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Whirlwind Tokyo: 3 days, 5 ballets


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At the beginning of the month I made my first trip to Tokyo, specifically with the aim of going to the ballet. Armed with invaluable help and advice from our own naomikage, I discovered a city that reminded me of dance-boom New York, with La Sylphide and two productions of Swan Lake playing the same weekend to packed houses. At every venue I visited I came across lots of advertisements for forthcoming performances by local troupes, tours by visiting companies and galas fielding lots of guest artists. Clearly, Tokyo loves ballet.

Saturday, February 6 (mat.)

National Ballet of Japan
Tokyo Symphony Orchestra

cond: Gavin Sutherland

Eagling/Rachmaninov: Men Y Men
Akimitsu Yahata, Taku Emoto, Masahiro Nakaya, Takeshi Ikeda, Yoshito Kinoshita, Shohei Hayashida, Hiroya Fukuda, Naoya Homan, Hiroyuki Uka

Paired on a bill with La Sylphide, which is clearly female-centered in the second half especially, Wayne Eagling's Men Y Men is an athletic piece for nine male dancers wearing only black bottoms and footwear. There are enough variations in the choreography and asymmetrical floor patterns to break up the danger of too much unison dancing, and while I was puzzled by a repeating Albrecht motif, the piece ends with a stunning lighting effect by the unidentified designer. I do wish that Rachmaninov's piano pieces, especially the Élégie in E-flat minor, had been left unorchestrated, and the piece violated what I think should be a programming golden rule--that an intermission should never be longer than what preceded it.

Bournonville/Løvenskiold: La Sylphide
staged by Noriko Ohara

Sylph: Yui Yonezawa
James: Kosuke Okumura
Madge: Kazuki Takahashi
Gurn: Keigo Fukuda
Effie: Asako Terada

Noriko Ohara's production of La Sylphide, with designs by Peter Cazalet, is bright, beautiful and picture-perfect, even if the interior of James' house seems more fitting for a member of the landed gentry than a farmer. Yui Yonezawa made a lovely, pristine and unmannered Sylph, with strong technique and a low-key approach very welcome at a time when Sylphs often begin to take on the look of Giselle. Asako Terada was a charming Effie, Keigo Fukuda brought sparkling technique and vivid mime to Gurn and a wonderfully stylish and musical young boy from the Japan Junior Ballet danced the reel with huge spirit. The corps was marvelously cohesive and polished in both acts. Kosuke Okumura danced James with lightness and ease, although I would have wished for greater distinctiveness and individuality.

The end of the ballet did lack something in tragedy, in part because Yonezawa seemed to miss the poignancy of the finale and partly because Kazuki Takahashi's Madge didn't seem to have a clearly motivated character. (Audience expectation seemed to be that his alternate, ballerina Miwa Motojima, would bring a lot more glamour and edge to the role.)

Finally I have to add that the opera house of the New National Theatre is a gorgeous venue--steeply raked seating providing excellent sightlines, a stage that isn't excessively wide and a rich wood interior contributing to what seems to be very present sound that should be great for opera. Getting there almost inevitably involves Shinjuku Station, the world's busiest transport hub, which is an adventure in itself, even on a Saturday afternoon. "Sea of humanity" acquires a whole new meaning within its walls.

Next up, the main event(s): Swan Lake.

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Friday, February 5

Tokyo Ballet

Swan Lake
chor: Vladimir Bourmeister, after Ivanov

Odette-Odile: Mizuka Ueno
Siegfried: Dan Tsukamoto
Rothbart: Kazuo Kimura
Jester: Iori Nittono
Queen Mother: Yukari Yamagishi
pas de quatre: Maria Kawatani, Kanako Nihei, Arata Miyagawa, Daichi Matsuno
adage: Rui Yoshikawa
cygnets: Hitomi Kaneko, Miyuki Nakagawa, Miho Ueda, Yumiko Takaura
big swans: Kanako Nihei, Emi Masamoto, Hitomi Kawafuchi
Spanish dance: Haruka Nara
Neapolitan dance: Kanako Oki

Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra

cond: Anton Grishanin

Previously I had seen Bourmeister's Swan Lake only on video. I still think it's more of a curiosity than a viable alternative. I certainly don't like the fact that it contains no Petipa, but the third act in particular, a sort of collective seduction not unlike the second act of Raymonda, has an internal coherence and dramatic integrity. The Tokyo Ballet performed the national dances very well, notably Haruka Nara as the fiery soloist in the Spanish dance and especially the very fluid Kanako Oki in the Neapolitan dance. The company's swan corps was also uniformly excellent.

