; lighting by Jennifer Tipton.

2. In the Night by Robbins (27 minutes). Music by Frédéric Chopin. Stars dancers Clairemarie Osta & Benjamin Pech, Agnès Letestu & Stéphane Bullion, as well as Delphine Moussin & Nicolas Le Riche. Ryoko Hisayma plays piano. Choreography overseen by Jean-Pierre Frohlich & Christine Redpath; costumes by Antony Dowell; lighting by Jennifer Tipton.

3. The Concert by Robbins (33 minutes). Music by Frédéric Chopin. Stars dancers Dorothée Gilbert, Stéphane Phavorin, Alessio Carbone, and Emmanuel Thibault. Vessela Pelovska plays piano under adverse circumstances. Choreography overseen by Jean-Pierre Frohlich; arrangements and orchestration by Clare Grundman; sets after Saul Steinberg; costumes by Irene Sharaff; lighting by Jennifer Tipton.

4. Triade choreographed by Milleipied (24 minutes). Especially commissioned music by Nico Muhly.  Stars Marie-Agnès Gillot, Laëtitia Pujol, Audric Bezard, and Marc Moreau. Frédéric Lagnau plays piano. There are important parts for two trombones played by Bruno Flahou and Jean Raffard. Costumes by Benjamin Millepied; lighting by Patrice Besombes.

Koen Kessels conducts the Paris Opera Orchestra. Produced by François Duplat, Antoine Perset, Denis Morlière, and Emma Enjalbert; directed for TV by Vincent Bataillon. Released 2011, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound.  This is the first fine-arts HDVD to come packaged in a neat hardback book the size of the usual Blu-ray keep case. Grade: A

En Sol celebrates innocent fun and languid romance at the beach it a manner reminiscent of the musical productions for which Robbins was famous (in addition to his formal ballet work). Fans of this website likely will be very familiar with the En Sol music because we already have in HDVD both a Hélène Grimaud and a Martha Argerich rendition of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G major. 12 members of the corps populate the beach while Gillot and Magnenet fall in love. First I thought Magnenet, resplendent in white, might be the lifeguard---but on reflection I realize that even in those innocent days, the lifeguard was not as serious about the responsibilities of love as Magnenet seems to be.

With In the Night, Robbins evokes through dance the same feelings of mystery and longing achieved by Chopin in the music of his nocturnes.  Using three sets of dancers, there are three shortened pas de deux scenes (no solos), each quite different and equally wonderful. There's a brief coda to show you all the splendor at once. The booklet suggests that each couple represents a different phase of love or life. Suit yourself. I think Robbins proves that they are infinite ways in dance to express any phase or aspect of life.

The Concert is a comedy, set to famous Chopin music, about a piano concert that goes wrong. Most of it is at slapstick level, but I suspect it harbors insider jokes. It starts with an outrageous misorchestration (as military march) of the most sacred Chopin piece, the "Heroic" Polonaise No. 6 in A Flat. (Robbins' father emigrated from Poland to the U.S. in 1904 as Harry Rabinowitz, so Jerome could get away with this.) After the pianist sits down, she makes a funny scene cleaning the dusty keyboard. But don't laugh. Get out your HDVD of Martha Argerich at the Verbier Festival and you will see (at 01:51) a smirking Martha do exactly the same thing even after the orchestra has started playing a Beethoven concerto! Once (Jerome's) concert gets going,  things go downhill fast until total chaos arrives with the female corps. Dancers retire young like soldiers and cops. Some face unemployment, but Dorothée Gilbert can go straight into physical comedy (she would make a great girlfriend for Mr. Beam).

All the Robbins works mentioned above were written decades ago. Triad by Benjamin Millepied dates to 2008. The word "triade" means "triad" in English, which in turn must have something to do with "3." I think  it depicts negotiations on the street between two girls and two guys as to who is going to wind up with whom, at least for a night. I'm guessing each girl likes both guys (that's 3) and each guy likes both girls. You get to watch and you decide what should happen.  The music is terrific with an ethereal piano score receiving street cred from two trombones. The dance style is similar to what we see in Wayne McGregor works like Chroma, Infra, and Limen, only softer and with more links to the classical past.

The video is fine in view of the low light available is several of these numbers. Vincent Bataillon lets you see the whole stage much of the time, and he is reluctant to cut off those legs just to get close-up shots. The sound is fine. This is a well made, pleasant compilation that merits a B+ for sure. We will bump that up to an "A" out of respect for the intense beauty of In the Night and the fact that there are so few comedy ballets. I'm pretty sure The Concert will be a hit with visiting relatives and friends.

