Roland Petit's Proust

[volcanohunter]

Roland Petit's Proust, filmed in March 2007 with the Paris Opera Ballet, is available for pre-order at Amazon. The cast includes Hervé Moreau, Eleonora Abbagnato, Stéphane Bullion, Manuel Legris, Mathieu Ganio and Stéphanie Romberg. The release date is listed as March 11.

http://www.amazon.com/Proust-Roland-Petit/dp/B0011ETNXY

The web site for Bel Air Classiques features a trailer of the DVD.

http://www.belairclassiques.com

[James]

For those who live in Europe, it is available on french amazon : http://www.amazon.fr/Proust-Ou-Intermitten...0322&sr=1-8

and for pre-order on uk amazon :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Proust-Ou-Intermit...0132&sr=1-1

(release date : 3 Mar 2008)

[bart]

There's a clip of a pas de deux with Mathieu Ganio and Stephane Bullion here:

http://www.voxdance.com/en/video/mathieu-g...and-petit?c=all

[Marcmomus]

I have this DVD and though it is a collection of mainly disconnected scenes based on Proust's 'Remembrances' I consider most of it superb. Manuel Legris, an etoile of the POB is astonishing.

[bart]

[Edited to add: As Estelle points about below, I've made the same old "Bejart" instead of "Petit" mistake I've made before. Thanks for the correction, Estelle. I really do seem to have a mental block about this.

I'm a Proust fan and also have enjoyed Bejart from time to time, so I'd love to hear more about the Paris dvd.

Also, Bejart's company brought this to New York several decades ago, but I missed it. Did anyone see it at that time?

The clips I've seen of the Paris production show episodes and encounters, based more or less on some of Proust's main characters, but not as Proust created them.

For example, there is nothing in the male pas de deux that goes much further than generic posturing and interweaving of two beautiful men. Of those memorable and very different characters, Robert de Saint-Loup and Charles Morel, I found very little.

Charlus expresses his passion for the much-younger Morel in a scherzo section from Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14. He darts around the bigger and more beautiful Morel, flapping his hands. Buzz Buzz Buzz. This has little to do with the real Charlus, one of the great characters of literature, however neatly Legris dances it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl8hKwyNCZ0...PL&index=26

On the plus side, everyone is incredibly beautiful, in great physical shape, and very, very stylish, as you expect from every Paris video. But I am resisting buying this (at over $29 U.S.) for fear that Bejart has just given us a string of his personal impressions of the main characters. For example, the Bel Aire Classique promotional video has so many unrelated snippets that it might be entitled "A Hundred Fleeting Glimpses of the Best-of-Proust."

I've been wondering whether these out-of-context sections ever cohere into a real dramatic (or even musical) structure? Is there development? Do you learn enough about the characters to care about them?

[volcanohunter]

But I am resisting buying this (at over $29 U.S.) for fear that Bejart has just given us a string of his personal impressions of the main characters.

For what it's worth, the DVD is available at Berkshire Record Outlet for $14. Bel Air Classique DVDs are over-priced, and many of them end up at the BRO as a consequence. This is also true of a many VAI releases.

http://www.berkshirerecordoutlet.com/searc...&filter=all

[Estelle]

I'm a Proust fan and also have enjoyed Bejart from time to time, so I'd love to hear more about the Paris dvd.

Err, Bart, you mistyped "Béjart" instead of "Petit".

I haven't seen that ballet, but it seems to me that it would be quite difficult to show the complexity of Proust characters in a ballet...

[silvermash]

I'm a Proust fan and also have enjoyed Bejart from time to time, so I'd love to hear more about the Paris dvd.

Also, Bejart's company brought this to New York several decades ago, but I missed it. Did anyone see it at that time?

The clips I've seen of the Paris production show episodes and encounters, based more or less on some of Proust's main characters, but not as Proust created them.

For example, there is nothing in the male pas de deux that goes much further than generic posturing and interweaving of two beautiful men. Of those memorable and very different characters, Robert de Saint-Loup and Charles Morel, I found very little.

Charlus expresses his passion for the much-younger Morel in a scherzo section from Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14. He darts around the bigger and more beautiful Morel, flapping his hands. Buzz Buzz Buzz. This has little to do with the real Charlus, one of the great characters of literature, however neatly Legris dances it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl8hKwyNCZ0...PL&index=26

On the plus side, everyone is incredibly beautiful, in great physical shape, and very, very stylish, as you expect from every Paris video. But I am resisting buying this (at over $29 U.S.) for fear that Bejart has just given us a string of his personal impressions of the main characters. For example, the Bel Aire Classique promotional video has so many unrelated snippets that it might be entitled "A Hundred Fleeting Glimpses of the Best-of-Proust."

