Ballet season got underway October 21-24 at the Academy of Music with a triple bill headlined by Bizet's "Carmen"-- the ballet version, with Roland Petit choreography.
The work is seldom seen in the U.S. If it were presented more often, the ballet audience would multiply.
"Carmen" is as cool a live production as you'd ever see. Everything about it, beginning with striking red letters on a curtained screen, screams "street." The working class characters in the first scene appear to be proto-punks, all cigarette smoking and attitude. Chief among them: gypsy Carmen, played in this production with ultra-sexiness by long-legged ballerina Riolama Lorenzo. Quickly she attracts elegant stooge Don Jose- the perfectly cast Sergio Torrado. The ballet's high point is at a nightclub, when Carmen and Don Jose dance together at lightning speed.
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There were two ballets on the undercard to fill out the program. The first, a stodgy Balanchine piece named "Concerto Barocco," could just as well be shelved. It comes off as a brightly lit studio practice piece, stilted and dead, meeting every preconceived stereotype non-ballet fans have of the art. It's done to music of Bach. I'm sure the work is fine for those already very cultured-- those 0.01% of the population-- but it's no way to attract a broader audience.
Much better was the second lead-in, Matthew Neenan's "Penumbra," featuring two couples and a lone stranger at the end of what seems to be a long evening. The piece was moody and sophisticated-- a perfect set-up for smoky and smoldering "Carmen."
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At the conclusion of "Carmen," at the performance I was at, the audience in the balcony was yelling "Bravo! Bravo!"; hooting and whistling. The presentation was worth it.
This an excellent review of the PA Ballet's Triple Bill with Carmen. I could not agree more that the first lead-in short ballet, Blanchine's Concerto Barocco is "stodgy" and fits every non-fan's idea of boring, frou-frou ballet. The only positive thing I could say is that the Bach music is beautiful, but you could go to other arts venues rather than the Ballet to experience a good production of Bach's music.
ReplyDeletePenumbra was incredible. I have now seen to Matthew Neenan ballet's, and both were wonderful. What Neenan can do to make an old dance medium seem like a new invention is amazing and his choice of sets and costumes fits very well with his athletic but graceful style.
Carmen was everything I expected and more. I certainly expected the sultriness and the seductiveness, the street scenes that basically thumbed their nose as what at the time was traditional in ballet, but their was some humor thrown in as well. The reviewer here states it perfectly when he says that if Carmen the Ballet were performed more often in the US, the art form would have more fans is not an understatement.
Thanks, 'Bhan!
ReplyDeleteNo problem, friend!
ReplyDeleteThe only positive thing I could say is that the Bach music is beautiful, but you could go to other arts venues rather than the Ballet to experience a good production of Bach's music.philly injury lawyer
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