sign in sign up
<<
Home , Ballet master, Carl Czerny, Jewels (ballet), Tango (Balanchine), Union Jack (ballet), Variations (ballet)

Musings • Rubies • Etudes Notes

Musings  Rubies  Etudes

MARTINE LAMY IN ETUDES

I II III Musings Rubies Etudes

Choreography: : Choreography and Staging: James Kudelka Harald Lander Music: Music: Staged by: Josette Amiel Capriccio for Piano Music: Carl Czerny Quintet For Clarinet and and Arranged and Orchestrated By: Strings In A Major, K581 By arrangement with Boosey Knudage Riisager Costume Design: and Hawkes, Inc. publisher Costume Design: Astrid Janson and copyright owner James Ronaldson Lighting Design: Costume Design: Karinska Set Design: Georg Schlogl Stephen Allen Lighting Design: Lighting Design: Robert Thomson Harald Lander Funded in part by Walter Carsen O.C. Rubies, as part of the full Etudes is a gift from ballet , is a gift from The Volunteer Committee, The The Volunteer Committee, The National Ballet Of Canada National Ballet Of Canada BALLET Notes A NOTE ON MUSINGS Musings (originally titled Fare Well) was commissioned by Kudelka’s are emotionally charged and known for their Toronto’s Glory of Mozart Festival for the 1991 celebrations highly dramatic qualities. New York Times critic Anna marking the 200th anniversary of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Kisselgoff has written, “emotion is at the heart of all his works”. Mozart. A work that is visually and musically lyrical, Musings He does not believe in a literal interpretation of situations but for subtly pays tribute to Mozart’s musical genius while revealing the choreography to be a medium by which emotions are revealed. choreographer James Kudelka’s own invention. When Musings Kudelka’s fascination with the dramatic potential of movement is received its world premiere on June 10, 1991 at Toronto’s evident in Musings, as it is in many of his more than 90 creations. MacMillan Theatre, Kudelka was praised by dance critic William Littler of the Toronto Star for his “sophisticated response to Mozart’s structural games of statement, repetition and variation”. THE MUSIC OF MOZART IN BALLET

The late Nicholas Goldschmidt, Executive Director of the Glory of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the Quintet for Clarinet Mozart Festival, produced an evening of dance for the festival and Strings in A Major, K. 581 in 1789 for the clarinettist Anton featuring Toronto’s Desrosiers Dance Theatre, Toronto Dance Stadler. Musicologist Paul Henry Lang has described this Theatre and The National Ballet of Canada with Canada’s Orford melodically rich work as possessing, “serene equilibrium and . Using a specific Mozart score Kudelka created crystalline transparency”. This equilibrium is matched by Musings, featuring former Karen Kain. Musings James Kudelka’s accompanying movement entered the repertoire of the National Ballet on August 20, 1991 at vocabulary; elegance paired with a sunny, joyous Artpark in Lewiston, New York, and featured Kain and six élan intermingled with a poignantly National Ballet dancers Kudelka chose to complement the melancholic nostalgia. Musicologist Mary ballerina: Chan Hon Goh, Jennifer Fournier, Julia Vilen, Serge Ann Parker-Hale concurs, “with an elegance Lavoie, Peter Ottmann and Clinton Luckett. typical of this music, the runs and arabesques never disturb the peaceful mood”. Dedicated to Karen Kain, the work paid particular tribute to the ballerina’s