Hubbe's new Sylphide for Royal Danish Ballet

[Kathleen O'Connell]

I've started calling some of these ballets "heritage works," in part to emphasize that they have an artistic integrity in their (pretty much) original form. I'm fascinated by the variations and changes that people have rung on them, but we really only recognize these changes by their contrast to the original, benchmark version. ... If someone is staging a "new" Swan Lake, how do those of us with limited knowledge of the work understand this to be new?

Exactly. Francis Bacon's "Screaming Popes" are a lot more interesting once you've seen Velazquez' Portrait of Innocent X.

[sandik]

Exactly. Francis Bacon's "Screaming Popes" are a lot more interesting once you've seen Velazquez' Portrait of Innocent X.

Excellent example.

[Pamela Moberg]

Kathleen O'Connell, I could not agree more with you.

And Sandik, you really have a point there with your idea of "heritage works". There are those blue plaques on buildings in England, we have World Heritage Sites which are really a very diverse lot of buildings and places. They can be anything as long as it is worth preserving for posterity - my husband's last place of work was Grimeton in the west of Sweden, a very early radio station, just to give you one example. Why can not works of art also be "world heritages", be it music, ballet, opera, plays.

I have always found it a bit odd that West Side Story should be a Romeo and Juliet. The subject could not be more general, boy meets girl, somebody opposes, for family, religious, financial or a myriad other reasons, good heavens, it happens everywhere all the time, I fail to see anything Shakesperean there. It is just life, has always been life and will always be.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

And Sandik, you really have a point there with your idea of "heritage works". There are those blue plaques on buildings in England, we have World Heritage Sites which are really a very diverse lot of buildings and places. They can be anything as long as it is worth preserving for posterity - my husband's last place of work was Grimeton in the west of Sweden, a very early radio station, just to give you one example. Why can not works of art also be "world heritages", be it music, ballet, opera, plays.

The (worthy!) concept of "heritage works" puts me in mind of Japan's "Living National Treasures" -- "individuals certified as Preservers of Important Intangible Cultural Properties," as Wikipedia helpfully defines the term. (You can watch National Geographic's 1980 documentary here.) I don't know what it's like now, but when I lived in Japan (w-a-a-a-y back in the 60's) Living National Treasures were genuinely revered.

I wouldn't want to see ballet -- or any art form -- frozen in amber, but I do think there is some value in celebrating those who consciously conserve along with those who "Make it new."

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Exactly. Francis Bacon's "Screaming Popes" are a lot more interesting once you've seen Velazquez' Portrait of Innocent X.

I just wanted to add that in the best examples, it's a conversation -- i.e., that our perception of both works is enriched when one artist brings his or her imagination to bear on the work of another. I know that I can't look at Velazquez' painting in quite the same way after having seen Bacon tussle with it.

[sandik]

I just wanted to add that in the best examples, it's a conversation -- i.e., that our perception of both works is enriched when one artist brings his or her imagination to bear on the work of another. I know that I can't look at Velazquez' painting in quite the same way after having seen Bacon tussle with it.

The best part indeed -- one of the pleasures of seeing a new version of an older work is thinking about how it renews your knowledge of everything that's gone before. It makes a bigger context, with more fun stuff to consider. You see that kind of discussion in the most interesting criticism, of all forms, from popular music (think of all the covers of a standard work like Hound Dog -- would you want to only talk about the most recent one?) to the excellent visual art example that Kathleen has brought, to dance.

[volcanohunter]

This assumes familiarity with the original. For example, during the Saints Alive exhibit at the National Gallery in London, it was possible to visit the original paintings on which Michael Landy based his sculptures because they were hanging in their usual spots and under the same roof. I don't need to tell you that a printed text or a painted canvas is a much more stable and "retrievable" entity than choreography, given the complexities of dance notation and its exceedingly low literacy rates. The risk of the loss of the original "text" is very great. So when we compare different versions of 19th-century ballets today--because we really can't access what was made earlier--it is a little like listening to only that last few covers of "Hound Dog," because the earlier versions have been lost. I don't know about anyone else, but it bothers me tremendously that when ballets are re-staged, choreographers may keep the score, the story and even the designs, but not the steps. In other words, they manage to preserve the elements that come from other art forms--music, drama, visual art--but not the dance itself. (In that case, as I wrote earlier, at least change the title to acknowledge that it isn't the same work anymore.)

[sandik]

"but it bothers me tremendously that when ballets are re-staged, choreographers may keep the score, the story and even the designs, but not the steps. In other words, they manage to preserve the elements that come from other art forms--music, drama, visual art--but not the dance itself. (In that case, as I wrote earlier, at least change the title to acknowledge that it isn't the same work anymore.)"

Yes, this is the crux of the issue.

[volcanohunter]

On the basis of today's streamed lecture-demonstration, I guess we know that James is male, the Sylph is female, the choreography is basically unchanged, but the tartans are gone, replaced by "repressive" grays and blacks.

[Helene]

This is not going to be terribly coherent, but I went to the Met in HD "Macbeth" yesterday, and during the overture, with its beautiful bel canto theme, I started to think about "Giselle," which was written only six years earlier, although Verdi revised Macbeth, and I'm not sure how much what I was hearing was which version.

Then, listening to the witches' chorus, I started to think about how like in "La Sylphide" and other operas and literature of the time, the supernatural was so prevalent, but also how borderline goofy the music was, which director Noble reflected in the staging. That made me think of PNB's "Giselle," and the scene in which the Wilis try to seduce the villagers until the Old Man gets their attention and breaks their spell, which reminded me that the Sylphs in "La Sylphide" aren't outwardly evil in any way: they, like the Wilis in that scene, are dangerous because they're seductive. (Eventually both would be dangerous in their own ways, once the seduction worked.)

