MacMillan - A National Celebration

Tulsa Ballet, Elite Syncopations, Standard YouTube Licence


Sir Kenneth MacMillan died on 29 Oct 1992 (see the biographical notes on the Kenneth Macmillan website). To commemorate the 25th anniversary of his death, dancers from the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Northern Ballet and the Yorke Dance Project will come together on the stages of the Royal Opera House to celebrate MacMillan’s extraordinary legacy (see Kenneth MacMillan: a National Celebration on the  Royal Opera House website.

On 18 and 19 Oct 2017, dancers from the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Northern Ballet will dance Elite Syncopations which the Kenneth MacMillan website describes as MacMillan at his most playful (see Elite Syncopations on the Kenneth MacMillan website). Extracts from the ballet performed by the Tulsa Ballet appear in the video above. Birmingham Royal Ballet will dance Concerto and Scottish Ballet Le Baiser de la Fée  (see Concerto, Le Baiser de la fée and Elite Syncopations on the Royal Opera House's website and Scottish Ballet dances Stravinsky on Scottish Ballet's). Readers may remember my article on the reconstruction of an extract from Le Baiser de la Fée in Pavlova's drawing room (see A Minor Miracle - Bringing Le Baiser de la fée back to Life 2 June 2014),

On 24 Oct and 1 Nov 2017 dancers from the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet will dance The Judas Tree and Das Lied von der Erde (see The Judas Tree and The Song of the Earth on the Royal Opera House website).  The Royal Ballet will dance The Judas Tree again on 26 and 27 Oct 2017 while Northern Ballet will dance Gloria and dancers from the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Northern Ballet will perform Elite Syncopations (see Gloria, The Judas Tree and Elite Syncopations on the Royal Opera House website).

The Royal Ballet will dance Jeux. a short ballet by Wayne Eagling inspired by MacMillan's recreation of Nijinsky's work at the Clore Studio Upstairs on the 18, 18 and 24 Oct 2017 (see Jeux on the Royal Opera House website).

Also in the Clore Studio Upstairs, dancers from the Yorke Dance Project will dance A Sea of Troubles on 26 and 27 Oct and 1 Nov 2017 (see Sea of Troubles on the Royal Opera House website).

As I noted in What can possibly follow Tindall? Nothing less than MacMillan 13 March 2017, Northern Ballet plans its own tribute to MacMillan by dancing Concerto, Las Hermanas and Gloria in Bradford between 5 and 7 Ocr 2017. The company will also dance that programme in Leeds on 16 and 17 March 2018 (see A Celebration of Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Master Choreographer  on the Northern Ballet website),

Vaut le Voyage - Birmingham Royal Ballet in Shrewsbury

Theatre Severn Shrewsbury

Photo Jane Lambert
All rights reserved

Birmingham Royal Ballet, Les Rendezvous, Kin and Elite Syncopations, Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury 27 May 2015

Last Wednesday I went to York to see Birmingham Royal Ballet's triple bill (see Birmingham Royal Ballet in York 21 May 2015). I had expected to see Ashton's Les Rendezvous, MacMillan's Elite Syncopations and Kin a new ballet by Alexander Whitley. I saw Les Rendezvous and Elite Syncopations but, sadly, not Kin because Delia Mathews who was due to dance the leading female role in that ballet had sustained an injury in Les Rendezvous and it was not possible to stage the work without her. As it was Kin that I had most wanted to see I resolved to see the work in another theatre at another time.

I caught up with the company last night at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury which is one of the most beautiful theatres I have ever seen.  Only the Festival Theatre at Pitlochry beats it in my humble opinion and that is only because I prefer hills to towns.  It is right up there with the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, the Lowry, the Liverpool Playhouse, the Stephen Joseph in Scarborough and Covent Garden in my pantheon of favourite venues. As you can see from the photo it is built on the banks of the River Severn. It is a very new building with every modern facility for the performers and audience.  I explored it before and after the show and found a main auditorium on three levels, a second, smaller auditorium, a restaurant area and several bars.  It is next door to a massive car park the use of which the council (like metropolitan Westminster and Camden but unlike provincial York and Leeds) does not charge after 18:00.  The glass panels which you can see in the picture command awesome views of the town.  As I booked late I had to choose between side or back seats in the stalls and circle or front and centre seats in the upper circle. I chose the latter as I have good eyesight and I found it afforded a magnificent view of the stage but (unlike the amphitheatre in the House) it was still close enough to make out the dancers' features and the expressions on their faces.