talents. In Kudelka’s work he looks to it for guidance For many choreographers Mozart is the most and inspiration. This is his choreographic language, one that Lewis beloved of composers. While Pyotr Ilyich Segal of the Los Angeles Times saw as embracing the notion Tchaikovsky reigns in the world of ballet, Mozart “that classical dance can be a vehicle for high drama as well as has been embraced by both ballet and modern express the subtlest most fleeting psychological nuances”. dance choreographers. Though theatrical dance, as Kudelka’s work, Segal noted, “has the weight of modern dance we know it today, was in its burgeoning stages during and clarity of .” Musings celebrates this marriage. Mozart’s lifetime, Mozart composed only one ballet, Les petits Martin Bernheimer wrote in the Los Angeles Times of the ballet’s Riens (1778). He did, however, compose a great deal of California premiere, “Kudelka knows his Mozart, and he danceable music. obviously loves his luminous protagonist. He has crafted an elaborately decorative bouquet for her, and Kain, marvellously Mozart is undoubtedly the most well known composer in willowy... makes the most of it.” Western music, and together with Franz and , the greatest of classical composers. Not Musings evokes images that are sometimes haunting, surprising, only in music circles but also with the general public, Mozart is filled with nostalgia, memory and joie de vivre. Appropriately, the a household name, thanks in part to the success on Broadway of ballet’s premiere performances were played by the Orford String the play Amadeus, the Academy Award-winning film by Milos Quartet, which played its farewell performances soon after. Forman of the same title. There are also numerous motion pictures Musings is a fitting title that describes the entire piece, a muse with of Mozart’s operas, among them Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic the muses. As the dancers enter and exit the stage, they create and Flute. The year 1991 marked the 200th anniversary of the dissolve pictures of varying hues and textures. Robert Everett- composer’s death. The occasion was celebrated with festivals and Green wrote when the work premiered, “Musings (Fare Well) is a festivities around the world, including Toronto’s Glory of Mozart sombre work, reflective of fears and containments of self that Festival and the annual Nijinsky Gala of the , linger even through apparently light-hearted sections. That’s the which was dedicated to the music of Mozart. For both events, kind of subtle balance of light and shade that has helped keep Canadian choreographer James Kudelka was commissioned to Mozart in the theatre all these years.” Mozart’s lyrical, lilting create original works. The results were Musings, to Mozart’s rhythms are echoed in the polite grace of movement in the Allegro Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major, K. 581, for Karen and Menuetto. While the haunting Larghetto, with the three men Kain and dancers of the National Ballet, and Mirror, set to covering their eyes in a motion of blinding grief as they support Mozart’s Fantasie for Organ, which was performed by former the ballerina, is a finely woven adagio. The surprises and technical National Ballet Principal Dancers Gizella Witkowsky and Serge brilliance of the Varizioni lead to the final Allegretto. Lavoie in Hamburg. CHAN HON GOH IN MUSINGS XIAO NAN YU WITH ARTISTS OF THE BALLET IN RUBIES

