Oh Fortuna

Birmingham Royal Ballet - Carmina burana trailer from Birmingham Royal Ballet on Vimeo.

Birmingham Royal Ballet, Carmina Burana, Hippodrome, 20 June 2015

David Bintley comes from Honley which is almost next door to mine (see My Home and Bintley's 12 May 2015). It is not possible to grow up in this part of the world without coming across The Choral. It performs at least three series of concerts to full houses in Huddersfield Town Hall every year. In The Choral 19 Dec 2013 I reviewed one of its concerts and wrote:

"So what's all this got to do with ballet or even dance?" I hear you say. Well I did reserve the right to go off topic occasionally for an exceptional concert and this was certainly exceptional. And we dance in Huddersfield as well as sing (see "The Base Studios, Huddersfield"). We produced David Bintley of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. I don't know whether he had any connection with the Choral or even attended a concert but you can't live in this part of Yorkshire without knowing about it. The Choral must have been part of Bintley's cultural heritage."

I asked Bintley about his cultural influences when he addressed the London Ballet Circle last month and he confirmed that my suspicion was right. However, my suspicions would also have been confirmed by the performance of Carmina Burana at the Hippodrome on 20 June 2015 to celebrate Bintley's 20th anniversary as artistic director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the 25th anniversary of the company's move to Birmingham.

That was a very special evening which I have already described In Praise of Bintley on 21 June 2015. Two works were performed that day:  Bintley's latest ballet The King Dances, which I reviewed in A Special Ballet for a A Special Day 23 June 2015 and Carmina Burana the very first that he created after he was appointed artistic director of the company. I had come to see The King Dances but Carmina Burana was a treat. A multimedia spectacular. A feast as much for the ears as for the eyes. This was the first time I had seen the ballet and how and why I had missed it all those years is a mystery.

Carl Orff's score has always been popular, particularly O Fortuna. Bintley translated her into the Empress of the World, a blindfolded woman in black shift on high heels representing blind fortune. She danced alone completely oblivious to human merit and indeed the human condition. On 20 June 2015 she was danced brilliantly by Céline Gittens. I have seen quite a lot of that dancer this year and my admiration for her has grown in every performance. Incidentally, I was delighted to read about her promotion in the company. I offer my congratulations to her and the other dancers who have been promoted to the enormous number that she and they must already have received (see End of Season Announcements 29 June 2015).

In the Carmina Burana Orff set to music several secular poems about medieval life. Bintley created what are effectively 6 mini-ballets around each of those poems. O Fortuna was an encounter between lady luck (the Empress Fortuna) and seven seminarians. Spring celebrates the fertility of the earth but also of womankind. It is set in a maternity ward with women who are either about to give birth or who have given birth against a backdrop of drying sheets and nappies with the hapless father or naive body danced by Jamie Bond. The next scene is bucolic with village lads in their colourful jackets and the village lasses in their pony tails competing for the attention of Elisha Willis. The second seminarian, Matthias Dingman (who has also been promoted) in a boiling rage seeks solace in the tavern where he and five gluttons in fat suits are served Daria Stanciulescu in a tureen. Finally, the third seminarian, Tyrone Singleton, returns to Fortuna in the Court of Love where he is stripped to his underpants. One of the most effective and affecting endings to a ballet that I have ever seen.

But there are three other stars to this ballet: the designer Philip Prowse who designed the magnificent and spectacular sets and costumes, Philip Mumford for his lighting and the singers of Ex Cathedra. We in Huddersfield like to think that the Choral has a unique sound which you can best appreciate in the Dies Irae of Verdi's Requiem. Birmingham's magnificent choir Ex Cathedra came closer to that sound than any choir I have heard before or since.

Carmina Burana is of course 20 years old but to me it was as fresh and vibrant as if it had been created yesterday.

In Praise of Bintley

Yesterday was my first visit to the Hippodrome but it won't be the last

It seems only yesterday that I read in About the House or it may have been the Dancing Times that the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet would move to the Birmingham Hippodrome and be known as the "Birmingham Royal Ballet". I was bemused. As a Mancunian I have never had much time for Birmingham. "If they want to move out of London" I said to myself "there are far better cities. How about Manchester? The second city though we Mancunians say that honour actually belongs to London. Or if not Manchester another town with character, history and fine architecture with lovely countryside nearby. Edinburgh, perhaps, Bristol, Newcastle or even Liverpool which, despite a century of relative economic decline, still has the magnificent Pier Head as well as the Phil with its exquisite gents' loo. Mais pourquoi Birmingham!"

Although I have followed the Birmingham Royal Ballet ever since it was known as the touring company and never miss a season when it visits The Lowry I had never been to The Hippodrome before. I have been to opera houses  all over the world including The Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Sydney Opera House, the Semperoper in Dresden, Lincoln Center and, of course, Palais Garnier in Paris.  I had seen the Birmingham Royal Ballet on its trips to its old home at Sadler's Wells but it never occurred to me to visit the company in its new home until a year ago.

