THE BALLET LOVER’S COMPANION i ii BallTHE et Lover’sCOMPANION ZOË ANDERSON YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW HAVEN AND LONDON iii Published with assistance from the Nancy Batson Nisbet Rash Publication Fund Copyright © 2015 Zoë Anderson All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers. For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact: U.S. Office: [email protected] www.yalebooks.com Europe Office: [email protected] www.yalebooks.co.uk Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Anderson, Zoë. The ballet lover’s companion / Zoë Anderson. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-300-15428-3 (hardback) 1. Ballet. 2. Ballet—History. I. Title. GV1787.A469 2015 792.809—dc23 2014047020 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 iv This book is dedicated to my parents, Gavin and Maggie Anderson. v vi CONTENTS Preface ix Acknowledgements xii A Glossary of Ballet Terms xiii 1 Ballet’s Beginnings 1 2 The Romantic Ballet 6 3 Imperial Ballet 32 4 The Ballets Russes and After 67 5 National Ballets 114 6 Soviet Ballet 175 7 The Ballet Boom 205 8 International Ballet: Crossing Boundaries 270 Notes 334 Index of Ballet Titles 341 General Index 346 vii viii PREFACE allet may be venerable, but it isn’t a museum art form. In the twenty- Bfirst century it has found a fresh lease of life, with excitement generated by new works and new choreographers. There’s another chapter to add to the existing story of ballet’s roots in sixteenth- century European courts, its development on the gaslit stages of the Romantic era, its reflections of the grandeur of Imperial Russia, and the adventures of the twentieth century. By the end of that century, there were fears of ballet’s decline: a generation of major choreographers had died, leaving its future uncer- tain. Since then, however, there’s been a burst of energy, with the emergence of leading names such as Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, and even newer names such as Justin Peck and Liam Scarlett. Ballet is busy again. So this is a good time for an overview of the art form, a time in which current works can be added to ballet’s long history. That history is complicated. Where theatre or opera can confidently resurrect works from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, ballet has not been so lucky. For much of its history, dance works have been passed down from dancer to dancer in a movement equivalent of an oral tradition: there was no standardised, universally accepted notation, such as that for music. If ballets were neglected for a generation, their choreography was lost. If they were adapted or updated, the update was usually what survived. All art forms look at their past through the lens of the present; ballet does this more than most. In recent years there’s been an attempt to reverse this, with compa- nies going back to the roots of celebrated works, paying new attention to notation systems and recording works on film. The repertory is expanding in two directions: as new works are created, ballet is also rescuing and reconstructing apparently ‘lost’ works. If I had written this book fifteen ix x PREFACE years ago, I wouldn’t have included Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia or Vasily Vainonen’s The Flames of Paris. Both have now made successful returns to the stage. The book is designed as a guide to ballet as it is now. Choosing which works to cover, I’ve focused on those I think readers are most likely to see onstage. That will vary around the world: though ballet is an international art form, it’s also a local one, with choreographers often attached to partic- ular companies. Over time, other companies will take up some of their best- known, most admired works. For instance, while New York City Ballet’s repertory includes as many as seventy- five works by George Balanchine, its founder choreographer, some of those pieces are rarely performed, and are unlikely to be danced elsewhere. I have entries on Balanchine masterworks such as Apollo and Agon, which are danced by almost every major company, but not for the quirky Variations pour une porte et un soupir, which is fairly rare even at New York City Ballet. With prolific choreographers, I’ve tried to pick a representative sample of their works – choosing the most popular, certainly, but also giving some sense of the artist’s range: are they known for short works as well as those lasting a whole evening, for plotless and for story ballets? I’ve also aimed to cover ballet’s history. Léonide Massine’s ‘symphonic’ ballets, which were hits in the 1930s, have since fallen out of fashion. However, I’ve included an entry on Les Présages, the