Anacreontics

[Mel Johnson]

The great period of the Anacreontic ballet came right before the Romantic period. Often we read of wonderful performances of Flore et Zephyre or of the importance of the choreography to the Vigano/Beethoven The Creatures of Prometheus. Could these works be of more than curiosity value today? And moreover I don't mean a "deconstruction" of the style, but a responsible effort to regain the qualities of the Pre-Romantic. Nobody running around dressed in nothing but bunny slippers and mooning the audience.

[Alexandra]

Would Creatures of Prometheus be an Anacreontic ballet? My definition of that has always been "pastoral" (after the poet Anacreon) By that definition Ashton's "La Fille Mal Gardee" is Anacreontic and still successful.

I'd love to see a revival of Flore et Zephyre, but there'd be the same problem with reviving the lost Bournonville ballets. One, we don't have enough of the original to work from. Two, if we did use the vocabulary of the time -- and all the mime -- most audiences would scream. Three, if we update them, a la Lacotte, then we have an old story with new steps. So how to do it?

[Mel Johnson]

You're right, perhaps "Prometheus" is the last upheaval of the Original Classical Period, with the comings and doings and goings of gods and goddesses. (Sylvia, for example, I at least consider "Classical Revival".) But it's a subsidiary part of the same question. Are we ready for a retrenchment after a period of post-modernism? And if not, why not? And if so, why? And to what?

[Alexandra]

I think we are in a retrenchment, although it's not as creative as the Anacreontic period. We're revising ad nauseum the few 19th century classics. But that period was really a fresh breeze -- by people sick of the old order and wanting to do something new, something lighter. I'm up for it

Mel, are you thinking of trying to revive-reconstruct ballets of that period from libretti, or trying to find a 21st century analog, or both?

[Mel Johnson]

I'm trying to provoke actual serious discussion during the Silly Season.

[Alexandra]

I know, Mel, and thank you! I"m just asking you to clarify for purposes of discussion!

[carbro]

I am dubious in the extreme. Remember the Kirov's new/old stagings? On the one hand we had the historically correct costumes and sets, the mime and processions (which processions were great to see once or twice for their educational value, but am I going to have to sit through this again???). On the other hand were the aggressive attack and sky-high extensions.

Not viable either commercially IMO, and probably not artistically, either.

But lots of luck, Mel , and let me know when your box office opens!

[Mel Johnson]

My own tastes would run toward doing a double bill of "Prometheus" and a revival/recension of the Sir Arthur Sullivan/Carlo Coppi ballet "Victoria and Merrie England" which was a rather odd sort of vaudeville put together for Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897. The latter was sort of a revival of the old classical formula of processions and finales with not much inbetween, so a lot of marches and galops. The score is so up-tempo energetic that the original effect must have been enervating, if it hadn't been for all the scantily-clad "ballet girls". Photos from the original production exist, and had she ever seen it (she hadn't), the old queen might have been amused, while those around her would have found the proceedings "quite schocking!" (Victoria wasn't anywhere near as Victorian as those who attended her at court.)