(Incidentally I am sure that Scottish Ballet will not use the original choreography. But it had been common to not use the original choreography for a long time. Think of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. In saying this, I am not endorsing what MacMillan did.)
I am no ballet expert, but surely the choreography of major roles in classical ballet has been designed to suit specifically male and female physical attributes and characteristics so they are by no means automatically interchangeable: "athletic" leaps, turns, lifts, partnership skills for men; grace, poise and "stillness" for women who dance on point - even the shoes are differently designed for this purpose and men's additional weight is an issue if they attempt this. The point of the "travesty" roles whereby a dancer impersonates a character of the opposite sex, usually for comedic purposes, goes out the window, too. Of course, such an observation will immediately be classified as "gender stereotyping" and it is true that some of these qualities can be common to both sexes but for me this is all part of a general movement to blur all sexual distinction. Yes; Sarah Bernhardt played Hamlet, Glenda Jackson did Lear - but I doubt whether seeing Nureyev dance the Sugar Plum Fairy or Fonteyn as Romeo would have been that much of a triumph or treat.
A possible reason that ballerinas aren’t objecting to losing the role of Cinderella is that they will be gaining what is traditionally the chief male role of the ballet: the Prince will become a Princess. Also in ballet there is no shortage of wonderful roles for women.
Incidentally, there is at least one case of a creative artist not objecting to the sex of one his major characters being changed. I am thinking of Sondheim’s response to changing Bobby to a woman in the case of a London production of his musical “Company”.
And now the rot spreads to the world of ballet. I understand that a Scottish ballet company is mounting a production of Prokofiev's Cinderella in which the principal role is to be danced by a male, so the two ugly sisters are now to be joined by an ugly Cinderella. The prospect of "Her" clumping around in size eleven glass slippers borders on the alarming. Somehow the magic and glamour of the piece seems in danger of being completely lost in this production.
What purpose does it serve to have the role danced by someone of the opposite sex to the role as envisaged by the ballet's original creators, and why aren't ballerinas objecting to one of their prize roles being misappropriated ?
My thanks to Hendrik and the previous contributors for their thoughts and examples of how the tyranny of Regietheater is rendering the art form jejune to cognoscenti and incomprehensible to tyros.
I question a mindset which starts from the inviolable principle that, come what may, the last thing a production must do is actually adhere to the vision and wishes of the librettist and composer. In, for example, the world of Wagner, as Ned points out, is there not already fascination and fantasy enough in the imaginative representation of dragons, dwarves, spells, magic potions, castles, forests and battlefields without the necessity of setting the tale in a shopping mall or a psychiatric ward with everyone dressed in boiler suits?
The really innovative and striking move would be to return to the original and render it with all the resources of a modern theatre - as long as the opera house which dared to do this was prepared to heed the response of its opera-going public instead of a tiny circle of chattering class critics, who would no doubt waste no time pouring scorn upon such reactionary traditionalism.
I don’t know if opera is in decline. In terms of numbers we would need long-term surveys of different opera houses. In terms of great contemporary opera, the verdict is obvious. (Although I saw an impressive performance of Weinberg's The Idiot in Vienna this season. Qua opera flawed, but nevertheless gripping, impressive. Ticket prices: it is still difficult to get affordable tickets for the Staatsoper, but perhaps that venerable institution is an exception to the rule. The bugbear to my mind is staging. Not only do we pay high prices to sit through often mediocre singing, as Ralph Moore, right says, but also to endure spectacularly failing stagings. Failing in the sense that they distort or even pervert the intentions of the composer. Two example: a Meistersinger in Linz, last March. Musically not bad, decent, although not great singing, and the venerable satisfying Brucker Orchester Linz under Markus Poschner. But the staging. The action was situated in a young girl’s bedroom, teddybear and all. At later stages the action shifted to a kind of neon-lit barn, and then again to a cavernous pinball hall with 15 pinball machines on stage each with the name of great opera composer on it, and the singers busily working the machines. (it’s a singing context, remember). What always puzzles me is that no one in the run up to the premier, doesn’t pull the plug on such (expensive) nonsense.
Exhibit 2: Lulu in the Theater a.d. Wien, this June. This was a failure with more serious intentions. The director was a the Spanish dance choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas. True to her vocation, she wheeled out a whole company of dancers on stage that literally took over the action. The singers had to find their way in between the dancers. That included a contortionist who tied herself into knots throughout the opera. (maybe a symbol of the situation of the protagonists?) A friend of mine, who was unfamiliar with the opera, said afterwards that she didn’t have the faintest idea what the opera was about. Sadly, or fortunately, musically the performance was superb, both the singing and the orchestra. I closed my eyes at some point. Lulu doesn’t need much. The interactions are shocking enough by themselves and don’t need any amplification or embellishment. I conclude that in every season you are lucky when you have one or at most two performances where everything works and the magic of opera takes off and transports you to another world. (This year it was the Lohengrin in the Staatsoper - Nina Stemme, Camilla Nylund, Piotr Beczalas and Tomasz Konieczny, under the unexpectedly magnificent baton of Omer Meir Wellber. I have long reached the point that I prefer concertante to staged operas. I can better concentrate on the singing and the music, and it’s more affordable. But nothing beats the experience of a staged opera where everything comes together.
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