I've been wondering whether these out-of-context sections ever cohere into a real dramatic (or even musical) structure? Is there development? Do you learn enough about the characters to care about them?

Well I think you’ll have to see the whole ballet to get a better idea of what Petit intended to do. Of course, it’s impossible in 90 mn or so to give a full idea of Proust’s work. I believe the choreography is more developing about an idea about what the characters are or a situation and is revolving about the idea of love only.

The ballet is divided in two parts, one is mostly ladies part, with reveries, delicate dancing where everyone is dressed in white and full costumes and it’s called something like images of the paradise. Up to me, it’s a bit weak and the choreography is quite traditional.

The second part is called I think something like images of hell, and up to me is brilliant. It aims to depict love in a more practical way, that is to say unhappy love. Dancers are dressed in black or with barely nothing, it has intense dancing and acting, interactions and emotions between the characters.

The fact that Petit chose to show Charlus as a man of sexual desires is perhaps restricted but I think Charlus doing everything to get Morel who is so far from him, socially and physically speaking, is not that bad shown in the ballet. Also, Charlus, unable to get Morel having rough sex with four guys is, up to me choreographed with tact. That’s in fact what you can read in Proust, his failure and frustrations with Morel, his compensations with sado masochist practices…

I don’t fully agree when you only see in the duet of Morel and Saint-Loup just two beautiful men. You can see through the whole pas de deux and also the single solo that happened just before, who is really Saint-Loup, a man full of contradictions, perhaps the reason why one happened to know in the novel he was homosexual once he’s dead. His interactions with Morel are full of hesitations, desire, but his fights too against himself and this desire. Stéphane Bullion is also depicting a two-face Morel. He’s tough with Charlus and is malicious but he’s different with Saint-Loup. He himself fights against his will to dominate Saint-Loup and his own desire. That’s a beautiful pas de deux and I think it’s fully rendered by Mathieu Ganio and Stéphane Bullion in the DVD.

All and all, I think Petit took just some ideas about Proust characters but gives a rich lecture of thes tiny bits, very satisfying in the ballet context.

[bart]

Thanks, Estelle, for correcting my Bejart-Petit mistake ... a kind of mental block, actually. And thanks, silvermash, for your comments on the ballet as a whole.

Well I think you’ll have to see the whole ballet to get a better idea of what Petit intended to do. Of course, it’s impossible in 90 mn or so to give a full idea of Proust’s work. I believe the choreography is more developing about an idea about what the characters are or a situation and is revolving about the idea of love only.

You are absolutely right. It's impossible to do more with Proust's 7 volumes and (probably) millions of words than just hint at it. The characters and what the stand for is the approach which is most suited for a 90-minute staged work. I would imagine that Petit also had to consider those who knew little of Proust's work, but who Did know a bit about the kinds of people -- and the kinds of passion -- that they can be made to stand for.

I appreciate your comments about the structure of the ballet ... how these parts fit together.

The second part is called I think something like images of hell, and up to me is brilliant. It aims to depict love in a more practical way, that is to say unhappy love. Dancers are dressed in black or with barely nothing, it has intense dancing and acting, interactions and emotions between the characters.

I would imagine that the brief clip of a corps of women, wearing black evening gowns, frantically moving across the stage comes from this part. It would certainly fit how the novels themselves develop in towards the end: especially the scenes in the Great War and the descent into a kind of underworld of sensuality and secrets.

The fact that Petit chose to show Charlus as a man of sexual desires is perhaps restricted but I think Charlus doing everything to get Morel who is so far from him, socially and physically speaking, is not that bad shown in the ballet.

It wasn't the overt sexuality that I objected to. It was creating a dance image of Charlus as fundamentally ridiculous. ("Monsieur Pierre," the stereotypical gay hair dresser or window dressser.) Charlus's compulsive and dark sexuality is a focus of the novel. It is discussed in detail, including graphic images of his descent into sado-maschism, by the end. But Charlus himself always remains a grand seigneur despite his sexual and other obsessions. Her emerges as a tragic figure in the last volume. Proust examines him mercilessly, but never without a sense of wonder. I suppose that Charlus himself MIGHT have danced like that if he were a dancer. But Proust would not have seen him -- or depicted him -- in this way. I guess that's what I mean about the characters as PROUST would have drawn them.

You make a strong case for this ballet, silvermash, and you've persuaded me to obtain it and attempt to see it on its own terms. Thanks for that.