A NOTE ON RUBIES By Gary Smith of the Rubies section, suggests Balanchine integrated a racetrack atmosphere into the piece, a prancing, galloping sort of movement, a Rubies is the centrepiece in George Balanchine’s masterwork Jewels. A marriage of spirited fillies and slap-happy jockeys. brilliant three act plot-less ballet inspired by the beauty of three rare gems - Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds. Created in 1967 for In a sense, Rubies is Balanchine’s love song to America. The sweet Ballet, Jewels features music by three very different composers: Gabriel sexuality of Fred Astaire, brazen sophistication and the brash excesses of Fauré, Igor Stravinsky and . Jewels is one of big time show business all rolled into one. Balanchine's most popular works and all three pieces can be performed alone. Rubies, however, is the most often performed excerpt. BALANCHINE’S STYLE The glitter and drama of Stravinsky’s music is the vibrant thread that pulls Rubies, taut and tight. The mood is American, sharply focused, visceral in To fully appreciate Rubies, it is best to begin with some information about attack, a quirky, triumphant homage to show dance, full of feral invention. the great choreographer, George Balanchine. Balanchine, co-founder and This is Balanchine at his most sophisticated. Into the mix he has woven director of until his death in 1983, is one of the most elements of his more serious work, Theme and , The Four renowned and prolific choreographers of the 20th century. Balanchine Temperaments and The . On one hand is the sexy Broadway created a new genre of classical ballet that is synonymous today with New milieu of the fashionable 1920's, on the other is the brilliant virtuosity of York City Ballet. Though that company is without doubt the greatest Balanchine at his most technically delirious. repository of Balanchine’s works, his ballets are also in the repertoires of more companies than any other choreographer’s. Balanchine’s ballets not The music is the 1929 Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra and the dance only add diversity to a company’s repertoire, but also challenge dancers to follows its urban, urbane, sharp-edged brilliance. These are Rubies that are a new level of technical brilliance. red hot at the centre, jewels that refract a multi-faceted brilliance. Pelvic thrusts, blatant athleticism, classical positions turned inside out; these are Balanchine was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received his dance the counterpoints of this show business ballet. training at the Imperial Ballet School. Nurtured in the ballet traditions of the turn of the century, particularly the ballets and pedagogy of the Russian Rubies opens with the complete corps of male and female dancers ballet master , Balanchine received a classic education. After in a jewel-like chain. The image of social dance emerges in saucy, leaving Russia in 1924, Balanchine became exposed to the work of Serge -like steps. Humour is everywhere. Affectionate takes on classical Diaghilev’s , and in turn created works for Diaghilev’s dance and its strict formalism reverberate throughout the ballet’s more company. The artistic milieu of the Ballets Russes was highly stimulating, ebullient and frivolous nature. , who danced the premier as Diaghilev brought his choreographers into with the composers. Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Erik Satie and Maurice Ravel and such Balanchine’s use of movement seems organically linked with the music visual artists as Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Marc Chagall. In 1933, and the dancers’ bodies. His work is always inventive and nothing with his own company, Les Ballets, Balanchine collaborated with such superfluous is ever included. It is as if no other step than the one leading artistic figures as Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Pavel Tchelitchev and choreographed could possibly work within the structure of the piece. composers Darius Milhaud and Henri Sauget. Balanchine created a distinctive vocabulary and style of movement that In 1933, at the invitation of Lincoln Kirstein, Balanchine travelled to the closely reflects the structure of the music he used. Commenting on United States, where he and Kirstein established the School of American Balanchine’s use of music, dance critic Kenneth LaFave has noted: Ballet in 1934 and New York City Ballet in 1948. Through the creation of “Balanchine has explored the interactions of music and dance with almost these two institutions, Balanchine was able to create of very distinct style every ballet, and has approached their combination afresh countless times. of American dance. Writes dance critic Marilyn Hunt: “When Balanchine Look at his ballets superficially and they may seem to be illustrations of first came to the United States, he devised a way for Americans to appear the music. Look at them closely and they appear as they really are: works on stage without feeling weighed down by traditions of court and ballet that dance in the music, not merely to the beat.” that they weren’t born to.” Watching a Balanchine ballet is like watching and hearing a beautifully Balanchine’s style has been described as neoclassic, a reaction to the phrased conversation between dance and music. The most exciting Romantic anti- (which had turned into exaggerated theatricality) moment of a Balanchine ballet is when you begin to “see the music and that was the prevailing style in Russian and European ballet when he had hear the dancing.” Balanchine’s relationship with music stemmed from his begun to dance. The beauty of Balanchine’s is to be found in their early childhood, when his musical studies were as important as his dance patterning, structure and in their relationship to the music. Balanchine was training. His understanding of musical theory, composition and playing the creator of abstract, one-act ballets. But for a handful, most of his works enabled him to develop intimate working relationships with his are non-narrative, the music and the dance conveying all necessary composers. The National Ballet of Canada’s late Artistic Director, Erik meaning. Some of Balanchine’s ballets pay homage to his Russian Bruhn, once noted: “He unravelled the intricate structure and emotional heritage, including Ballet Imperial (1941) and the Diamonds section of the texture of music. Using the music of Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and, of three-act, work Jewels (1967). While others proved provocative (The Four course, his close friend Igor Stravinsky, Balanchine actually made ballet Temperaments in 1946 and in 1957), romantic ( in 1934) more aware of its musical potential.” and spectacular audience pleasers (Stars and Stripes in 1958, in 1976 and Waltzes in 1977), all were achieved within his Balanchine’s understanding of music allowed him to reach into the inner extended framework of classical ballet. life of the music. It is not the obvious beat but the harmony in the music that motivates the dance. Said Balanchine of his use of music previously “Dance can be enjoyed and understood without any verbal introduction or untouched by ballet choreographers: “If the dance designer sees in the explanation,” Balanchine said. “The important thing in ballet is the development of classical dancing a counterpart in the development of movement itself, as it is sound which is important in a . A ballet music and has studied them both, he will derive continual inspiration from may contain a story, but the visual spectacle, not the story, is the essential great scores.” element.”