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker ballet. Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Choreography by Yuri Grigorovich in 2010 at the Bolshoi Ballet. Stars Nina Kaptsova, Artem Ovcharenko, Denis Savin, Alexey Loparevich, Olga Suvorova, and Pavel Dmitrichenko. Pavel Klinichev conducts the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra and Children Chorus. Set and costume design by Simon Virsaladze; lighting design by Mikhail Sokolov; choreography by Yuri Grigorovich; produced by François Duplat; directed for TV by Vincent Bataillon. Released 2011, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: B

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Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

Kurt Weill Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny opera to libretto by Bertolt Brecht. Directed 2010 at the Teatro Real by Alex Ollé and Carlus Padrissa of La Fura Dels Baus. Stars Jane Henschel, Donald Kaasch, Willard White, Measha Brueggergosman, Michael Köning, John Easterlin, Otto Katzameier, and Steven Humes. Pablo Heras-Casado conducts the Orquesta y Coro del Teatro Real, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, and the Coro Intermezzo (Chrous master Andrés Máspero). Sceneography by Alfons Flores; costumes by Lluc Castells; lighting by Urs Schönebaum; directed for video by Andy Sommer; produced by François Duplat.  Released 2011, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: Help!

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Orpheus und Eurydike

Christoph Gluck Orpheus und Eurydike dance-opera. Choreographer Pina Bausch directs this unusual production, with singers and dancers simultaneously on stage for each character, at the Palais Garnier in February 2008. Orpheus is danced by Yann Bridard and sung by mezzo soprano Maria Riccarda Wesseling; Eurydike is danced by Marie-Agès Gillot and sung by soprano Julia Kleiter; Amor is danced by Miteki Kudo and sung by soprano Sunhae Im. Also stars Yong Geol Kim, Nicolas Paul, Vincent Cordier, Emilie Cozette, Eleonora Abbagnato, Eve Grinsztajn, Muriel Zusperreguy, Caroline Bance, Christelle Garnier, Alice Renavand, Amélie Lamoureux, Charlotte Ranson, Séverine Westermann, Natacha Gilles, Marie-Isabelle Peracchi, Bruno Bouché, Vincent Chaillet, Sébastien Bertaud, Alexis Renaud, and Erwan Le Roux. Thomas Hengelbrock directs the Balthasar-Neumann Ensemble and Choir. Set, costume, and lighting designs by Rolf Borzik. Costumes made by Marion Cito; lighting made by Johan Delaere; lighting engineers were Michel Susini and Madjid Hakimi. Released  2009, this disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A+

In memoriam. December 16, 2009. I had never heard of Pina Bausch when I fist viewed her Orpheus und Eurydike dance-opera yesterday. The starting point is a German language version of the opera, which Gluck wrote in 1762 (in Italian). The three main characters, Orpheus, Eurydike, and Amor, are sung on stage by opera singers and are also danced by leading members of the Paris Opera Ballet. The rest of the on-stage cast are ballet dancers. This unusual array of forces works well---it's a ballet show, but ballet and opera make roughly equal contributions to the overall effect. The music is original-instrument quaint. The dance style is "Tanztheater" modern, which, with it's relatively simple forms and use of repetition, meshes well with old music. Although the dancing is incisive, it is also elegant, smooth, tasteful, and profound. I watched the curtain calls. Orpheus (Yann Bridard), 90% naked in his dancer's briefs for every minute of the ballet, went off stage and returned with a woman in hand. I was touched by the sad tenderness and respect he showed to his companion---this is Bausch I thought. And when the camera then gave a close-up of Bausch, I thought,"Dear God! This poor woman is ill." I hit the Internet. This production of Orpheus und Eurydike was filmed in February 2009, and Bausch died in June. She was 69.

Actually, Bausch choreographed and first produced Orpheus und Eurydike 35 years ago when she was 35. Her husband, Rolf Borzik, designed the set, costumes, and lighting. Borzik died 5 years later. Bausch dropped Orpheus und Eurydike from her repertoire. She went on to do many hard-edged controversial and iconoclastic productions which made her famous in the tiny world of modern dance. In a sense, the revival of Orpheus und Eurydike is a memorial of Borzik, whose work, but for this recording, might have been forgotten.

The newspapers reported that Bausch died 5 days after being diagnosed with cancer. I don't believe that. On re-watching the ballet-opera, I have no doubt that Bausch was writing her epithet with this revival. I also understand where the dancers got the intensity and reverence with which they handle their roles in this work: they were dancing their memorial to Borzik and Bausch. Alas, the Internet doesn't tell most of us where we will go after we die. But if you would like see the fate of Philippina Bausch, here's how you can. Get the HDVD and watch the Third Movement of Orpheus und Eurydike, called "Frieden" ("Peace" or "Paix"), and you will see her dancing there.