It was Ruth Brill who put me right. She gave a talk to the London Ballet Circle. She spoke about the Hippodrome and its audience and how they cherish the Birmingham Royal Ballet. I listen to her because I admire her dancing so. She is such fun. She loves to dance and she communicates her joy to her audience. So I made a mental note to see the Birmingham Royal Ballet in the Hippodrome one day.

That day arrived yesterday because it was the 25th anniversary of the company's move to Birmingham and the 20th anniversary of David Bintley's appointment as the company's artistic director. Earlier in the day I had been in Leeds watching the Northern Ballet in class and listening to a discussion on narrative ballet by a panel that included Christopher Hampson and Graham Watts (see Three into Two won't go 20 June 2015). Sadly I had to miss the choreographic sharing with new works  by Kenneth Tindall and Constant Vigier which I had expected to be (and Gita confirmed was) the best part of a very long day. But it was worth it for I would not have missed last night's show in Birmingham for the world.

The advertised performance was a double bill - The King Dances which I had discussed in my post of the 23 May 2015 and Carmina Burana which was Bintley's first work after his appointment as artistic director. I will review the performance of those works but not here because they each deserve a post of their own. The evening began with an unfamiliar overture which we learned was Prospero's theme. It is part of a new score by Sally Beamish for The Tempest and it had never been performed in public before. The curtain rose with Robert Parker standing by a lectern. "I wish I could say that that fanfare was for me" said Parker who flies aeroplanes as well as being artistic director of Elmhurst but it was for another. A photo of Bintley flashed on screen to thunderous applause. For the next few minutes Parker summarized Bintley's life and career with pictures of scenes from his ballets. The summary ended with a photo of the great man in Aston Villa's colours. Birmingham is where he has made his home and brought up his children, explained Parker, and it is where where he supports one of the city's great football teams.

There was a pause of a minute or so before the curtain rose on The King Dances and to say that that was special is an understatement.  It was one of the most enthralling performances I have ever experienced in the theatre. As I said above I will save the details of the review for another day but I don't think I have ever experienced anything more chilling than the images of hell conjured up in The Third Watch or anything more dazzling than the sight of William Bracewell glimmering in gold before the rising sun.

The evening continued with Carmina Burana and the company danced their hearts out. Although Bintley has made his home in Birmingham he comes from Honley which is almost the next village to mine (see My Home and Bintley's 22 May 2015). I long suspected that he had been influenced by the Choral. I actually asked about the artistic influences on his life when he visited the London Ballet Circle last month. Carmina Burana confirmed my suspicion for much of the glory of that ballet comes from the soaring voices to Orff's score.

After the curtain fell the crowd went wild. The applause was deafening. They yelled. They cheered.  They whooped. They clapped till their palms were sore. Several in the audience, including me, felt compelled to rise.  There was the usual reverence with its succession of curtain calls for the principals and then Michael Clarke, chair of the company's directors, walked on stage. He gestured to us to stop clapping. "That applause wasn't bad" he said "but the next round will be thunderous for I have found David Bintley," He beckoned Bintley onto the stage and the crowd erupted even louder than before. Bintley joined hands with the conductor and dancers and the applause exploded like a cannonade. Clarke told us that Peter Wright was in the audience. It was a very special moment.

I was a bit dazed after exiting the theatre. It is in the Chinese quarter of Birmingham which I think must be the fun part of town. There were crowds in the streets.  Everyone seemed to be having a great time. The Hippodrome is a lovely theatre. There are plenty of bars serving all kinds of refreshments. I ordered an espresso before the show and a very interesting soft drink consisting of squeezed apple juice and cinnamon for the interval and had plenty of change out of a fiver.  The seats were comfortable. The acoustics were good. The staff were courteous.  I found free street parking a few hundred yards from the theatre. Would you believe that they charge for parking on waste ground up to 22:00 in Leeds even on a Sunday. I can quite see why the Birmingham Royal Ballet made its home at the Hippodrome. Yesterday was my first visit to that theatre but it will certainly not be the last.

Three into Two won't go

You can't put a quart into a pint pot

Author John White
Reproduced under Creative Commons licence
Source Wikipedia

Today I shall watch Northern Ballet's company class and panel discussion on narrative ballet in Tell Tale Steps (see Tell Tale Steps - Choreographic Laboratory 13 June 2015) after which I will beetle down to the Hippodrome to see Birmingham Royal Ballet dance Bintley's double bill (The King Dances and Carmina Burana).