In most productions that stem from the Russian, we usually just see the Army of Myrtha, cold and relentless, then bringing in Hilarion at first and then Albrecht, but in the original, there's a marked contrast between the village men following the sirens' (or, in Harry Potter World, the veelas') call, and Hilarion, who is in no mood to be seduced and had to be forced in. If I followed Doug Fullington's and Marian Smith's chronology correctly, the dramatic shift came when Petipa imported it via his brother, the original Albrecht, saving it, via notation and performance tradition, from oblivion, but not entirely in the original version, or at least what was notated wasn't the final version. Softening Giselle's character into a softer, more traditional mold and dropping the ending, in which Bathilde forgives Albrecht, is part of the Russian tradition.

For most of the St. Peterburg audience, what Petipa staged and adapted would have been their only version they knew. The changes -- choreography presented plus the cuts -- would have been presented to a fresh audience, who, while recognizing its Romantic roots and Romantic tutus, were also seeing something that had been shifted and altered for the present. Petipa wasn't simply reconstructing Coralli and Perrot.

Aside from Hubbe being no Petipa, is the issue with the "La Sylphide" that the audience is familiar with the traditional approach and staging through, at least in recent memory, a continuous performance tradition plus some videos, and an attempt to adapt/update to current times conflicts with that, while in the case of "Giselle," Petipa's changes were accepted because the audience didn't know the work?

(I should have been paying attention to "Macbeth," and Anna Netrebko's Lady Macbeth shook me out of that reverie.)

[volcanohunter]

the Sylphs in "La Sylphide" aren't outwardly evil in any way: they, like the Wilis in that scene, are dangerous because they're seductive

That's something many don't understand anymore. You've probably seen David McVicar's production of Faust, in which the Walpurgisnacht ballet is performed by vampiric sylphs, fangs and all.

[sandik]

That made me think of PNB's "Giselle," and the scene in which the Wilis try to seduce the villagers until the Old Man gets their attention and breaks their spell, which reminded me that the Sylphs in "La Sylphide" aren't outwardly evil in any way: they, like the Wilis in that scene, are dangerous because they're seductive. (Eventually both would be dangerous in their own ways, once the seduction worked.)

In Robert the Devil, the early prototype of Romanticism in ballet, the chorus of ghosts (nuns who had broken their vows) re-enact the bad acts that got them condemned -- not evil so much as weak.

For most of the St. Peterburg audience, what Petipa staged and adapted would have been their only version they knew. The changes -- choreography presented plus the cuts -- would have been presented to a fresh audience, who, while recognizing its Romantic roots and Romantic tutus, were also seeing something that had been shifted and altered for the present. Petipa wasn't simply reconstructing Coralli and Perrot.

Very true -- I'm fascinated by what we think we know of the Romantic era, but it is almost all filtered through the "improvements" of artists like Petipa.

And I like the reference to the veelas from J.K. Rowling's work -- hadn't thought of that, but you're quite right!

[Jane Simpson]

Hubbe lifts the veil, a bit:

http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2014/10/out-of-the-woods.html#more

More detail in this new interview with Eva Kistrup than he's disclosed elsewhere...

[Alexandra]

"We never really know why Madge is so antagonistic in her relationship with James." ???? Not only is James's treatment of Madge and her reaction to it clear (it's in the mime), but it's historically accurate. Or was. Bournonville set the ballet in the Middle Ages, not his own time. One of the little hints he dropped that this was a Romantic ballet.

[volcanohunter]

Rather like all those choreographers in the 1960s who began tinkering with Swan Lake in order to make Siegfried the central character, somehow failing to see that he had always been the central character.

[Alexandra]

Yes, volcanohunter. It's part of the It's All About Me!!!! syndrome.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Hubbe lifts the veil, a bit:

http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2014/10/out-of-the-woods.html#more

More detail in this new interview with Eva Kistrup than he's disclosed elsewhere...

OK. Do I have this right? Male Madge is "a man from James' past." Does this mean that Madge is now a spurned (same sex) lover? Because spurned (same sex) lovers are inherently spiteful? Because an 1890's dandy modeled on Oscar Wilde would very naturally have a poisoned scarf in his spurned (same sex) lover armamentarium? And this makes the work's meaning more accessible to modern audiences how?

And then there's this:

Hübbe: “By moving the times somewhat forward, we reach the period where people really start asking the difficult questions. It was a period of great inventions and research. Scientists and artists were breaking new ground. Moving my characters to this existing period open up so many possibilities”.

I have a newsflash for him: people have always been asking the difficult questions, even in 1830 ... The questions Bournonville's version asks -- What are our duties to our community? Can we truly take possession of the ideal? Do we destroy it if we try? etc etc etc -- are still the difficult questions.

[Mme. Hermine]

Well I could be mean and say that aside from the aforementioned "It's About Me" syndrome, people who do this sort of thing are trying to sell tickets by fabricating a controversy...

[Alexandra]

Kathleen, I love your newsflash!

[lmspear]

Didn't Matthew Bourne get there first by making his Lilac Fairy male?

[Alexandra]

Yes! And the swans male, etc. etc. etc.

[volcanohunter]

"It was a period of great inventions and research. Scientists and artists were breaking new ground. Moving my characters to this existing period open up so many possibilities”.

Well obviously if the scarf is poisoned in a chemistry lab at the University of Edinburgh, as opposed to a cauldron in the forest, it becomes a ballet about science.

[Mme. Hermine]

I suppose being creative, for some, is just inverting or distorting something that already exists rather than actually creating something.

[Helene]

Balanchine always said, "G-d creates, I assemble," so they'd be in good company

[Mme. Hermine]

Well it would be nice to see some first-class assembling!