But I was less persuaded by the leads. Dan Tsukamoto is burdened by unlovely legs and feet, which, not surprisingly, compromise his line. Mizuka Ueno, on the other hand, is a tall, long-limbed dancer, although the way her pointes buckle over is a little alarming. Unfortunately, I found her Odette to be angular and disconnected, with movements frequently stopping abruptly. Her leg movements were too emphatic, sometimes bordering on vulgar. The sissone lifts in the middle of the white swan adage were probably the strangest I've seen, with her ribcage jutting out at a peculiar angle, and in Odile's allegro sections she looked a little frantic. I have to admit that I was puzzled by this casting, and why this particular pair had been given the opening night of this new production. But I subsequently learned that Ueno is the most popular ballerina working in Japan. Once again I find myself mystified by the appeal of a star dancer, something that seems to happen to me a lot these days. No worries, though. My Swan Lake needs were fulfilled the following evening.

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Thanks for the reports, volcanohunter! This brings memories of my time in Japan in 2007. The New National Theater is quite the modern, impressive venue. I love their library, in which anybody can view DVDs of past performances...I went straight to guest-star Daria Pavlenko's incredible RAYMONDA in 05 or 06.

Mizuka Ueno of Tokyo Ballet is Japan's equivalent of Lopatkina. A real beauty but I know what you mean about those buttery feet.

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February 6 & 7
Asami Maki Ballet
Swan Lake
chor: Kyozo Mitani, Terry Westmoreland, after Petipa, Ivanov

Odette-Odile: Svetlana Lunkina
Siegfried: Ruslan Skvortsov
Rothbart: Ken Kikuchi
Queen Mother: Mami Sakanishi
Tutor: Anton Kei Hosaka
pas de trois: Emiko Moda, Marie Kubo, Tomoharu Yonekura
cygnets: Mariko Oriyama, Mayumi Yonezawa, Chihiro Abe, Honoka Kaminaka (6), Miyako Kobashi (7)
big swans: Emiko Moda, Marie Kubo, Kanna Sato, Rina Miyake
pas de quatre: Yuuri Hidaka, Mariko Oriyama (6), Mayumi Onezawa (7), Chiharu Kiyotaki, Yuuki Hamada (6), Chirai Sakatsume (7)
Russian dance: Kika Aoyama
Neapolitan dance: Mayami Yonezawa (6), Mariko Oriyama (7), Ikuru Hosono (6), Satoshi Hashimoto (7)

Tokyo Orchestra MIRAI
cond: Alexei Baklan

It had long been a dream of mine to see Svetlana Lunkina and Ruslan Skvortsov dance together on stage, a dream that seemed to fade after Lunkina left the Bolshoi and joined the National Ballet of Canada. When the opportunity to see them together finally presented itself, I was doubly happy that it was in a straightforward and traditional production of Swan Lake, away from the eccentricities and excesses of the stagings by Yuri Grigorovich and James Kudelka. The production by Kyozo Mitani, following on a staging by Terry Westmoreland, is satisfyingly coherent, reminiscent of the pre-Dowell Royal Ballet production, which once upon a time had been the first Swan Lake I saw in the theater. It includes all the elements I expect to see in sensible productions—from Odette’s mime to a double suicide, ending in an apotheosis on a swan boat—none of the execrable things—jesters, potential fiancées performing folksy dances, an applause-milking bow following Odile’s fouettés, a happy ending—and a few of the typical additions—a melancholy solo for Siegfried at the end of Act 1, an Ashton-esque pas de quatre in Act 3 and the less frequently used Russian dance.

All Japanese ballet companies seem to have very strong women’s corps, and the Asami Maki Ballet is no exception. In particular they combined precision with energy and speed at the swans’ entrance. Nevertheless, the guest artists were the main attraction at these performances. Lunkina and Skvortsov are a magnificent partnership in how they are alike and how they are complementary. They share proud, expressive Muscovite schooling in its most aristocratic, elegant and refined form, an unaffected sincerity and a large-eyed, dark-haired beauty. But where she is exquisitely delicate, he is tall and powerful; she has a porcelain, lissome femininity, while he has unforced, authoritative virility. Gravity hardly seems to be present. She floats through space with liquid smoothness. He soars into the air and lands soundlessly. Everything—the mime, the port de bras, the partnering—is ravishing, musical and true. When her intensely spiritual swan queen meets his soulful prince, the romantic tragedy that follows is eloquent, poignant and bewitching poetry.

Skvortsov is a noble and gracious hero: handsome and manly, sensitive and romantic, possessing splendid carriage, fluid, patrician style, easy technique and an awareness—to steal an expression from Ashton Fan—that princes don’t sweat. He excels at fine points: naturalness in acting, expansively smooth port de bras and gorgeous épaulement, stillness of the upper body in grand allegro, fluency of movement and above all the musicality which characterizes his dancing and also his mime. These are on full display in his adagio solo toward the end of the first act and especially in the transition to the act’s conclusion, in which his body seems so keenly responsive to the swelling “lake” theme in the music.