Orphée et Eurydice

Christoph Gluck Orphée et Eurydice in French (Orfeo ed Euridice in the original Italian name) opera to libretto by Pierre-Louis Moline (sung in French). David Alagna made theatrical and musical adaptations and directed at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in  2008. Stars Roberto Alagna (brother of the director), Serena Gamberoni, and Marc Barrard. Giampaolo Bisanti conducts the Teatro Comuniale di Bologna Orchdestra (Chorus Master Paolo Vero). Sets by David Algana; costumes by Carla Teti; lighting by Aldo Solbiati; directed for TV by Arnaud Petitet and David Alagna. Released 2010, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: B+

In Orpheus and Eurydice (English spelling) Gluck wrote a relatively simple opera that blends singing, orchestration, drama, and dance. It was first performed in 1762 in Italian. It has a lean core of satisfying music that lends itself to adaptation. Gluck was the first adaptor --- he tinkered with the work repeatedly and also wrote a much-modified version in French. Later composers and directors have continued this tradition. This mutability has been the key to the survival of Orpheus and Eurydice in the face of competition like Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, a vastly more complicated and mature work that came along only 24 years later.

So let's celebrate rather than bemoan the fact that current versions of Orpheus and Eurydice might be pretty surprising to Herr Gluck if he could tune in. That healthy attitude will prepare us to enjoy the Alagna brothers version we review now, which I describe as an indie motion picture that happens to use a performance on an opera stage as a location.

Using the Gluck's 1774 French version, the Alagnas recast the main roles (historically usually all sung by women or castrati) so that Eurydice is a soprano, Orpheus a tenor, and Amor (more about him later) becomes a baritone. To the modern ear this is a huge improvement over listening to three female leads. The Alagnas assume that the audience doesn't know the story of the classical myth all that well and then provide the following version: We meet Orpheus and Eurydice at their joyful wedding, which is immediately followed by the death of Eurydice in a car wreck. At the funeral, Orpheus' grief is so moving that the undertaker (called "Le Guide" instead of "Amor") intervenes and offers to take Orpheus into the netherworld to fetch Eurydice. Le Guide explains, of course, how Orpheus can't look at his bride lest she die again. Sexpot Eurydice is grumpy after being aroused from the blissful anesthesia of death. Denied a loving look from her husband, she proves that she knows how to get what she wants. After her second death, Orpheus follows her lead.

Having come up with a suitable plot for 2010, the Alagnas move chunks of the music and libretto around to fit. The emotional effect is the same as ever with the Gluck's wrenchingly mournful music relentlessly threatening to push you over the edge into tears. But now the Alagnas add something you don't expect: camp humor. The humor is mostly provided by Marc Barrard's portrayal of Le Guide. Standing tall with lugubrious face surrounded by a floor-length black leather trench coat, stovepipe hat, and black sunglasses, he is the perfect droll antidote to the pathos of the ancient legend. Le Guide is well equipped with his beat-up old Ford station wagon for a hearse, squad of Blues Brothers-looking pall bearers, and funeral parlor with a bank-vault door leading to the land of shades. And even Eurydice and Orpheus get a chance to show their skill at physical comedy.

We know this production was played live to audiences in Bologna because we see curtain calls at the end in a kind of sequel. But on the other hand, the HDVD version is not simply a recording of the live opera. The design of the HDVD show was inspired by the movies. It makes fascinating use of film devices like total camera mobility, obvious trick editing, rapid jump cuts, oversaturation and blooming of colors, artificial granularization, miss-focus, dual and negative images, and slow motion. Some of this maybe was done in post-production, but I also think the film was shot in multiple takes shot in parallel with the mounting of the live opera.

The result is an intriguing version of Gluck's old opera that is in tune with today's tastes. The singing and acting by all three principals is excellent, the chorus is excellent, and the orchestra sounds fine. Because it ought to help bring younger audiences (weaned on films) to the traditional fine arts, this title deserves at least the grade of "B+."