Kin was well worth the 200 mile return journey which took three hours each way. It began with a low, almost inaudible, hum like an electric motor which I think must have been a cello as the curtain began slowly to rise. The stage was dimly lit and I could just about make out a solitary female dancer dressed in black. As she began to move I think I recognized Yijing Zhang. She then danced the most beautiful solo. Had it been poetry of words rather than dance I would have described as elegiac. The other dancers entered also in black. The music changed to a persistent throbbing. I wrote a lot of notes on my cast list not all of which I can decipher now as I had to scribble in the dark. I can just about make out "gyrations" and "chaînés".  I remember the most hauntingly beautiful pas de deux by Yijing Zhang and William Bracewell. I also remember some great turns by the males towards the end. This morning, I can also make out the noun "virtuosity."

I apologize for the superficiality of this description but yesterday was the first time I had seen a very beautiful, multi-layered work which I think will require more than one viewing to appreciate properly. Marion Tait referred to the work's beauty when she had to announce its cancellation last week. I seem to remember that she also used the adjective "special". If she did she was right. The music was by Phil Kline and I think this was the first time I had heard his work. It is not a pretty score but it sets the mood perfectly and it allowed plenty of scope for interpretation. The set (very plain with just two features) and the austere black costumes were by Jean-Marc Puissant. The lighting which cleverly matched the atmospheric score was by Peter Teigen. Whitley assembled those elements ingeniously.

As I had arrived at York last week flustered because my satnav had led my companion on a circuitous tour of the city's traffic jams before I decided to ditch it and follow my memory, bothered because I had no small change for the meter and I couldn't find my phone and uncomfortable because I had to run in heels from Clifford's Tower to the Grand Opera House and then had to run a gauntlet of glares as I scurried to my seat as the house lights dimmed I didn't take Les Rendezvous in properly. My recollection of the performance was of course marred by Mathews's slip though I barely noticed it at the time because she was back on her feet instantly. This time I savoured the ballet like a fine Mondavi wine. I followed its patterns and its intricacies. I see that I wrote the words "Rubik's cube" on my cast list. I marvelled at the choreography though my heart missed a beat as the orchestra played the bit where Mathews fell. It is not an easy piece to perform as it was created for Markova and Idzikowsky and it is associated in my mind with Fonteyn and Helpmann. Yesterday the woman in yellow was danced by Yijing Zhang and the woman in mauve (I am referring to the colour of the spots on their dresses) by Elisha Willis. Both were lovely. Brandon Lawrence was also there and he stood out again as he did last week. The role that Lawrence danced in York, however, was danced by Bracewell and he was also magnificent.

I also relished seeing Elite Syncopations again. It may be because I was in the gallery but the stage in Shrewsbury seemed bigger than the one in York. Certainly the dancers seemed to more more fluently and the orchestra looked more comfortable. The show was as delightful as ever with all my favourite bits. Arancha Baselga, Samara Downs and Yijing Zhang danced The Cascades, Downs her sexy, sultry Calliope Rag, Baselga and Fergus Campbell The Golden Hours and Yvette Knight a delightful Stoptime Rag, Yijing Zhang and Tzu-Chao Chou were hilarious in The Alaskan Rag. Lawrence and Knight were magnificent in the Bethena Concert Waltz. Once again Chi Cao thrilled us with his jumps. It was over far too soon. The crowd loved it. We clapped and cheered until our hands were sore and our throats were sore.

As I had a long journey back to Yorkshire I lingered for a while. There was an exhibition of drawings and water colours of landscapes of South Shropshire. I picked up a leaflet which I now find is a flyer for a firm of solicitors offering such services as business crime, debt recovery and family matters so I can tell you nothing about the artist. I know and love that part of the county for I spent the first few months of my life at Much Wenlock in a cottage miles from anywhere without gas, electricity and running water. I might have been a Salopian like Houseman - except that he was  born in Worcestershire despite the title of his best known work. I owe the happy accident of being born in the greatest city in the nation. Bintley as a Northerner should know that the second city is London and not Birmingham as he claims in the programme. My mother insisted on returning to Manchester because there was no way she was giving birth in that cottage.

I may have made my first and so far only appearance in the movies in Much Wenlock. The town was the location for the shooting of Gone to Earth with Jennifer Jones in the leading role. Everyone in the town was recruited as extras. I once saw the film on telly and there is a shot of a baby in a pram. Of course, I have no personal recollection but my mother told me that she received a visit from her brother who had motored down from Bramhope for the day. My uncle was bemused by the town in Victorian dress. His first words to my mother were:

"Eeeh lass! Why have you come to live here? I had heard they were a bit backward in these parts but I didn't think they were that far behind the times."

If any of my readers has not yet seen Shropshire with the Wrekin and Long Mynd he or she should do so because it is one of the loveliest counties in the whole United Kingdom. "England! thy beauties are tame and domestic" did you say? The poet would not have said that had he visited Shropshire.

All of which is a digression. Birmingham Royal Ballet were as good as ever. I look forward to catching the southern tour in High Wycombe on Saturday and The King Dances in Birmingham on 20 June 2015.

