After performing classics such as Swan Lake, the time is ripe for the Russian State Ballet to introduce more courageous choreographic choices.
Russian State Ballet. Point Theatre, Dublin
Seeing a dance that first premiered in 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre felt like seeing history continue, and the dancers, coached by Vyatcheslav Gordeev, upheld an authentic interpretation (except for the final scene, which ends more happily than Russian choreographer Marius Petipa imagined). Otherwise, the story clearly developed with costumes, scenery and dancing as radiant as Tchaikovsky's music.
La Bayadere, Le Corsaire, Don Quixote and other full-length ballets must look gorgeous on this company. One of the best things about pure Russian technique is its ability to tell a story without extraneous gestures - here every feather rested in place and each arabesque hit a perfect height as Prince Siegfried fell in love with Odette, the Swan Queen.
Other productions try to explain the story through overwrought acting and having dancers pantomime in the corners, but in this version, every time Siegfried lifted his arm straight at the audience, we knew he was going to the lake. At points such technical skill bordered on appearing wooden in contrast to Odette's fluttering with her obedient corps.
Still, the story moved swiftly to a thundering RTÉ National Orchestra conducted by Alexander Sotnikov, and Yury Yvskubenko and Liudmila Konovalova excelled in the black swan pas de deux where her leg extensions climbed toward the ceiling, matched only by his clean, consistent jumps.
The corps de ballet stomped out rhythms in the czardas that appear ordinary in other Swan Lake productions, but here it was as if they were bringing age-old Russian ballet traditions to life. My eight-year-old companion ably described the ballet as graceful, elegant and intelligent and at times, even magnificent. Now, if she could only see more. - Christie Taylor
The Nutcracker is performed tonight and tomorrow
Babes in the Wood. Opera House, Cork
Director Bryan Flynn works with a very broad brush in his production of Babes in the Wood at the Opera House. The result is a clamorous amalgamation of elements from Star Wars, Camelot and A Knight's Tale, none of them, either singly or together, making any sense at all.
Most of the spectacle comes from lighting effects by Tim Mascall, often as noisy as the badly-adjusted body-mikes, but these could be said to be part of the deal, as are the all-too-short appearances of the very polished choruses and dance-teams.
Borrowing from cinema and television trends, the plot has Robin Hood (Killian Donnelly with a surprising falsetto) defending the Babes (Oisean O'Callaghan and Therese O'Sullivan) from their wicked uncle (Trevor Ryan) while in pursuit of Maid Marian (Sarah Burke). This imbroglio is enhanced by other active presences, including a very composed fairy floating overhead (Jane O'Regan) and by a frenzied score arranged in medley rather than melody mode by musical director Dave Doc O'Connor. This ensures the recognition-factor.
A hint of comic possibilities between the two principals, with the Babe-sized Marion singing way above her weight, is blunted by heavy and sometimes tasteless farce. The sight of the Babes being apparently burned at the stake distressed younger members of the audience, but it has to be admitted - with some reluctance given the creative, if not physical laziness of the approach - that two-and-a-half hours of this seemed acceptable to the full house. - Mary Leland
Until Jan 15
NCC/Antunes. National Gallery, Dublin
Toru Takemitsu - Songs I (exc). Toshio Hosokawa - Ave Maria. Rob Canning - Ave Maria. Peter Sculthorpe - Autumn Song. Brett Dean - Katz und Spatz
The National Chamber Choir's artistic director Celso Antunes wrapped up the choir's current Audible Landscapes with an unusual programme. The world premiere of Rob Canning's Ave Maria, an RTÉ Lyric fm commission, was sandwiched between works by Japanese and Australian composers. Antunes planned a network of internal cross references, offering a second Ave Maria, and featuring unexpected tonal simplicity.
Toru Takemitsu (1930-96) may have been the greatest Japanese composer of the 20th century, but his Songs are light, schmaltzy pieces, repetitive after the manner of pop songs, but without the appeal or poignancy of pop songs at their best.
Peter Sculthorpe (born 1929) is Australia's leading composer, a man who long ago rejected aspects of his European training to engage with native culture. His Autumn Song showed another late 20th-century composer writing musically sweet-toothed tonal harmonies when it was neither popular nor profitable.
The performances under Antunes kept their distance rather than indulging in the music's more obvious invitations. Rob Canning's Ave Maria delivers the text in English and Irish as well as Latin, and calls for a double choir, a spatially separated soprano soloist, and a percussionist with tubular bells as well as bell-ringers within the choir. Musically, the manner was very retro, sounding like an attempt to rekindle some of the avant-garde excitements of the 1960s.
The 1991 Ave Maria by Toshio Hosokawa (born 1955) lived more successfully in the moment, inviting the listener to relish the resonance of simple melodic clashes as well as complex wall-of-sound chords, shifting, as it were, from the simplicity of a Zen garden to the complexity of a branch in full bloom.
The Australian composer Brett Dean (born 1961) made a successful transition from the viola desks of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to a freelance career as composer and viola soloist. His Katz und Spatz (Cat and Sparrow) dates from his Berlin years and sets a poem by Sophia von Wilcken, an eight-year-old friend of his young daughter.
The poem was sparked after its young author met a survivor of the Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp. The encounter took place during a rehearsal for Hans Krása's children's opera, Brundibár. Krása was one of the unfortunate artists interned in Theresienstadt (he died in Auschwitz), and the survivor had taken part in performances of the work when she was also interned there.
Dean's was the most emotionally complex of the works on the NCC's programme, seeking attention on a multitude of layers. Here, however, it was the simpler and purer effects of the Hosokawa which resonated more deeply, not least because it was also the work in which Antunes and his singers found their most persuasive form. - Michael Dervan