The Flames of Paris

The Flames of Paris ballet. Music by Boris Asafiev. Book by Alexander Belinsky and Alexei Ratmansky on basis of libretto by Nikolai Volkov and Vladimir Dmitriev. Directed and choreographed 2010 by Alexei Ratmansky (after Vasily Vaynonen) at the Bolshoi Ballet. Stars Natalia Osipova, Denis Savin, Ivan Vasiliev, Yuri Klevtsov, Nina Kaptsova, Anna Antonicheva, and Ruslan Skvortsov. Pavel Sorokin conducts the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. Scenography by Ilya Utkin and Evgeny Monakhov; costumes by Yelena Markovskaya; lighting by Damir Ismagilov, directed for TV and video by Vincent Bataillon. Released 2010, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A

The French Revolution in ballet! Gets an A+ for enthusiasm and tons of great dancing, especially by Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, the grin leaper. Vivid sound and bass drum; fun music and costumes. Good video framing, but PQ not so hot with motion artifacts and jerky credits. Staging is interesting; but a prop malfunction (involving a large curtain) in Act 1, Scene 2 interferes with the illusion and must have caused agony for the video editor. In the 1930s, this ballet was an icon of Soviet Union art, i.e., a propaganda ballet. With his update, Ratmansky wanted to honor the hoards of Bolshoi dancers who danced this during the Communist era, but was he successful in purging the Joe Stalin influence? He did for sure add elements to the story that would have earned Ratmansky a trip to the Lubyanka in 1933. But we need an expert with deep knowledge of Russian ballet to thoroughly answer my question.

La fille du pharaon

La fille du pharaon ballet. Music by Cesare Pugni. Choreographed by Pierre Lacotte after Marius Petipa. Filmed 2003 at the Bolshoi Theatre. Stars Svetlana Zakharova, Sergei Filin, Gennadiy Yanin, Maria Aleksandrova, Dimitri Gudanov, Inna Petrova, Anna Tsygankova, Anastasia Goryatcheva, Denis Medvedev, Yan Godovsky, Vladimir Moiseev, Anastasia Yatsenko, Ekaterina Shipulina, and Elena Andrienko. Alexander Sotnikov conducts the Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre. Staging, stage design, and costumes by Pierre Lacotte. Directed for video by Denis Caïozzi. This disc, unlike all other fine-art HDVDs released to this point, has no traditional menu. Instead the show starts directly. There is a brief message displayed at the beginning telling the viewer that the pop-up menu allows the viewer to change the audio setting and to select scenes. (A note on scene selection: getting to Acts II and III is a bit counterintuitive. After selecting "Scenes" from the pop-up menu, a secondary menu with all of Act I's scenes appears. To get to Acts II and II, the viewer must first go back to the original pop up menu, and suddenly Acts II and III become selectable.) There are no extras. Released  2010, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A

BelAir is a French company. The disc package and the liner notes are in French and English. But the Chapter titles are presented only in French. Here for your convenience are the Chapter titles in English:

• Introduction / Sandstorm at the Foot of the Pyramids
• The Dream
• The Royal Hunt
• The Monkey
• The Night
• The Royal Hunt (conclusion)
• Taor's Exploit
• Gathering at the Palace
• The Engagements
• The Grand Procession 1 (pas d'action)
• The Mirror
• The Grand Procession 2 (pas d'action)
• The Grand Procession 3
• The Contract
• Escape from the Palace
• The Fishermen's Village
• Three Rivers
• The Kingdom of the Nile
• Condemnation
• Aspicia's Return
• Love's Triumph
• Awakening

Ballet is the most esoteric, fragile, and perishable of the fine arts. A ballet is peculiar to the choreographer creating it, enormously expensive to produce, seen live by few people, almost impossible to document on paper, and hard to record in media. HDVD will benefit ballet more than the other fine arts because high-definition cameras and high-fidelity sound for the first time offer an economical way for more people to enjoy ballet and for the dance movements to be documented adequately for posterity.

Consider the fate of the ballet La fille du pharaon. In 1862, La Fille du Pharaon was the first great success of choreographer Marius Petipa (who was also the lead male dancer and who went on to become the most important choreographer in history). Petipa revived it several times before his death in 1910. The ballet was never performed outside Russia. The last Russian revival was in 1926. After that, the Communists dropped it (I guess because Lord Wilson, the lead male role, was too much of a symbol of imperialistic capitalism).

Knowledge about La fille du pharaon withered. Documents, sets, and costumes were mostly trashed or lost.
When Pierre Lacotte started working on his 2000 reconstruction, there were few people alive who had seen it.  The only visual records were sketches and black and white photos. Music scores were in archives, but it seems that no sound recording of the music was ever published. Lacotte found Marina Semionava, who was the last Aspicia when she danced it at age 17. But at about age 88, she could not remember the choreography.