[silvermash]

The fact that Petit chose to show Charlus as a man of sexual desires is perhaps restricted but I think Charlus doing everything to get Morel who is so far from him, socially and physically speaking, is not that bad shown in the ballet.

It wasn't the overt sexuality that I objected to. It was creating a dance image of Charlus as fundamentally ridiculous. ("Monsieur Pierre," the stereotypical gay hair dresser or window dressser.) Charlus's compulsive and dark sexuality is a focus of the novel. It is discussed in detail, including graphic images of his descent into sado-maschism, by the end. But Charlus himself always remains a grand seigneur despite his sexual and other obsessions. Her emerges as a tragic figure in the last volume. Proust examines him mercilessly, but never without a sense of wonder. I suppose that Charlus himself MIGHT have danced like that if he were a dancer. But Proust would not have seen him -- or depicted him -- in this way. I guess that's what I mean about the characters as PROUST would have drawn them.

You make a strong case for this ballet, silvermash, and you've persuaded me to obtain it and attempt to see it on its own terms. Thanks for that.

Well the way Charlus may look ridiculous is also part of the dancer interpretation. I think Manuel Legris looks pathetic in the DVD because he depicts an old Charlus and Manuel Legris is a lot shorter than Stéphane Bullion, which emphasises some strange steps in the choreography. Anyway, this year other dancers took the role and for example, Aurelien Houette a tall and strongly built dancer gave another dimension to Charlus, a younger one, less a victim, more playfull and those steps looks less ridiculous I think.

But anyway, when one is in love, one may sometimes do ridiculous things and I think what Petit wanted to show was how much Charlus was in love...

[Quiggin]

I agree with Bart about the inappropriateness of any part of In Search of Lost Time for a ballet. It's a dense forest of a text, not a soap opera.

Charlus is a man of 40 when he first appears -- at Balbec -- and is rather stout. He and the Grandmother are very important characters -- open windows, a friend called them -- because they're the only ones who see the truth, especially about Marcel. Morel is of a different magnitude and his character serves to show Verdurins and their superficial but dangerous "little clan" at work. They reject the regal and eccentric Charlus who has substance for Morel who has none. It would seem that this ballet should be more appropriately called Morel, or the world according to Morel.

My uncle has remained Baron de Charlus, as a protest, and with an apparent simplicity which really covers a good deal of pride. 'In these days,' he says, 'everybody is a prince; one must have something to distinguish one; I shall call myself Prince when I wish to travel incognito.'

A dark green thread harmonised, in the stuff of his trousers, with the stripe on his socks, with a refinement which betrayed the vivacity of a taste that was everywhere else subdued, to which this single concession had been made out of tolerance, while a spot of red on his tie was imperceptible, like a liberty which one does not dare take.

[papeetepatrick]

Charlus's sexuality is a preposterous subject for a ballet. What does one look for, another Nureyev as in the old film of the Corsaire to get an aestheticized version of his 'body type', which is very much specified in the 'cross-pollination' keyhole episode with Jupien--'what a big bum'. 'Charlus in love' is pretty much an oxymoron anyway; at least 'Swann in Love' is marvelous, because all of his suspicions about Odette are indeed true. But Charlus's 'being in love' is not even one of the most important parts of his character--just this alone from silvermash 'Also, Charlus, unable to get Morel having rough sex with four guys is, up to me choreographed with tact.' So maybe Charlus wants to 'explore Eros with Morel', but that's not the usual meaning of 'being in love'. The scene with Jupien is more important, to my mind, as well as his descent into being a full-fledged and pathetic masochist in the final volume.

So it was Petit we saw in that clip a few weeks ago, that Ray and I had such a field day on. Morel in particular is not even one of the complex characters. He's purely an opportunist and I don't think he reflected on a single one of his romantic liaisons. He was a kind of hustler, just beautiful and talented, so able to sell to the upper classes. That's cool, it happens, but this kind of chippie sees only the $ signs.

But I totally agree with bart and quiggin that you can't do this, and this:

'I believe the choreography is more developing about an idea about what the characters are or a situation and is revolving about the idea of love only.'