Lunkina’s Odette is immediately striking in her uniqueness. There is little in the way of obvious swan mannerisms: no “fluffing” of feathers, no pronounced, muscular flapping of wings, no broken wrists or hyper-stretched and taut poses. Nothing is done for effect. Lunkina’s Odette is not at all about positions, but about continuously flowing movement. She is more like a graceful willow tree, limbs floating lithely and weightlessly. She is so lovely, fragile and vulnerable, so touching in how she performs her mime scene, that it is immediately apparent why Siegfried should resolve to rescue her. Nowhere is this more beautifully conveyed than in the great adage, when Lunkina swoons back and Skvortsov almost imperceptibly wraps his long arm around her tiny waist to catch her with absolute surety and care. No heart-stopping suspense here. Solicitude is everything in this pairing. In reality Lunkina and Skvortsov had very little past history in this ballet; the Bolshoi typically pairs him with more Amazonian swan queens. But if their rehearsal period lasted only a few days, the audience would never have guessed. The duet is everything that could be wished: rapt, delicate and heartfelt, subtle but deeply stirring, and the lifts are all breathtakingly fast and smooth. They move and breathe as one; it is more spiritual union than dance. Also breathtaking is how Lunkina performs the entrechat quatre-retiré sequence in the coda, for it would be difficult to imagine a more beautiful and graceful rendering of what frequently looks awkward and labored.

Lunkina’s Odile is a gleefully merciless temptress. But here she also does not follow what Alastair Macaulay aptly describes as “the misguided Russian tradition of tucking her head down and repeatedly looking hard at the audience under her brows…to let us know she is a scheming villainess.” She is not obvious or crass, but luminous and exultant. It is when she imitates Odette most obviously that Skvortsov’s Siegfried senses what a fraud she is and hesitates, but ultimately he is powerless in the face of her seduction. His short-lived joy is expressed in his high-flying variation, although I did get the sense that he felt a little hamstrung by the beautiful but large set that took up a lot of stage space. At no point did he attempt a manège; there simply wasn’t room for it—not for a six-footer, anyway. However at the second performance he threw in an added level of difficulty. If normally his variation ends with three double tours and a pirouette, on this occasion he took a page from Theme and Variations and threw in a couple of extra double tours to finish, all performed in his trademark style, i.e., no discernible preparation. When almost immediately his joy is snatched away by the ruthlessness of Odile’s deception, he is inconsolable in his despair.

Lunkina’s entrance in the final act is heartrending, without excess or melodrama, but with a new force and determination in her movements. Skvortsov’s remorse is dignified and grave, as both characters confront their inevitable tragedy with resolution and a physical commitment fully worthy of the great score. It is only a pity that the watery suicides and apotheosis are not better lit to put across the drama fully. The jumps take place in the upstage right corner essentially at stage level, without any sort of ramp or rock formation. Just as Lunkina’s Odette runs to the corner, Skvortsov’s Siegfried runs downstage center to mime—with great conviction—his intention to follow her, as a result of which I missed her jump the first time around. Stronger spotlights on the corner and the swan boat wouldn’t have gone amiss, but certainly Lunkina and Skvortsov gave it their physical and emotional all.

Among the other dancers I would single out Marie Kubo for her strong technique and big jump in the pas de trois, tiny Sayako Okuda as the girl who toys with the tipsy Tutor and Kika Aoyama in the Russian dance, which in this production is the first of the national dances. The Neapolitan dance is essentially Ashton’s but rendered easier by unlinking the dancers’ arms. The fiancées’ waltz was re-choreographed to make Siegfried an active participant, but I would have preferred the traditional version. I do feel strongly that Odette should be the first swan maiden Siegfried and the audience see. Here there was a quartet of swans at the rear of the stage at the beginning of Act 2, presumably because it was thought necessary in the exposition of Rothbart's identity. Also, Siegfreid "follows" Odette swimming across the lake before she emerges from the wings. I prefer the versions where he watches her descent from flight and then sees her transformation as she lands, but that's really a niggling detail.

If Bob Ringwood’s designs are beginning to look a little frayed with age, they are nevertheless attractive, especially the tapestry-hung walls of the castle ballroom. However, I was puzzled as to why the dancers in the mazurka looked more like Greeks than Poles, and Skvortsov, alas, was stuck with his Virsaladze tunics.

I thought the Asami Maki Ballet was better served by MIRAI Orchestra under Alexei Baklan than the Tokyo Ballet had been by Anton Grishanin and the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, which had a few too many muffed solo passages. Apart from an excessively fast mazurka, I thought Baklan did a fine job.

For most of my ballet-going life the perfect Swan Lake has been as elusive as the Holy Grail, and that is still the case, but thanks to Lunkina and Skvortsov these performances were deeply satisfying. My devout wish now is that they should have more opportunities to dance together in the near future—and that I should be there to see it.

Finally, I have to thank naomikage for her immense kindness and helpfulness. :flowers: Having the opportunity to dine, visit a spectacular Botticelli exhibit and attend the ballet with her was a huge chunk of what made the trip to Tokyo so enjoyable. I hope we can all do it again some time.