Eventually, Lacotte was able to sleuth out enough material to piece together a 1 hour and 40 minute version for the Bolshoi Ballet that probably does a decent job of portraying the main roles and at least gives a taste of the spectacular chorus action (the original ballet lasted more than 4 hours and had 400 parts). The truncated version opened in Moscow in 2000 and was recorded in 2003. The DVD was released in 2005 and the HDVD was released on May 25, 2010. Pepita's almost lost work has been rescued from oblivion! (We will never see the full version; nor should we want to. To us, "spectacular" means something like the opening ceremonies at the Summer Olympics.)

So how does La fille du pharaon come across in HDVD? Cesare Pugni was the most prolific ballet composer in history, and he composed much other music as well. But he is today mostly ignored. For example, ArkivMusic offers not a single music recording devoted to Pugni. (Bits of his music can be heard on videos of ballets and compilations of ballet music.) But for someone who isn't even on the radar, Pugni's music is surprising good! For this libretto, a string of pearls is fine; there's no need for architecture or psychological depth. Pugni ceaselessly comes up with new melodies and orchestral combinations that are never boring. He's clearly on a level above, say, the compilations of Lanchbery that we know from La fille mal guarée and Tales of Beatrice Potter. I think Pugni is competitive in this music with most or all of Adams in Giselle and also with some of Mendelssohn and Tschaikovsky. And for sure, his music is completely adequate for and well coordinated to what's happening on the stage in La fille du pharaon.

A few reviewers have complained that the choreography is not exciting or original. Such comments may have some validity when you consider all the romantic, classical, and modern dancing what we now know. But this view is also misguided. The dancing we see in La fille du pharaon is not mature Petipa. Rather, these are images from the dawn of grand ballet. But if you have seen much of Petipa's more famous works, you will find in this production green shoots of all that is to come later. My favorite scene however, is one where Pepita may have been exceptionally creative. I refer to Chapters 17 and 18 after Aspicia escapes her father's order of unwanted marriage by leaping to her death in the waters. She descends into the courtyard of the God of the Nile (who looks a lot like Neptune). There the desert palate of ochre, red, and gold turns to shades of blue, green, and teal. To melancholy tones of harp, flute, and clarinet, Aspicia dances with the Gods of the great rivers---all in limpid show motion---until the God of the Nile is so touched by her beauty that he restores her to life and sends her back the realm of air.

The star dancers are young, beautiful, able, and enjoyable to watch. No anorexic near-40s in this show. The female corps doesn't have the precision and polish of, say, the women of the Paris Opera Ballet. But never mind, they make up for it in sass and glamour. I especially liked, in Chapter 19, the temple virgins, or maybe prostitutes, in their skimpy dresses, sexy underwear, and blue hair, all pouting while holding incense lamps. (Sorry guys, this is actually a nice show for the whole family. The blue hair is the only off-color aspect of it, and there is even a cute number where a large corps of children and youths from the Bolshoi school get to show everybody what they have learned.)

This production has many set and costume changes. The sets all looked fine or quite impressive except for one (Chapter 3) with bad seams and an obvious ragged scrim. Mixing tutus and hieroglyphics must have been a nightmare for the costume shop. At first I thought the costumes were a bit gaudy, but I soon got over that and came to admire the huge range of rags you see. After Aspicia arrives, the God of the Nile even gives her a nymph costume and orders her to go behind a rock and change out of her tutu!

The Orchestra of the Bolshoi Ballet plays fluently and is well-recorded. The surround sound is vivid. I usually don't pay much attention to the bass drum. Pugni uses the big drum a lot and gives my sub-woofer a workout. But in softer passages, I'm not sure I can hear the drum, but I can feel it in the air! In this recording I can also often clearly hear the sounds of the dancers' feet clattering on the floor. Then I realize that these girls who appear to be floating on air are really landing hard. This adds a surprising touch of realism to the video, and gives me new insight into what it's like to out there on the stage.

Finally, I have to give a special plug for Denis Caïozzi, the video director. The lighting in the Bolshoi was excellent, and Caïozzi's folks got brilliant, crisp images in high-definition that look wonderful, especially for work done in 2003. The shooting plan was excellent and resulted in a good balance of long-range, mid-range, and near shots. The crews also stayed away from too much extreme close-up work, which probably would have been spoiled by heavy makeup on some of the performers. Most impressive of all, I see almost no motion artefacts in this fast-moving film, even in the dimly-lit scenes.

In summary, this HDVD of La fille du pharaon is an altogether beautiful recording of fine performance of a production that is important to anyone with more than a casual interest in ballet. If you fit into the last sentence, this is an A+ title. On the other hand, La fille du pharaon is not one of the familiar ballets. It might not be of interest to many viewers, so I give it the grade of A.