GRETA HODGKINSON WITH ARTISTS OF THE BALLET IN RUBIES A NOTE ON ETUDES

Harald Lander’s technically demanding and visually ravishing Etudes (1948)... is a superbly realized presentation of all the basic classic steps used in ballet, starting with the simplest exercises at the and building gradually to a stunning display of splendidly executed pirouettes, grands jetés, fouettes, entrechats and cabrioles. — Myron Galloway, The Express Montreal, September 1980

Etudes is an elegant and exciting work that traces the development of a ballet class. Beginning with a simple warm-up, the dancers perform a progressively more complex and technically difficult series of exercises. A veritable encyclopedia of , each movement, turn, jump, and even foot position in Etudes is carefully revealed for the audience. From dazzling adagio and to the sheer dynamism and virtuosity of allegro, the Etudes was staged for The National Ballet of Canada during the 1979/80 ballet culminates in a riveting finale with the entire company on stage. season by Toni and Lise Lander (Toni Lander was Harald Lander’s second wife, Lise his third). It was Toni Lander, above all, who became singularly Created by the Danish choreographer Harald Lander for The Royal Danish identified with the leading role in Etudes during her career, beginning with Ballet, Etudes was premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen on January her debut in 1948. It was premiered at Toronto’s O’Keefe Centre (now the 18, 1948 starring Principal Dancers Margot Lander, Hans Brenaa and Svend Hummingbird Centre) by The National Ballet of Canada on February 27, Erik Jensen. The ballet was originally performed under the title Etude, rather 1980, with Karen Kain, David Nixon and Tomas Schramek in the leading than the plural form by which it is known today. Though now performed on roles. a bare stage decorated only by chandeliers and simple columns on the sides of the stage. Etudes originally had decor by Erik Nordgreen. Today it is the lighting that is all-important in decorating and setting the mood for the ballet. THE MUSIC FOR ETUDES Etudes is a celebration of the classical ballet dancers’ training and technique. For his ballet Etudes, choreographer Harald Lander worked closely with his Every day of their student and professional lives, dancers must participate in long-time friend, Knudåge Riisager, on the arrangement of the music. Over a ballet class. A ballet class warms their muscles, centres their bodies and keeps period of three months Riisager orchestrated and arranged the piano finger their technique in top form. Thus it is appropriate that Lander set his ballet in exercises of Carl Czerny into a unified composition while Lander created the dancers’ most familiar setting, the Ballet studio, a world all too often accompanying dance movements. Of his work with Lander on Etudes, unseen by audience members. But rather than showing the gruelling work of Riisager wrote: “Ballet music is generally imagined to be something which the class, Lander shows its development through beautifully choreographed illustrates the dancing, emphasizes the pantomime situation, or describes the sequences that mount with excitement and showcase technique, culminating story in tones. in a dazzling display of pure virtuosity. As technique builds, so does the individuality and of each dancer. Personality and brio come shining “Etudes is something entirely different. This is a ballet, which is about to centre stage and the dancers prove worthy of their position, every member dancing; therefore the music was composed in collaboration with the a potential star. choreographer. I chose motifs from Carl Czerny’s etudes as my point of departure for this music especially because the simple and clear nature of The class exercises begin with pliés at the barre. Subsequent sections develop these etudes has something fundamental in common with the classic dance according to the quick rhythms and dramatic energy of Carl Czerny’s music. and its five positions. In the same way as these basic elements lead through As the music reaches a blazing climax toward the end, so does the dancing; combinations and further development to virtuoso dancing at the the dancers perform darting diagonals of split-jetés and virtuoso pirouettes. Bournonville school, Czerny’s themes give rise to a parallel development from the five-note exercises to masterful virtuosity. Naturally, this raw Etudes is not the only ballet to celebrate the technical training of the ballet material had to be dramatized, partly by combinations of several dancer. The small but significant number of “classroom ballets” include such simultaneous themes supplemented by a good deal of independent material, works as ’s Conservatoire (1849), which features the partly by an orchestral treatment which could give the dry exercises colour intricacies of the French school of the 1820s; Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of and light, fun and elan. a Faun (1953), which deals with a young couple’s encounter in an empty ballet studio; Asaf Messerer’s Ballet School (1962), which highlights the “The idea for this ballet came fluttering to me one morning while I was taking ’s unique training methods, and Robert Cohan’s Class (1975), a walk in a residential neighbourhood. The light morning wind was whirling which examines the teaching of Martha Graham’s modern dance technique, some leaves around in the air as in a dance, and an unknown person behind as does the third movement of Graham’s own Acts of Light (1981). an open window was practising one of Czerny’s etudes, so hated by beginners. I submitted the idea to Harald Lander, who after some reflection took it up with enthusiasm. He saw the whole sequence of the ballet as in a vision.”

PHOTOS BY: BARRY GRAY, DAVID HOU, JOHN LAUENER, DAVID STREET, BRUCE ZINGER COVER PHOTO: ALEKSANDAR ANTONIJEVIC AND JENNIFER FOURNIER WITH ARTISTS OF THE BALLET IN MUSINGS

The Walter Carsen Centre for The National Ballet of Canada 470 Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 3K4 Phone: (416) 345-9686 Fax: (416) 345-8323 Email:[email protected] www.national.ballet.ca