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I'm always happy to learn about a venue "with steeply raked seating providing excellent sightlines."

Interestingly, Tokyo was also the first place I remember hearing a recorded pre-show announcement that included instructions on what to do in the event of an earthquake. In fact we did feel a jolt on the morning of February 5, but it was purely a momentary thing, and fortunately nothing similar happened when dancers were actually on stage.

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I have experienced several times earthquakes happening in the middle of the performance in Tokyo. There was one during the performance of Trois Gnossiens at World Ballet Festival last summer (with Maria Eichwald and Marijn Rademaker on stage) and it shaked quite a lot, but the performance went on. I don't think guests from overseas are accustomed to this but we Japanese residents can remain quite calm in this kind of events.

Glad you enjoyed your trip in Tokyo volcanohunter! I enjoyed having you here.

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February 6 & 7

Asami Maki Ballet

Swan Lake

chor: Kyozo Mitani, Terry Westmoreland, after Petipa, Ivanov

Odette-Odile: Svetlana Lunkina

Siegfried: Ruslan Skvortsov

Rothbart: Ken Kikuchi

Queen Mother: Mami Sakanishi

Tutor: Anton Kei Hosaka

pas de trois: Emiko Moda, Marie Kubo, Tomoharu Yonekura

cygnets: Mariko Oriyama, Mayumi Yonezawa, Chihiro Abe, Honoka Kaminaka (6), Miyako Kobashi (7)

big swans: Emiko Moda, Marie Kubo, Kanna Sato, Rina Miyake

pas de quatre: Yuuri Hidaka, Mariko Oriyama (6), Mayumi Onezawa (7), Chiharu Kiyotaki, Yuuki Hamada (6), Chirai Sakatsume (7)

Russian dance: Kika Aoyama

Neapolitan dance: Mayami Yonezawa (6), Mariko Oriyama (7), Ikuru Hosono (6), Satoshi Hashimoto (7)

Tokyo Orchestra MIRAI

cond: Alexei Baklan

It had long been a dream of mine to see Svetlana Lunkina and Ruslan Skvortsov dance together on stage, a dream that seemed to fade after Lunkina left the Bolshoi and joined the National Ballet of Canada. When the opportunity to see them together finally presented itself, I was doubly happy that it was in a straightforward and traditional production of Swan Lake, away from the eccentricities and excesses of the stagings by Yuri Grigorovich and James Kudelka. The production by Kyozo Mitani, following on a staging by Terry Westmoreland, is satisfyingly coherent, reminiscent of the pre-Dowell Royal Ballet production, which once upon a time had been the first Swan Lake I saw in the theater. It includes all the elements I expect to see in sensible productions—from Odette’s mime to a double suicide, ending in an apotheosis on a swan boat—none of the execrable things—jesters, potential fiancées performing folksy dances, an applause-milking bow following Odile’s fouettés, a happy ending—and a few of the typical additions—a melancholy solo for Siegfried at the end of Act 1, an Ashton-esque pas de quatre in Act 3 and the less frequently used Russian dance.

All Japanese ballet companies seem to have very strong women’s corps, and the Asami Maki Ballet is no exception. In particular they combined precision with energy and speed at the swans’ entrance. Nevertheless, the guest artists were the main attraction at these performances. Lunkina and Skvortsov are a magnificent partnership in how they are alike and how they are complementary. They share proud, expressive Muscovite schooling in its most aristocratic, elegant and refined form, an unaffected sincerity and a large-eyed, dark-haired beauty. But where she is exquisitely delicate, he is tall and powerful; she has a porcelain, lissome femininity, while he has unforced, authoritative virility. Gravity hardly seems to be present. She floats through space with liquid smoothness. He soars into the air and lands soundlessly. Everything—the mime, the port de bras, the partnering—is ravishing, musical and true. When her intensely spiritual swan queen meets his soulful prince, the romantic tragedy that follows is eloquent, poignant and bewitching poetry.

Skvortsov is a noble and gracious hero: handsome and manly, sensitive and romantic, possessing splendid carriage, fluid, patrician style, easy technique and an awareness—to steal an expression from Ashton Fan—that princes don’t sweat. He excels at fine points: naturalness in acting, expansively smooth port de bras and gorgeous épaulement, stillness of the upper body in grand allegro, fluency of movement and above all the musicality which characterizes his dancing and also his mime. These are on full display in his adagio solo toward the end of the first act and especially in the transition to the act’s conclusion, in which his body seems so keenly responsive to the swelling “lake” theme in the music.