On any day but this I would have hoofed down to London to see English National Ballet's Choreographics at the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler's Wells or at least watched the live streaming on ArtStreamingTV at 14:15. There is a great programme with works by Fabian Reimair, James Streeter, Stina Quagebeur, Max Westwell, Morgann Runacre-Temple and Renato Paroni de Castro. I should particularly love to have seen de Castro's piece since Sarah Kundi is dancing in it with Vitor Menezes and Guilherme Menezes. Readers of this blog will know that Kundi is one of my favourite dancers and I have not seen her on stage since Coppelia in November (see Coppelia in Oxford 2 Nov 2014). I have seen a picture of her with the Vitor and Guilherme Menezes and she looks stunning. Graham Watts has written:

"Well done Sarah - lovely piece, beautifully danced,"

And he should know.

But if I were to watch that live screening I would miss Watts's contribution to the State of the Art Panel Discussion: Narrative Dance in Ballet which will take place between 13:15 and 15:00. Aside from a little pedagogic grumbling at the use of the term state of the art which is defined by s.2 (2) of the Patents Act 1977 as

"all matter (whether a product, a process, information about either, or anything else) which has at any time before the priority date of that invention been made available to the public (whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) by written or oral description, by use or in any other way"

in the wrong context (but who other than me would pick that up) I am really looking forward to that discussion because one of the panellists is Christopher Hampson who created Hansel and Gretel for Scottish Ballet which is one of the best new full length ballets I have seen recently (see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2013. You don't get such a line up of choreographic and critical expertise every day and certainly not every day in Leeds.

Sadly, I shall miss out on the choreographic sharing but Gita will cover it for me and I will get the chance to see it all on Northern Ballet's YouTube channel later. The sacrifice will be worthwhile to catch the last performance of The King Dances. Now this is a work of tremendous importance as I explained in my article of 23 May 2015. This is a special work to mark Bintley's 20th anniversary as Artistic Director. It may go on tour but then again it may not and I am not going to miss it.

I wish all the dancers in London, Leeds and Birmingham well. I shall be thinking of them all, particularly Kundi and the Menezes.  I wish I could see all three shows live but sadly you can't repeal the laws of physics. I will do the best I can and report back tomorrow.

The King Dances

Between the 17 and 20 June 2015 Birmingham Royal Ballet will dance David Bintley's latest ballet, The King Dances at the Birmingham Hippodrome. It will be part of a double bill to celebrate Bintley's 20 tears as the company's artistic director. The other ballet will be Carmina Burana which Bintley created in 1995.

According to the company's website:

"In 1653 the 14-year-old Louis XIV of France danced the role of Apollo the sun god in Le Ballet de la nuit, and earned himself forever the soubriquet the Sun King. In The King Dances, David Bintley re-imagines the very beginnings of ballet, when men were quite literally, the kings of dance."

The dance is also imagined in Gérard Corbiau's film Le Roi danse an extract of which appears above.

Le Ballet de la nuit was the subject of the 6th Annual Oxford Dance Symposium which took place at New College on 21 April 2004.  Papers of that symposium have been compiled and edited by Michael Burden and Jennifer Thorp and published under the title Ballet De La Nuit by Pendragon Press (see europeanbookstore.com).  The book appears to be out of print but the following abstracts can be viewed on New College's website:

• Elizabeth Woodrough  The passing of the hours - time, structure, rhythm and light in Benserade’s verses for the Ballet de la Nuit
• David Parrott Art, power and performance: Cardinal Mazarin and cultural patronage at the court of Louis XIV
• Catherine Massip  The musical context of La (sic) Ballet de la Nuit: Apollo ex machina in French Drama
• Lionel Sawkins Sources for the music of Le Ballet de la Nuit, and
• Jennifer Thorp Dance and Dancers in the Ballet de la Nuit.

Although Jennifer Thorp says in her abstract that no choreography from the actual Ballet de la Nuit survives we do know that its purpose was to impress. 

The image of the young Louis dressed in gold as Apollo rising through the stage was intended to be an allegory of the political and religious doctrine of the divine right of kings. To understand why it was asserted in 1653 it should be remembered that France's neighbour to the North was a republic or Commonwealth having executed its own king in 1649 and France was just emerging from its own civil wars known as the Frondes in which royal authority had been challenged by the commons (le fronde parlementaire) and nobility (le fronde des nobles). Because of its concentration of music, colour, drama and movement ballet has long been seen as an instrument of state power which perhaps explains why France acquired a royal ballet in 1689 - the year of the glorious revolution in England and Wales - while England had to wait under 1956 for the equivalent institution.

There was however another style of ballet in France known as the comédie-ballet which appears in several Molière plays. In Le Malade Imaginaire the hypochondriac Argan is admitted as a medical man in a song and dance routine to the following chorus of bad Latin and worse French:

"Vivat, vivat, vivat, vivat, cent fois vivat,

Novus doctor, qui tam bene parlat!

Mille, mille annis, et manget et bibat,

Et seignet et tuat!"*

Now that is something I would really like to see on stage. I wonder whether any choreographer will rise to the challenge.

* Long live, long live, long live, long live, 100 times long live the new doctor who speaks so well. May he eat and drink for a thousand, thousand years. May he prescribe and kill."