Birmingham Royal Ballet in York

Grand Opera House, York, 20 May 2015

This month the Birmingham Royal Ballet split in two. One part is touring York, Nottingham, Durham and Shrewsbury ("the Northern tour"). The other Truro, Poole, Cheltenham and High Wycombe ("the Southern tour"). The Northern tour is dancing Les Rendezvous, Kin and Elite Syncopations which I believe the Southern tour danced last year. I caught the Northern tour at the Grand Opera House in York yesterday.

I had been to the Grand Opera House once before. My late spouse and I celebrated our silver wedding anniversary by watching the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School gala there on the 29 July 2007. I remember that evening for all sorts of reasons. I had already started a course of endocrinology that was already changing my appearance. I was about to change my name and dress under clinical supervision which was likely to add all sorts of complexities to our marriage. My late spouse was already tiring and faltering for no apparent reason. Symptoms of an illness that was eventually diagnosed as motor neurone disease. It was a lovely evening which we knew would be our last as a conventional couple. We had intended to continue celebrating the anniversary come even after I had changed my name and status. What we did not know was that it would be our last anniversary celebration ever.

I did not keep this blog in 2007 but I have located a review of the gala by Charles Hutchinson which appeared in The Press on 31 July 2007. It was the first time I saw Xander and Demelza Parish and they stick in my memory because their performance in Christopher Hampson's Echoes was outstanding. I expected them both to go far but I did not expect that the next time I would see Xander would be in the title role of Romeo and Juliet with the Mariinsky at Covent Garden (see Reet Gradely: Romeo and Juliet, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House 29 July 2014 31 July 2014). There were many other stars that night such as Warne Sleep, Lauren Cuthbertson, Marianella Núñez, Samara Downs and of course Marguerite Porter.  It was altogether a wonderful evening.

I saw the delightful Downs again last night dancing the Calliope rag sexily and sultrily in Kenneth MacMillan's Elite Syncopations. We had also expected to see her in Alexander Whitley's Kin but sadly that was not to be. Towards the end of the first and as it happened only interval Marion Tait squeezed through the curtains and welcomed us to the show. "If only that was all I had to say", she continued, but alas we learned that Delia Mathews had sustained an injury in Les Rendezvous and had to be rushed to hospital. As she was to be the lead female dancer in Kin it could not be performed without her. So the stage had to be set for Elite Syncopations which Tait said that she knew we would enjoy.

Had such an announcement been made at a rock concert, football match or some other entertainment the audience would have taken it badly but ballet is different. We know that every performance is subject to the artist's availability, that injury is a constant worry for dancers and that sometimes there have to be cast changes or even cancellations. Throughout the auditorium there was a surge of sympathy for Mathews. Ballet is like a family even for the audience and everyone was concerned for her as we would be concerned for a family member. We couldn't help noticing the incident which came towards the end of the ballet but it was over in a trice. Brave lady and pro that she is, she picked herself up in a trice and continued to dance gracefully off stage even though she must have been in considerable pain. Although Tait said the injury was serious I was relieved to learn from a manager that it was muscular and there was no damage to a tendon. There is every hope that she will make a full recovery. Like everyone who was in the theatre I send her my love and wish her well.

While the evening was shorter than I had expected it was every bit as good as I had hoped for. Ahston's Les Rendezvous to Auber's music as arranged and orchestrated by Constant Lambert was delightful. Sadly no programmes were on sale last night because someone had sent the wrong ones to York but I had seen the ballet before and knew that it was one of Ashton's first works. According to Wikipedia it was first performed by the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1933. The costumes and the backdrop had a period feel and I thought they must have been the original designs until I read that they had been created by Anthony Ward. I loved the women's dresses with large polka dots and the men's blazers in different colours. Quite like the Stewards enclosure at Henley. Mathews danced beautifully in Les Rendezvous as indeed did everyone. But if I have to single out anyone it has to be Brandon Lawrence, a Bradford lad who clearly relished his return to God's own county. He danced proudly and magisterially. There was no doubt that he was glad to be back on home turf.

Though they must have been concerned for their colleague the dancers and orchestra gave Elite Syncopations their all. For those who have not seen it,this ballet was created by Kenneth MacMillan a few years after he had succeeded Ashton as principal choreographer at Covent Garden. The music is by Scott Joplin and it is delivered by the musicians on stage. Each of the dancers does a turn. I have already mentioned Downs's Calliope which everyone loved but there were more delights: Reiina Fuchigami and Oliver Till in The Golden Hours, Yvette Knight's Stoptime Rag, James Barton and Yijing Zhang in The Alaskan Rag, Chi Cao's exuberant Friday Night and the whole cast's joyful entry and exit.

Like the 2007 gala I shall remember yesterday as an evening of great ballet. The company had a good audience. There was thunderous applause at the end including some serious amphitheatre style whooping from a gent in one of the rows behind me. York has an opera house that is grand in more than name only.