Lunkina’s Odette is immediately striking in her uniqueness. There is little in the way of obvious swan mannerisms: no “fluffing” of feathers, no pronounced, muscular flapping of wings, no broken wrists or hyper-stretched and taut poses. Nothing is done for effect. Lunkina’s Odette is not at all about positions, but about continuously flowing movement. She is more like a graceful willow tree, limbs floating lithely and weightlessly. She is so lovely, fragile and vulnerable, so touching in how she performs her mime scene, that it is immediately apparent why Siegfried should resolve to rescue her. Nowhere is this more beautifully conveyed than in the great adage, when Lunkina swoons back and Skvortsov almost imperceptibly wraps his long arm around her tiny waist to catch her with absolute surety and care. No heart-stopping suspense here. Solicitude is everything in this pairing. In reality Lunkina and Skvortsov had very little past history in this ballet; the Bolshoi typically pairs him with more Amazonian swan queens. But if their rehearsal period lasted only a few days, the audience would never have guessed. The duet is everything that could be wished: rapt, delicate and heartfelt, subtle but deeply stirring, and the lifts are all breathtakingly fast and smooth. They move and breathe as one; it is more spiritual union than dance. Also breathtaking is how Lunkina performs the entrechat quatre-retiré sequence in the coda, for it would be difficult to imagine a more beautiful and graceful rendering of what frequently looks awkward and labored.

Lunkina’s Odile is a gleefully merciless temptress. But here she also does not follow what Alastair Macaulay aptly describes as “the misguided Russian tradition of tucking her head down and repeatedly looking hard at the audience under her brows…to let us know she is a scheming villainess.” She is not obvious or crass, but luminous and exultant. It is when she imitates Odette most obviously that Skvortsov’s Siegfried senses what a fraud she is and hesitates, but ultimately he is powerless in the face of her seduction. His short-lived joy is expressed in his high-flying variation, although I did get the sense that he felt a little hamstrung by the beautiful but large set that took up a lot of stage space. At no point did he attempt a manège; there simply wasn’t room for it—not for a six-footer, anyway. However at the second performance he threw in an added level of difficulty. If normally his variation ends with three double tours and a pirouette, on this occasion he took a page from Theme and Variations and threw in a couple of extra double tours to finish, all performed in his trademark style, i.e., no discernible preparation. When almost immediately his joy is snatched away by the ruthlessness of Odile’s deception, he is inconsolable in his despair.

Lunkina’s entrance in the final act is heartrending, without excess or melodrama, but with a new force and determination in her movements. Skvortsov’s remorse is dignified and grave, as both characters confront their inevitable tragedy with resolution and a physical commitment fully worthy of the great score. It is only a pity that the watery suicides and apotheosis are not better lit to put across the drama fully. The jumps take place in the upstage right corner essentially at stage level, without any sort of ramp or rock formation. Just as Lunkina’s Odette runs to the corner, Skvortsov’s Siegfried runs downstage center to mime—with great conviction—his intention to follow her, as a result of which I missed her jump the first time around. Stronger spotlights on the corner and the swan boat wouldn’t have gone amiss, but certainly Lunkina and Skvortsov gave it their physical and emotional all.

Among the other dancers I would single out Marie Kubo for her strong technique and big jump in the pas de trois, tiny Sayako Okuda as the girl who toys with the tipsy Tutor and Kika Aoyama in the Russian dance, which in this production is the first of the national dances. The Neapolitan dance is essentially Ashton’s but rendered easier by unlinking the dancers’ arms. The fiancées’ waltz was re-choreographed to make Siegfried an active participant, but I would have preferred the traditional version. I do feel strongly that Odette should be the first swan maiden Siegfried and the audience see. Here there was a quartet of swans at the rear of the stage at the beginning of Act 2, presumably because it was thought necessary in the exposition of Rothbart's identity. Also, Siegfreid "follows" Odette swimming across the lake before she emerges from the wings. I prefer the versions where he watches her descent from flight and then sees her transformation as she lands, but that's really a niggling detail.

If Bob Ringwood’s designs are beginning to look a little frayed with age, they are nevertheless attractive, especially the tapestry-hung walls of the castle ballroom. However, I was puzzled as to why the dancers in the mazurka looked more like Greeks than Poles, and Skvortsov, alas, was stuck with his Virsaladze tunics.

I thought the Asami Maki Ballet was better served by MIRAI Orchestra under Alexei Baklan than the Tokyo Ballet had been by Anton Grishanin and the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, which had a few too many muffed solo passages. Apart from an excessively fast mazurka, I thought Baklan did a fine job.

For most of my ballet-going life the perfect Swan Lake has been as elusive as the Holy Grail, and that is still the case, but thanks to Lunkina and Skvortsov these performances were deeply satisfying. My devout wish now is that they should have more opportunities to dance together in the near future—and that I should be there to see it.

Finally, I have to thank naomikage for her immense kindness and helpfulness. :flowers: Having the opportunity to dine, visit a spectacular Botticelli exhibit and attend the ballet with her was a huge chunk of what made the trip to Tokyo so enjoyable. I hope we can all do it again some time.

I'm surprised Ruslan Skvortsov is not seen more in the west. He seems to have everything.

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Re Men Y Men and the Giselle motif. Wayne Eagling created this work for ENB as a starter for performances of Mary Skeaping's beautiful production of Giselle to give the men something to do!

