Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Hommage aux Ballets Russes


Recommended Posts

The Hamburg Ballet has posted a trailer for its 'Hommage aux Ballets Russes' program. It includes clips from Balanchine's Prodigal Son, featuring 20-year-old corps member Alexandr Trusch as the Prodigal and Hélène Bouchet as the Siren, John Neumeier's new Le Pavillon d'Armide, and Millicent Hodson's reconstruction of Nijinsky's Rite of Spring, with Silvia Azzoni as the Chosen One.

http://www.hamburgballett.de/video/hommage.html

To my mind, Alexandre Riabko's resemblance to John Singer Sargent's charcoal drawing of Nijinsky in Pavillon is eerie.

http://cgfa.dotsrc.org/sargent/sargen29.jpg

Link to comment

John Neumeier's take on "Le Pavillon d'Armide" looked interesting and the dancers all moved beautifully and as if they belonged on the stage.

To me Thiago Bordin looked most like Nijinsky in the "La Danse Siamoise" and the costume looked pretty splendid.

In general I had problem with the faces looking to modern eg (The Prodigal's father and The Siren). In general I also found the height of dancers as being too tall and too slim and a distinct lack of emphatic weight in the performances of "The Prodigal Son" and "Le Sacre du Printemps". In "The Prodigal Son" the male corps looked to me at times like an athletes to music routine.

What I did like was the fact the the programme lasted 3 hours 15 minutes with two intervals. That is what I call value for money. I am grateful volcanohunter for posting the link and I am sure as ever, that the impact in the theate is quite different to that of a film.

Nest week in Hamburg a guest company the Ballet de Lorraine will perform Les Noces / Mariage / Petrushka on July 7 and 9.

On July 12, the Hamburg Ballet present and extraordinary gala see http://www.hamburgballett.de/e/gala.htm which echoes a wide range of works performed by the Diaghilev companies.

With revivals of Neumeier's highly successful "Nijinsky" and his "The Legend of Joseph" Hamburg Ballet has celebrated the idea of a Diaghilev centenary much more than most other companies.

Ps

There is also a trailer for Neumeier's "Sylvia" at http://www.hamburgballett.de/video/sylvia.html

Link to comment

Definitely a program worth seeing. I hope it comes out of dvd. Two thoughts:

In general I had problem with the faces looking to modern eg (The Prodigal's father and The Siren).
My thought precisely, a least as it applies to the Siren. She's muscular and strong -- one of the only Siren's I've ever seen who looks like should could break the Son's neck between her thighs -- but the face looks, disconcertingly, clueless and (as leonid says) "modern."

The narration refers once more to the great "scandale" of the premiere of Rite of Spring. These clips, show a vividly colored, almost cartoonish set of images, as they appear to this viewer in the present day. I found myself recalling the Indian number in the musical of Peter Pan, which I am sure was not the affect 90+ years ago. Can the primary colors be the same as then? Maybe you have to see the whole thing and listen carefully to the score.

Thanks, volcanohunter, for this wonderful Link.

Link to comment
The narration refers once more to the great "scandale" of the premiere of Rite of Spring. These clips, show a vividly colored, almost cartoonish set of images, as they appear to this viewer in the present day. I found myself recalling the Indian number in the musical of Peter Pan, which I am sure was not the affect 90+ years ago. Can the primary colors be the same as then? Maybe you have to see the whole thing and listen carefully to the score.

The colours looked perfectly authentic and the sets were a revelation when I saw the Kirov performances. Oddly enough the only problem you felt from the top down was that the company did not really believe in the work as suitable for the modern Kirov. I absolutely believe in the Hodson and Archer reconstruction which captures as much of the original as is probably possible and is not far off the mark from the original when you look at all the sources that are available.

I feel that the vividness of the palette used in the costumes are correct and the patterns most certainly. However the type and quality of present day lighting I would suggest, is a long way away from the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées of May 29, 1913.

If you compare Roerich’s palette in his paintings of the era you see the same blues and mauves of the backdrop for Part 1 of Rite as you do the vivid yellows, orange and red and browns of the costumes.

The richness of colour can be seen in an early Rite costume in the V & A collection at http://www.vam.ac.uk/tco/collections/costu...udio/index.html

Neumeier I remember was once upon a time, dismissed by many critics, but he is now established as one of the most important choreographers in Europe.

The clips are definitely interesting as an indicator and they possible mean more than a photograph or the written word to people of today

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...