best known of these works, both because it is still revived and also because the genre of symphonic ballet does have a lingering influence, notably on the work of present- day choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. As the twentieth century progressed, the boundaries between ballet and ‘modern’ or ‘contemporary’ dance began to blur. Since many classical companies now dance works by Jiří Kylián, Nacho Duato and others, I’ve included those, too. This book is arranged chronologically. Each chapter has an introduc- tion, describing the development of the art form in a particular period, giving a broader context for the individual ballet entries that follow. The book is designed to be read either as a continuous history, or to be dipped into for particular ballets. In some cases there are multiple versions of a ballet: scores such as Felix Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Sergei Prokofiev’s Cinderella have been staged by many different choreographers. In most cases, I have written a single entry on what I consider to be the most influen- tial staging of the work (often the earliest surviving production), ending with some discussion of other versions of the ballet. In a few cases I have written separate entries. Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ashton’s The Dream are both danced to Mendelssohn’s music and based on PREFACE xi Shakespeare’s play, but they have different titles: it’s simpler to keep them separate. Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet actually has three separate entries. The productions, by Leonid Lavrovsky, John Cranko and Kenneth MacMillan, all had huge international success, helped shape or develop the companies for which they were created, and took a distinctive approach to the score and story. Their contexts, and their influence, are different and significant enough to earn individual entries. Entries include details of choreographer, music, designs and first performances, with discussion of the ballet’s context, theme or subject matter, choreography and impact. Russia did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1918, so its dates were out of sync with the western calendar, falling twelve days behind during the nineteenth century. For nineteenth- century Russian ballet premieres, I have used the local, ‘old style’ date. Story ballets have a plot synopsis. A word about spoilers: ballet is usually relaxed about giving away the plot, with companies often including a synopsis in programme notes. What happens to the characters of Romeo and Juliet is unlikely to be a surprise to audiences, though the way the ballet is staged may still be unexpected. I will summarise and discuss plots – though, particularly with comedies, I’ve tried not to give away surprises or I’ve added warnings on individual entries where you might want to go in unspoiled. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ’m grateful to many people who have helped me in the writing of this Ibook. The staff of dance companies and venues have found and confirmed all manner of details for me. I’d like to thank Deborah Moe of Boston Ballet, Katya Novikova of the Bolshoi Ballet, Erica Espling of Cullberg Ballet, Cindy Koopman of Dutch National Opera & Ballet, Sarah Lam of Houston Ballet, Kina Poons of New York City Ballet, Catherine Heuls, Jérôme Maurel and Thierry Messonnier of the Opéra national de Paris, Anna-Katerina Gravgaard of the Royal Danish Ballet and Abigail Desch and Eugénie Dunster of Sadler’s Wells. I’m grateful to my agent, Michael Alcock of Johnson & Alcock, for his encouragement, energy and gentle prodding. At Yale University Press I thank my very supportive editor, Robert Baldock; also Candida Brazil, Rachael Lonsdale, Lauren Atherton and my eagle- eyed copy- editor, Richard Mason. For discussion, facts, suggestions and moral support, I thank Leo Anderson, Erik Aschengreen, Gerald Dowler, Judith Flanders, Beth Genné, Robert Greskovic, Veronica Horwell, Clare Jackson and Michael Firbank, David Jays, Andrea Lyons, Alastair Macaulay, Fiona Mountford, Claire Peposhi, Giannandrea Poesio, Nicola Rayner, John Snelson, Nicholas Southwell, Ivy Sparks, Emilia Spitz, Roslyn Sulcas (Forsythe detective extraordinaire), Graham Watts and Lisa Wells- Turner. I’m particularly grateful to Jonathan Gray for reading my manuscript and making invaluable suggestions and corrections. xii A GLOSSARY OF BALLET TERMS adagio or adage. Slow, sustained movement: a section of the dancer’s traditional ballet class will focus on movements of this kind. It can also refer to the opening section of a formal pas de deux, and to partnering in which the male dancer supports and displays his ballerina.