Ah, that explains it! It does make me wonder, though, whether the piece is inherently bound to Giselle and can't really be understood without it.

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On 18.02.2016 at 1:33 AM, volcanohunter said:

My devout wish now is that they should have more opportunities to dance together in the near future—and that I should be there to see it.

 

Well, they did. And I wouldn't have missed it for anything. :)

 

Svetlana Lunkina and Ruslan Skvortsov returned to Tokyo and the Asami Maki Ballet on the occasion of the company’s 60th anniversary for two performances at the beautiful opera house of the New National Theatre in late August.

 

To celebrate its anniversary, the Asami Maki Ballet turned to a work that goes back to its earliest days, Asuka. Based on a seventh-century Japanese legend, it depicts the impossible romance of a young woman consecrated to a god and chosen to become his queen, and the young man who loves her devotedly despite this. A large spectacle that provides many dancing opportunities for the company’s corps de ballet and soloists, the work nevertheless revolves around the fates of consecrated virgin Sugaru-Otome and her adoring admirer Iwatari, portrayed by Lunkina and Skvortsov.

 

(Here I must thank naomikage for her on-the-fly translation of the program notes. My apologies to her if I haven't remembered everything correctly.)

 

The first version of the ballet was choreographed by Akiko Tachibana in 1957 to traditional Japanese music. In 1962 her daughter Asami Maki presented a new version to a score by Yoshikazu Kataoka. The company returned to the piece repeatedly through the 1960s, and in 1969 it marked Asami Maki’s retirement from the stage. A revised version was presented in 1976, and apparently the ballet had last been performed 30 years ago. Although the present version was described as a premiere, I do not know how extensively the choreography had been revised. Still photos from the 1976 and 1986 productions suggest that at least some of the earlier choreography was retained, but since I have never seen the televised version filmed by NHK, I am in no position to know how similar or different the choreography may be.

 

I was extremely interested in seeing how a Japanese choreographer approached Japanese subject matter, because what I had seen of Japanese stories staged by Western choreographers often looked like a very uncomfortable mix of stereotyped turned-in, bent-kneed walking, and ear-whacking extensions à la seconde. The short answer is that there is no bent-kneed walking in Asami Maki’s Asuka. All characters wearing pointe shoes stand and walk turned out. The Japanese flavor of the choreography is reflected primarily in the positions of hands and arms.

 

Asuka has more in common with Soviet dramatic ballet than the British tradition of narrative ballet. While the first act, excepting a series of ritual dances at the shrine of the Dragon God, is primarily dramatic in nature, the second act is dominated by an extended divertissement in the realm of the dragons, complete with a grand pas de deux for Sugaru-Otome and the Dragon God. It is only after this that the ballet returns to the primary narrative, with the heroine being prompted by her rival, the Black Dragon, to remember her feelings for Iwatari, which ultimately results in her banishment from the dragon realm and death in the arms of her faithful friend.

 

The ballet begins as Sugaru-Otome, once a foundling and now 16 years of age, is about to be consecrated to lifelong service to the Dragon God at the Kagutsuchi Shrine, in its House of Dancing Maidens. The local villagers are joined by Iwatari, aged 21, who had been Sugaru-Otome’s foster brother in childhood but who had subsequently fallen in love with her. He has traveled from far away in order to present a magnolia blossom, which becomes a recurring motif in the story, and performs a grand allegro variation somewhat reminiscent of the choreography for Ferkhad in Yuri Grigorovich’s Legend of Love. Sugaru-Otome, dressed all in white, enters very solemnly and performs a formal ritual dance. Iwatari’s attempts to come near her are all rebuffed by servants of the shrine despite his entreaties. There is a Dragon Mask Dance, which is a virtuosic pas de trois for two women and a man, a Dragon Sword Dance for a female soloist, a dance in praise of the Five-Colored Dragons for a soloist and two other women performing with long, multi-colored ribbons, and a stately Dance of the Kembushi for four men, performed on this occasion by former company principals, to a piece inspired by traditional Gagaku music. It is at this point that Sugaru-Otome sees Iwatari, but he is firmly prevented from approaching her. She enters the shrine to make a formal offering to the Dragon God, and after another grand allegro variation and once everyone else has left, Iwatari runs into the shrine to follow her.

 

Within the shrine Sugaru-Otome and the other dancing maidens perform a formal offering to the Dragon God. He suddenly appears upstage center and gives Sugaru-Otome a luminescent orb, indicating that he has chosen her to become his queen. She accepts it unquestioningly, not daring to look at him. However, the Black Dragon, who had expected to become queen, appears and unsuccessfully attempts to take the orb for herself. In anticipation of her forthcoming union, Sugaru-Otome approaches the pool at the base of a waterfall to perform a rite of purification and hangs her robe on the branch of a magnolia tree. Iwatari approaches and ardently professes his love for her, but she reminds him that her duties override his pleas. He throws himself at her feet, clutching his magnolia blossom. This reminds her of their mutual childhood affection, depicted by a pair of child dancers at upstage center, and she begins to reciprocate his feelings, expressed in the ballet’s main pas de deux.

