Crowd Scenes in ballet

[bart]

Recently I watched an old Kirov production of Don Quixote (Terekhova/Ruzimatov) and ran it side by side with a much simpler staging from the State Perm Ballet (Ananiashvili/ Fadeyetchev).

I was amazed by the differences on all levels -- but most notably in the extreme busy-ness and (to me) pointless and uneven character-creation in the crowd scenes in the Kirov version.

This got me to thinking about other crowd scenes that I've seen.

Some add drama and intensity. Others are annoyingly cluttered and distracting (whether people move or just sit there looking bored at the ball).

Some ebb and flow along with the music and choreography. Others fight and compete with them.

And sometimes they provide a welcome diversion from uninspired dancing up front. (How often do we find ourselves looking at the 6th Flower Vendor from the left as our eyes drift away from the ballet's stars?)

Do you have any crowd scenes you love or hate? Any stories to tell about them?

[Helene]

One of my favorite series of crowd scenes is in Ib Andersen's Romeo and Juliet. The stage looked overflowing, and then I started to count, and realized that he made a relatively small number fill the stage.

[Michael]

Even on DVD, the blocking in Act I of the Royal Danish Ballet's Napoli is amazingly good. The narrative is carried forward from incident to incident within the crowd, with the Ballabile worked in too, and a whole lot of other incidental stuff as well -- It's just so incredibly good, your eye is always directed to what you need to see. Its the sequence, and how the crowd opens and closes and swirls on the stage to provide the focus.

[leonid17]

Do you have any crowd scenes you love or hate? Any stories to tell about them?

Hate is too strong a word. What stops every MacMillan full length ballet being fully successful, is the emptiness of creative staging and movement of his crowd scenes.

Also, (Sotto voce) there are other things

[Farrell Fan]

Some thirty or forty years ago, the New York City Opera had a production of the opera Cavalleria Rusticana directed by Vera Zorina, a one-time Mrs. B. It's not too strong a word to say that I hated it, particularly the crowd scene when the stage should have been deserted. This is when the villagers are in church for Easter Sunday Mass, and the Intermezzo is played by the orchestra. An air of foreboding should prevail -- leading to the bloody event which ends the opera. But in Zorina's production, the church emptied early and a gaggle of girls in communion dresses came dancing out strewing flower petals and dancing around. It ruined the mood and spoiled one of the most famous orchestral pieces in opera. The audience applauded as usual at the end of the Intermezzo, but I booed. My brother-in-law, who was in the audience, saw me at the intermission which separated Cavalleria from Pagliacci, and asked me if I'd heard the loud boo, obviously unaware of its meaning. I said I had and let it go at that.

[papeetepatrick]

My favourite crowd scene was in the production of 'Die Meistersinger' I saw at the Met in 1995. The Nurnbergers are all gathered and singing gloriously, with bright banners right before the competition. It was joyous, as was the whole production, especially Bernd Weikl as Hans Sachs.

[bart]

Thanks, Michael, I just received the "Napoli" DVD and will check it out right away.

Hate is too strong a word. What stops every MacMillan full length ballet being fully successful, is the emptiness of creative staging and movement of his crowd scenes. Also, (Sotto voce) there are other things

Leonid, I haven't seen too many of his works -- at least those with crowd scenes. But I did like the Act II market scene in the Nureyev-Fonteyn Romeo and Juliet from the 60s, both on stage here at the Met and especially in the film version.

The stage was packed, but everyone seemed to have his or her instructions and could fade away into the two-story set when something important was going on. My favorites were the 3 harlots, who always stood out owing to their speedy movements, their incredible 1960s-style BIG hairdos, and their very eye-catching patterned dresses. :cool2:

But then, I also like the conclusion of Act I in the Zefferelli Tosca, which is always called "grandiose," and sometimes even "bloated." The size of the crowd isn't the issue for me, it's how they are used and how they relate to both music and the central action.

[Paul Parish]

I agree about Napoli -- and in GENERAL about Bournonville. Act 2 of A Folk Tale is a crowd scene of trolls getting drunk, and it's SO inventive, incredible virtuosity in moving all those people around like that, and revealing action in hte waves. There may not be that many people on-stage, so it could be that it echoes Andersen's achievement Helene mentions -- and since Andersen came up by way of Bournonville, it wouldn't be surprising that Andersen should have learned something from dancing in Bournonville. The details of action in the big Scottish-dance scene of La Sylphide are amazing, also -- the way the Sylph flits through the crowd, James goes after her, returns to Effie, the bits of action on the stair-case landing, it's almost like the party scene in Don Giovanni where Mozart has got a battle of the bands going and three separate dance-tunes are being played at once.

But my favorite crowd-scenes of all time are in Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet -- especially at the banquet during the ball-scene, the people are as thick as in a William Morris tapestry. It was incredibly impressive live -- might not register as much on a video, because it's such a full-stage scrum, but live it's just amazing. And the fights, and the way Lady Capulet comes in and tears her clothes half-off and gets on the stretcher with the dead Tybalt and is carried off on the stretcher beating her breast and wailing.... The only version of that scene I don't hate, it's as big as the music, even bigger, thank god, for the music is hideously ugly at that point.

[Helene]

The details of action in the big Scottish-dance scene of La Sylphide are amazing, also -- the way the Sylph flits through the crowd, James goes after her, returns to Effie, the bits of action on the stair-case landing, it's almost like the party scene in Don Giovanni where Mozart has got a battle of the bands going and three separate dance-tunes are being played at once.

That's it, Paul -- thank you! That is my all-time favorite crowd scene, though I must admit, as someone who as a child was taken to Madison Square Garden each year to hear the Scottish tattoo and who waited impatiently for the sword dancing, I often get so caught up watching Effie and the children in the reel, that I miss the beginning of the James/Sylphide action and only catch them when it's almost over.

And it's still my all-time favorite crowd scene.

[carbro]

Great crowd scenes? Great Scottish themes? Well, it's quite different from the moments noted above, but how about the finale of Union Jack, Part I? At its best, we have seventy or so dancers on stage, and every body and part thereof in its place. That mad mix of tartans, and all the red pompoms on the berets in perfect alignment.

On the negative side, I have so many troubles with Kevin McKenzie's Act I of Swan Lake (not to mention some of the other acts), but among the most egregious are his setting the peasants' dance to the aristocrats music, and vice versa. The music tells who should be dancing it, but somehow that escaped him entirely.

[sandik]

I think probably my favorite crowd scene is one I never actually saw -- the opening sequences of Fokine's Petrushka in the original production. There has been so much written about the ebullient chaos of the Shrovetide Fair scenes I feel as if I almost can see it, but I know I look at each production with those comments in the back of my head.