This to me has that whiff of 'the well-rotted archaic' (not your quote, silvermash, I mean the use of Proust in this way), insofar as 'the idea of love only' is not all that easy to execute with profundity, but that this kind of 'grand old master' like Petit using Proust as a kind of 'label' when that Saint-Loup/Morel pas de deux alone proves to me that I wouldn't watch another piece of this work, would have been at least some better, even if a failure, without this 'old Establishment', French version of 'Old Boy Artist Network', and having to look for posterity, almost as if to present some sort of club, 'Roland Petit Does Proust', 'Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet Sit Around Talkin', 'Catherine DeNeuve as Odette in a Highly Acclaimed Proust Film Adaptation'. And that was highly touted, and to mind, did not work any better than 'Swann in Love' with Jeremy Irons and Ornella Muti. In fact, I thought it considerably worse. At least in 'Swann in Love', you got some sense of Swann's despair, in 'Le Temps Retrouve', you see a director using little stick people versions of the characters, and they're all absurd, how wizened they are from the real characters of the novel. Only amusing addition was an American social climber saying she preferred Oriane to Odette, that was a nice touch.

I don't know, though, I really didn't think 'Swann in Love' was a terrible film, and that one 'story within the novel' does somehow seem possible to do in other forms. I can see it as a ballet. But, of course, there's nothing in 'The Guermantes Way' that could be done justice unless you did the whole 100-page dinner party at the Guermantes as a play with all of Proust's dialogue intact. Also, maybe there really could be a ballet about Albertine and Marcel, but those sections never interested me personally as much.

[bart]

I find myself agreeing with both Quiggin and Patrick on the character of Morel. He's out for himself, but he's also struggling to rise socially, culturally and financially, and is a real survivor (literally so, in the case of his late entry into combat in the Great War).

All the major Proust characters contain, to an extraordinary degree, contradictions and inconsistencies,as well as a tendency to self-deception. This is all expressed with a strong sense of the irony of human life. Can such qualities ever be be expressed in dance terms, I wonder?

On the other hand, there are a number of qualities in Proust that DO seem especially suited to dance. For example, the way one experiences Time flowing back and forth, with past and present often coexisting. And what about those key remembered experiences (the most famous of which is the petite madeleine) -- all nonverbal physical sensations. That does sound a lot like dance.

Proust towards the end of his work calls these memories "fragments of existence which have escaped from time." For some reason, this makes me think of the impressions one gets from, for example, the non-literal ballets of Balanchine, who once said:

What I do is to assemble ingredients -- it is like opening an icebox door and you look inside to see what you have stored away -- and then I select, combine and hope that the results will be appetizing.

Maybe that was what Petit was going for?

[Marcmomus]

Using Proust as inspiration surely doesn't require Petit slavishly to follow the original characterisations in Proust, or even require him to provide a ballet with a coherent dramatic structure, however preferable these may be for some of us. At times this thread seems to be as much about Proust as Petit's ballet.

See Clement Crisp's review in the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3d5bed52-cb88-11db...0b5df10621.html

[papeetepatrick]

Using Proust as inspiration surely doesn't require Petit slavishly to follow the original characterisations in Proust, or even require him to provide a ballet with a coherent dramatic structure,

Of course not slavishly, but neither does 'L'Apres-midi d'un Faune' follow Mallarme's poem slavishly, while still convincing some of us as having at least derived much more than superficially from it.

At times this thread seems to be as much about Proust as Petit's ballet.

That's because if you use the label 'Proust', it's hard to avoid not looking for Proust's original characters, especially if they are named. I suppose you could do a ballet called 'Petipa' where the Black Swan and the White Swan 'make peace' with each other and become friends--the lion and the lamb, etc.

It might work better if the ballet title were just kept, but not the character names. It might not matter so much if you haven't read it, but if you have, there really is no way not to look for more specific qualities in certain characters. If they seem reinvented, there's a conflict, IMO. If he's doing a free adaptation of Proust, maybe the 'Saint-Loup and Morel' ought to just be a pas de deux, and maybe suggest possible connections to the text that aren't going to seem pre-fixed. Although that's neither here nor there, the ballet is accepted as it is, or it woudn't be at POB. So that, even in France, probably most of the balletgoers won't be familiar with all of the characters in the novel, and they would be able to judge it in purely balletic terms.

The Crisp review had some interesting things in it.

[bart]

At times this thread seems to be as much about Proust as Petit's ballet.

I see your point, Marcmomus. However, the ballet IS called "Proust" so there's ambiguity -- or, possibly, confusion -- built into it from the beginning. On the whole, I agree with Patrick on this one.

[Mel Johnson]

There must be less expensive ways to advertise that you've read it!

[silvermash]

At times this thread seems to be as much about Proust as Petit's ballet.

I see your point, Marcmomus. However, the ballet IS called "Proust" so there's ambiguity -- or, possibly, confusion -- built into it from the beginning. On the whole, I agree with Patrick on this one.

Well in fact the full title is "Proust ou les intermittences du coeur" which is a bit different. I think in english, it's translated as "Proust or the heart's intermissions"