 

Some of the music for the pas de deux can be heard under the voiceover in this video.

 

 

 

Naturally, the Dragon God will not be denied, and what follows is an extended pas d’action with a lot of grand allegro for the Dragon God and Iwatari. Try as he might to defend Sugaru-Otome, Iwatari cannot withstand a deity and his coterie of swirling, leaping dragons, and she is carried away to the Dragon God’s realm.

 

The second act begins with Sugaru-Otome’s coronation as the Dragon God’s queen. There is an extended divertissement for the dragons, who are identified by different colors, perhaps the same five colors referred to in the first act, although the costuming does not make them particularly easy to distinguish. Initially the female dragons wear gauzy cloaks with colored embroidery, but these are removed for all dances involving partnering, so the women end up wearing identical flesh-toned unitards, and the colored stones in their tiaras are not visible past the first few rows of the auditorium, while the men wear dark Ali-style costumes.

 

There is a dance for three couples, whose primary difficulty lies in its unison dancing, followed by a dance for three women, also performed primarily in unison. Then follows an allegro pas de trois for a man and two women, and a female-male adage. Finally there is a long and very difficult turning variation for a female soloist. Then comes the grand pas de deux for the heroine and the Dragon God, she dressed in a white unitard, he in black harem pants and mostly bare chested. The music for the adage is reminiscent of Raymonda’s third-act variation, both in its piano solo and in its length, since it is shorter than the typical adage, but on the long side by the standards of a variation. His variation consists primarily of flashy jumps, hers of pirouettes. Part of the music for Sugaru-Otome’s variation can be heard here:

 

 

There is also a female corps of 21 Spirits of the Mist, who evoke a bit of Swan Lake and La Bayadère, although both the choreography and music are more energetic, and a male corps of 13 dragons, whose choreography is reminiscent of an athletic Grigorovich style. The divertissement ends with Sugaru-Otome held triumphantly aloft center stage, surrounded on all sides by the dragons.

 

The Black Dragon has not abandoned her plans to displace Sugaru-Otome as queen and gives her rival a magnolia blossom, which causes memories of Iwatari to come flooding back. She dances a long solo in a manner not unlike that of Nikiya, and at one point she briefly sees a vision of Iwatari, echt-romantic in a billowing white shirt and dancing to a waltz. The Black Dragon summons the Dragon God to demonstrate to him that Sugaru-Otome loves another. The mountains shake from his fury, and although she has not actually committed adultery, Sugaru-Otome is banished from the realm.

 

Back in the shrine Iwatari is sleeping under the magnolia tree. He wakes and “calls out” to her in longing (i.e., performs an adagio solo) and almost immediately she appears, the white dress she wore in the first act now tattered and her hair loose. It is clear that she has been cursed by the Dragon God and that her life is leaving her. They dance one final duet alluding choreographically and musically to their pas de deux in Act 1, and she expires in his arms as the curtain comes down.
 

Skvortsov’s ardent and sincere Iwatari is the most recognizably human and sympathetic character in the story, in his steadfast and passionate devotion to a beloved with whom he can never be joined. Physically separated from Sugaru-Otome for most of the story, the ballet provides Iwatari with an unusually large number of “soliloquies,” and Skvortsov dances them luxuriantly, with big, plush jumps, splendidly eloquent arms and upper body, yearning line, fluency and vividly expressive acting, with especially clear mime. No doubt Skvortsov drew on his experience in the “romantic” Grigorovich roles: Romeo, Boris and especially Ferkhad in the “Eastern” port de bras.  As in Soviet ballets, he is called upon to stand at the end of a diagonal with open arms, waiting to catch his leaping partner. It’s a movement I usually find mildly ridiculous, but when Skvortsov opens wide his chest and arms, he makes it look as natural as breathing; there’s nothing silly or hackneyed about it. The rare duets for Sugaru-Otome and Iwatari are stirring and poignant in their suggestions of what might have been, and the ending epitomizes what balletic tragedy does best, with Lunkina and Skvortsov suffering searingly, heartbreakingly and gorgeously.

Lunkina’s Sugaru-Otome is unearthly and ethereal, already partly transposed to a divine realm, until the impassioned Iwatari literally falls at her feet. Luminously limpid and lyrical, Lunkina has many opportunities to reveal her particular genius as an adagio ballerina, combining a wonderfully pliant and willowy body with spiritual purity and refinement. Her enormous, expressive eyes speak volumes at those moments when she succumbs to the emotions deep within her heart. At her coronation as Dragon Queen she is brilliant and exalted. In the long variation in which she remembers Iwatari she is plaintively elegiac, demonstrating amazing balance and control, able to stretch and pull her torso in fantastically large, suspended, off-center positions.

