Ballet in operas

[koshka]

Some operas (most? many?) have ballet music in them. In current productions, is there usually dancing to go with this music, or is the music dropped (or is singing added, or??)?

In particular, this season Wash. Opera is doing Verdi's Sicilian Vespers, which has a nice segment of ballet music. Does anyone know if dancing is to be expected? If so, where do they get the dancers?

[rg]

a direct answer to your query will have to come from someone closer to the Wash. Op. and plans for this upcoming production.

as you my already know, too often the ballet portions of verdi's operas are dropped in contemporary stagings.

a number of choreographers have chosen to take these ballet segments by themselves and make them into independent ballets.

two prominent choreographers, Kenneth MacMillan in '75 and Jerome Robbins in '79, made separate works, both called THE FOUR SEASONS from I vespri Siciliani . Robbins's work also includes interpolations from the ballet music for I Lombardi (a.k.a. JERUSALEM) and Il trovatore.

a number of opera followers read and post here, and they should be able to provide more information concerning this topic.

[chrisk217]

koshka,

the following thread is about ballet in opera and may have info related to your question:

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...topic=19145&hl=

[DancingGiselle]

The press release for "I Vespri Siciliani" mentions nothing about dance in the opera, but Vladimir Angelov (who has recently choreographed for the Washington Ballet among other companies) is listed as the choreographer. That's promising!

[MinkusPugni]

I love the ballet from Gounod's Faust. It's great part of ballet.

[Michael]

I Vespri was performed by NY's Metropolitan Opera last fall and the Ballet music was cut, badly maiming the Opera.

The stage design here left no room for dance, and little room even for dramatic action of any kind. It was a huge staircase descending from stage rear to stage front which cut the room available to what was left in front of the stairs. The director then used the staircase to arrange the singers in static groups above and below each other. There was also room at the sides for little soliloquies.

Opera and Ballet were joined at the hip in the 19th century. In Copenhagen I understand Ballets and Operas even shared the same theater for an evening's programming as late as the 1950s. Ballets should not be cut out of operas. Opera stagings are so damned dull here anyway, you would think they would take what they could get in terms of spicing things up.

[Helene]

Opera and Ballet were joined at the hip in the 19th century.  In Copenhagen I understand Ballets and Operas even shared the same theater for an evening's programming as late as the 1950s.  Ballets should not be cut out of operas.  Opera stagings are so damned dull here anyway, you would think they would take what they could get in terms of spicing things up.

New York City Opera did in a production of La Traviata, where Violetta dies of AIDS, and Act III, where the dancing occurs, took place in a leather bar.

[sandik]

New York City Opera did in a production of La Traviata, where Violetta dies of AIDS, and Act III, where the dancing occurs, took place in a leather bar.

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The more I think about it, the more interesting an interpretation of the work it becomes. I wouldn't want it to be my only Traviata, but I'd certainly be interested in seeing it.

[DancingGiselle]

I went to the Opera Insights lecture last night at the Kennedy Center and am sad to report that most of the ballet has indeed been cut from the Wash. National Opera's production of "I Vespri Siciliani." Mr. Wayne Conner gave a great lecture outlining the history and the story of the opera -- the only part of his speech that I disliked (wrong word?) was the part about ballet. He made some remarks that sounded like the ballets in Verdi's operas were completely extraneous and the only purpose they served was to entretain the audience, who expected a little dancing in their stage spectacles. I don't want to misquote Mr. Conner, but his implications truly offended me a bit. I would have liked to ask him some questions (esp. about the need for a choreographer if the ballet has been cut) but unfortunately there was no time for that.

Still, the production should be quite exciting and I'm attending opening night this Saturday.

[richard53dog]

I went to the Opera Insights lecture last night at the Kennedy Center and am sad to report that most of the ballet has indeed been cut from the Wash. National Opera's production of "I Vespri Siciliani." Mr. Wayne Conner gave a great lecture outlining the history and the story of the opera -- the only part of his speech that I disliked (wrong word?) was the part about ballet. He made some remarks that sounded like the ballets in Verdi's operas were completely extraneous and the only purpose they served was to entretain the audience, who expected a little dancing in their stage spectacles.

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DancingGiselle,

The Verdi operas with big ballets (I mean Vespri and Don Carlo) were mostly there because the premiers were at the Paris Opera (so really they were Vepres and Don Carlos) and it was basically a requirement to have an inserted ballet.

That's most likely the main reason Verdi wrote them and then so quickly dropped them when the operas premiered in Italy.

Honestly? I think the music in both is not up to the rest of the the operas, it's like Verdi was going through a required exercise.

Both operas are very long and although they are no longer cut the way they used to be, cuts are still made. And the ballet music is the first to go, it's inert dramatically . This is not to say they wouldn't work on their own, I think stand alone productions have been mounted from time to time.

My own feeling is I'd just as soon skip the ballet, all they can do is make them spectacles, they don't add much musically or dramatically. and they add on about an extra 30 minutes onto operas that are already about three hours

My 2 cents , anyway

Richard

Edited September 13, 2005 by richard53dog

[Helene]

Without Verdi's ballet music in these operas, we never would have had Balanchine's Ballo della Regina (Don Carlos) and Robbins' The Four Seasons (I Vespri).

[richard53dog]

Without Verdi's ballet music in these operas, we never would have had Balanchine's Ballo della Regina (Don Carlos) and Robbins' The Four Seasons (I Vespri).

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Helene ,

I agree 100%. If this music has a life, it's just like these creations. I just don't think they serve any purpose in the operas they were written for any more.

Now the dance pieces in Verdi's Macbeth and Traviata, as well as Massenet's Manon, Gounod's Faust, Cilea's Adriana Lecouvrer, and Boito's Mefistofele NEED to be there, the operas would be poorer without them.

Wagner wrote the dance sequence very unwillingly for the Paris premiere of Tannhauser, but it works better than he thought. He spitefully placed it too early in the opera for the Jockey Club's taste and the opera failed.

Still today, I'd rather see the Paris Tannhauser than the duller Dresden one.

Richard

[shulie]

Yeah and the ballet scene had to be in the first act because the members of the jockey club wanted to see pretty girls on stage before going to the club restaurant in the first intermission- they did never watch the whole opera, just the first act until the intermission.