Musings Rubies Etudes
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Musings • Rubies • Etudes BALLET Notes Musings Rubies Etudes MARTINE LAMY IN ETUDES I II III Musings Rubies Etudes Choreography: Choreography: Choreography and Staging: James Kudelka George Balanchine Harald Lander Music: Music: Igor Stravinsky Staged by: Josette Amiel Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Capriccio for Piano Music: Carl Czerny Quintet For Clarinet and and Orchestra 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 Jewels, 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 ballets are emotionally charged and known for their Toronto’s Glory of Mozart Festival for the 1991 celebrations highly dramatic qualities. New York Times dance 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 String Quartet. Using a specific Mozart score Kudelka created crystalline transparency”. This equilibrium is matched by Musings, featuring former Principal Dancer 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 classical ballet.” 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 Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven, 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 Hamburg Ballet, 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 New York City 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 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. 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 New York City Ballet until his death in 1983, is one of the most elements of his more serious work, Theme and Variations, The Four renowned and prolific choreographers of the 20th century. Balanchine Temperaments and The Prodigal Son. 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 Marius Petipa, 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 tango-like steps. Humour is everywhere. Affectionate takes on classical Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and in turn created works for Diaghilev’s dance and its strict formalism reverberate throughout the ballet’s more company.