The Dracula phenomenon/ any comments?

[bart]

I've read several postings referring to the current spate of Dracula performances, usually as an example of a a watering down of serious ballet or (at worst) a pathetic attempt to appeal to a new, less dance-sophisticated audience. I assume these comments are referring to the Ben Stevenson/Houston Ballet version. But perhaps there are others.

I'd appreciate hearing from posters who have actually seen this ballet. What's it like? What did you think of it? Does this really represent a troubling new direction for ballet, as some posters seem to have suggested?

I ask this because Ballet Florida doing the Stevenson version next month and have beaten more PR drums for it than anything else in years, except Nutcracker. I also noticed that the ballet is very much a full package from Houston: choreography, sets, costumes. Even the music (recorded I assume) is credited to Houston.

[Alexandra]

Houston Ballet brought this one here a few seasons ago for a whole week. I saw two performances, and at both I thought the audience reaction was tepid. (I'm sure there were some who liked it.)

I'm in the "this is watered down pablum" crowd. There's no reason a "Dracula" ballet couldn't work, but this one was just, well, silly. Minimal choreography -- I honestly can't remember one dance image from it, unless you count the little helper swinging from the chandelier at the end as a dance image. I didn't think the plot was clearly developed; I kept having trouble telling the women apart (not a criticism of the dancers, but of who in the heck they were supposed to be.)

There were DOZENS of "Draculas" a few years ago, even one "Son of Dracula." One year (2 or 3 years ago) many companies programmed their "Dracula" for Hallowe'en weekend. Last year, there weren't so many, and I thought it might be a fad whose day had come and gone.

But, then, I'm not a fan of Stevenson's choreography generally. Everything I've seen of his I've found derivative and dull.

If you go, I hope you'll tell us what you thought!

[dirac]

I've only seen one Dracula, and not onstage -- I suppose I ought to go for sociological if not aesthetic purposes, but I haven't. And thank goodness my local company, San Francisco Ballet, hasn't yet been driven to such expedients.

As Alexandra says, there really is no reason why a Dracula ballet can't be as good as any other. It may be that the subject has acquired a sheen of kitsch that can't be removed at this late date and it is impossible to look at the story de novo, so to speak. I did admire the Royal Winnipeg production as seen in Guy Maddin's "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary,"although it wasn't really possible to get an idea from it as to what the stage production was really like. And no one who hires Maddin can be accused of wanting to make a fast buck.

[bart]

In intermission conversations at various dance, opera, etc., performances here, the two most common out-of-the-blue cultural questions I've been asked are: (a) what did you think of Dracula (Ballet Florida)? and (b) what did you think of the Da Vinci Code? This, invariably, from people who loved them. I hope there is a spill-over from all this in the form of openness to other forms of both ballet and literature.

[sandik]

I haven't seen the Stevenson Dracula, but I did see James Canfield's version of the story (Lady Lucille and the Count), which I didn't think was particularly successful, but I will say that I can imagine a version that would work. Although the novel would, I think, have to be edited in some significant ways, the characters are distinct enough and the main story is broad enough (with enough believeable movement metaphors) to give a choreographer a good framework. The story does have a certain camp value right now that it didn't carry earlier in the 20th c when most of the good film adaptations were made, but as recently as Klaus Kinski in Nosferatu I was thoroughly spooked, so I think the idea still has genuine power.

[Joseph]

I love them!

I have seen both Stevenson's and Michael Pink's at Ballet Internationale. I think it is a great idea and eye catching for the audience. True, it is more of a scenic spetactle than a focus on choreography, but I think it is a nice change. Michael Pink even called his version a "dance drama" and not a ballet. Stevenson's is much more classicaly oriented though than Pink's. But both were excellent!

The music for Pink's was a score created for the production by Philip Feeney while Stevenson's uses music from Franz Listz arranged by John Lanchberry. While both are extrenmely different, they all seemed to really capture the mood and character of the story.

[dirac]

Thank you, Joseph, that's nice to hear. And if the audiences were engaged by the productions, that's always good, too.

Although the novel would, I think, have to be edited in some significant ways, the characters are distinct enough and the main story is broad enough (with enough believeable movement metaphors) to give a choreographer a good framework.

Yes, many of the basics are there -- perhaps it's the sensationalism of the material that leads people astray.

I wonder if we'll ever get a ballet about Elisabeth Bathory? Lots of good opportunities for the corps, I'd think.

[bart]

I have seen both Stevenson's and Michael Pink's at Ballet Internationale. I think it is a great idea and eye catching for the audience. True, it is more of a scenic spetactle than a focus on choreography, but I think it is a nice change. Michael Pink even called his version a "dance drama" and not a ballet. Stevenson's is much more classicaly oriented though than Pink's. But both were excellent!

I llike the term "dance drama." It's honest, accurate, and reflects the essentially 19th century spectacle that the story allows for. In retrospect, I wish I could see this again, through the expectations associated with "dance drama," rather than the expectations createad (for me at least) be the term "ballet." I think I would have enjoyed it.

Dirac, I know Batory tried to keep her youth, but was it be drinking or bathing in the blood of local virgins? If the latter, perhaps the score from Ondine might be updated and used.

[dirac]

Very true, the correct label can make all the difference in expectations.

Bathory like to take baths in their blood, as she was under the impression that this would prevent her aging. Apparently she started out as just your garden variety torturer/sadist, and then she advanced to taking bites out of her victims. Eventually she had guardsmen kidnap village girls and bleed them dry in a big vat, and then she’d do her thing. I guess that might present difficulties for the prop department, now that I consider the matter.