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Agnes de Mille ballets at the XXII Havana Ballet Festival


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As it is customary, Mme Alonso has included a couple of old timers to be danced by CNB during the XXII edition of the Havana Ballet Festival. This time, aside from "Apollo", there will be two Agnes de Mille ballets: "A rose for Miss Emily" and "Three Virgins and a Devil".

Re: "A rose for Miss Emily".

Music: Alan Hovhaness

Cast:

Miss Emily

Her Lover

Children of Her Youth (5 girls, 4 boys)

Children of Her Old Age (4 girls, 4 boys)

Mirror Images (6 women, 6 men)

Length: Approx. 30 min.

World Premiere: North Carolina School of the Arts, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, performed by students of the school, 10/22/70

Summary: Based on the short story by William Faulkner, this shocking melodrama is the tale of a southern woman entombed in the past. De Mille's ballet focuses on Miss Emily's illusory resurrection of her ill-fated love affair. The ballet unifies the past and present while depicting the inner psyche of a tragic southern belle whose isolation from her present society eventually leads to madness. The passionate and poignant solos and pas de deux provide a psychological portrait of how memory and isolation take a tragic turn.

Original Cast: Gemze de Lappe (Miss Emily), David Evans (Her Lover) and students of the North Carolina School of the Arts.

re: "Three Virgins and a Devil"

Music: Ottorino Respighi's Antiche danze ed arie

Cast:

Priggish Virgin

Greedy Virgin

Lustful Virgin

Devil

Youth

Length: Approx. 30 min.

Summary: Three Virgins and a Devil was first performed in the revue "Why Not Tonight?" at the Palace Theatre, London on April 24, 1934. With a libretto by Ramon Reed based on a story of Boccaccio the ballet is the comic tale of three young virgins on their way to join a nunnery when they are confronted by a devil who uses each of their weakness to entice them into Hell, the mouth of which is a cave, stage right. Her passion for jewels does in the Greedy Virgin, The Devil uses an attractive young man to lure the Lustful Virgin. Finally the Priggish Virgin, pious and determined decides she will reform the Devil and take him with her to the convent.

In the American Ballet Theatre Premiere of the ballet Agnes danced the part of the Priggish Virgin. "I was not the granddaughter of a reformer for nothing," she remarked. The Devil leads her on a merry chase, and in her fervor to convert him she chases him straight into the cave. His mission is complete.

Original Cast: Greta Nissen(First Novice), Margaret Braithwaite(Second Novice), Elizabeth Schooling (Third Novice), Stanislas Idzikowski (Devil), Walter Crisham (Dandy)

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