But for me, at least, her character is a little more difficult to understand. We can perhaps assume that her devotion to serving the Dragon God is genuine, deep, and longstanding although it is not until the third scene of the first act, when Iwatari declares his love for her, that she makes this explicitly clear. However, by the end of their duet she appears to have yielded to his entreaties and does not look especially happy to be spirited away by the dragons. During the subsequent coronation and divertissement, she offers no protest, although just as she had accepted the Dragon God’s marriage “proposal” almost stoically, typical human reactions may not apply. I’m just not certain this is made sufficiently obvious by the choreography. Although her human feelings do take precedence in the end, it does seem a little strange that she requires prompting to remember the man with whom she seemed to fall in love just a little earlier.

Ken Kikuchi as the Dragon God is powerful and brilliant in his dancing. His character is even more difficult to fathom, and although I would not expect him to think and behave as human beings do, it’s not clear why he should desire to possess Sugaru-Otome. Because she is by far the most beautiful among the consecrated virgins? He doesn’t behave like a typical enamored suitor, so it’s hard to say. Because she has the greatest religious devotion? This isn’t explicitly shown, so I couldn’t say. Because he can? (Perhaps my cultural assumptions are showing.)

Long-limbed Kanna Sato is a glamorous and alluring Black Dragon and a formidable rival to the heroine. Chiharu Kiyotaki sparkles consistently in both pas de trois, spinning and leaping brilliantly, and Kika Aoyama delivers a dazzling performance of the unusually long and fiendish turning variation in the second act, having also danced the sword variation in the first. The corps of village girls and boys in the first act, and Spirits of the Mists and dragons in the second, are skillful and accomplished.

The choreography is fundamentally classical and often very difficult, with unexpected twists in how steps are combined. These are not revelatory on a Balanchinean scale, but they also do not come across as gratuitous, as in the case of, say, Pierre Lacotte. Legs sometimes assume unusual positions in jumps, pirouettes en dedans are often performed with the free leg extended to the front, changes in direction can happen unexpectedly and dances are often atypically long and require a lot of stamina. The partnering is not excessively intricate, but it does involve many overhead lifts. Asami Maki expects a lot from her dancers.

My biggest reservation about the ballet, apart from the divertissement that largely interrupts the storytelling, is that the final scene is too short. I would not wish it to look like the final scene of MacMillan’s Manon, which comes perilously close to corpse abuse, but it could easily be twice as long as it is, to provide the leads and audience with one final dramatic and tear-jerking wallop. The composer is still living, and I would have asked him to write some additional music or to add a few judicious repeats.

In composing the score, Yoshikazu Kataoka was apparently influenced by Aram Khachaturian, although he also incorporated some traditional Japanese music. What can be disconcerting for someone conditioned by Western ballet music is that the pieces don’t always end on the tonic, so finales are not necessarily obvious. What’s also surprising is the sort of music he composed for some of the female variations because they are often more rhythmically aggressive and less melodic than the typical flute-and-harp variations of the 19th century. This was particularly true of Sugaru-Otome’s first variation at the shrine and the dragon sword variation, also in the first act. The group dance of the Spirits of the Mists was also more boisterous than what is typically assigned to a women’s corps, which did have the virtue of drowning out the noise of that many pointe shoes. The coda of the second-act divertissement sounded particularly fearsome. Overall the score is colorful and attractive, and was played very well by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor David Garforth, although the final scene really needs to be extended.

The designs eschewed painted backdrops for projections. The only permanent set used is a set of steps leading to a platform across the rear of the stage. There were a few larger props used--a small pedestal and some chairs at downstage left during the first scene, and a magnolia tree that rolled out of the stage left wings. Everything else was projected onto the rear scrim and some tall panels in the upstage corners. The use of projections meant that the dancers could not be lit from the front, and there was some concern that the stage would appear too dark as a result, but I did not find this to be the case. Music that had been composed to play during set changes was now accompanied by video instead: lots of animated flower gardens and starry skies.

Not really knowing what to expect, apart from excellent dancing, I enjoyed Asuka much more than I, perhaps, anticipated. It just seemed a shame to mount a major revival after a long hiatus for only two performances. It would have been nice to give at least one more, with leads from within the company itself. I’m sure the guests would have been happy to get a night off, instead of dancing two performances less than 24 hours apart.

Opportunities to see Lunkina and Skvortsov dance together are now rare and precious occasions, but I find the performances so memorable and satisfying that they are literally worth crossing oceans to see. And yet if the ballet gods were just, their partnership would be allowed to flourish prodigiously and continually, for the delight of audiences and, I think, the dancers themselves. They clearly love dancing together.

Finally, it bears repeating, so I’ll say it again: naomikage is the best--incredibly kind, helpful and generous, and deeply devoted to ballet. We’re lucky to have her. :flowers::clapping::tiphat:

Edited by volcanohunter
added name of conductor
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