Casanova Second Time Round

The Lowry

Photo Andrew Dunn
(c) 2004 Andrew Dunn: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2 Licence
Source Wikipedia

Northern Ballet, Casanova. The Lowry, 6 May 2017, 19:30

I was pretty complimentary about Kenneth Tindall's Casanova when it opened in Leeds on 11 March 2017 (see Casanova - "it has been a long time since I enjoyed a show by Northern Ballet as much as I enjoyed Casanova last night" 12 March 2017). I liked last night's show at the Lowry even better.

I think there are three reasons for that.

The first is that we had a very strong cast that included both of Northern Ballet's remaining premier dancers, Javier Torres and Pippa Moore as well as personal favourites like Hannah Bateman, Abigail Prudames, Antoinette Brooks-Daw and Mlindi Kulashe in important roles.

The second reason for last night's success is that the dancers will have grown used to their roles over the last two months and danced in the confidence that audiences around the country and most of the critics like the show.

Thirdly, I think the dancers were lifted by the venue. The Lowry is a great auditorium, certainly for audiences because seating is comfortable commanding good views of the stage from just about every part of the house, but I think also for performers as the stage is large and it is well equipped for scenery changes and special effects.

The company danced before a receptive crowd and though the house was less than full the warmth of the applause at the end when more than a few rose to their feet more than made up for it. Manchester audiences may be a little bit more critical than Leeds ones as they see Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and visiting companies from abroad such as the National Ballet of China and Alvin Ailey as well as Northern Ballet. If a show does well in the second largest conurbation of the United Kingdom it will probably do well anywhere. As the old saying goes, "what Manchester does today, the world does tomorrow."

As I have written a lot about Casanova already, I won't bore readers with a rehash of the plot or the work of the various contributors. They can get all that from Northern Ballet's website and the bibliography below. I will concentrate on the dancers and what made last night's performance even better than the first night.

As I noted above, we had a very strong cast. Giuliano Contadini was the poster boy of the show and deservedly so for he danced Casanova very well but Torres was cast perfectly for the role. Powerful, athletic and passionate, he was how I had always imagined the historical Giacomo Casanova. There is a point towards the end when he has to hold a very uncomfortable pose for what must seem like an age. That was when I appreciated just how good he was.

Another inspired bit of casting was Prudames as Bellino. One of the most touching scenes of the ballet - touching in both senses  - is where Contadini gradually winds her confidence. It was demonstrated at the preview with a commentary from Tindall by Contadini and Dreda Blow (see Casanova Unmasked 16 Feb 2017). Prudames made it work even better for she showed the vulnerability of her character and the sensitivity of their encounter given the disparity in power.

Yet another powerful performance came in the first act where MM (described in the blurb as "an aristocratic nun" and danced by Bateman) seduces Casanova thereby giving the inquisition the excuse they need to throw him into the Leads, the prison on the other side of the Bridge of Sighs.

Constraints of time and space prevent my commending everyone individually, All, dancers and musicians, did well last night.  I congratulate everyone who took part in the show.

As the orchestra pit of the Lowry is a bit more spacious than most I was able to glimpse the orchestra occasionally as it tackled Kerry Muzzey's score. Percussion is important particularly towards the end of the show and I was drawn to the percussionist seated on the back row of the pit as he sounded out the change of mood. Thr Northern Ballet Sinfonia was conducted by Daniel Parkinson last night who interpreted the music well. I am not sure that I appreciated the score as much as I did last night the first time round. Yesterday I particularly liked the first act where there were hints of the 18th century without pastiche.

I also appreciated the sets and lighting more and noticed things like the sort of white smoke that rises from the Sistine Chapel when a new pope is found which opened the show. I am not sure of its significance. I assume it was used in the Grand but, for the life of me, I just can't remember it.  It was, however, very effective owing moe than a little to the cinema which I know to be Tindall's passion (see "A Many Sided Genius, Tindall on Casanova 4 March 2017). Not everything worked quite so well. If, as I hope, this ballet has a second run, t I hope that Tindall takes another look at the flashback scene with its falling pages reminiscent of the snow scene at the end of Nixon's Wuthering Heights. A fine bit of choreography deserves a stronger and more original ending.

It was very good to see Northern Ballet west of the Pennines where the company began. As a Mancunian, I took pride in Northern Dance Theatre's existence long before I ever saw them dance. And when I did see them dance I saw them first in Manchester which is where they performed some of their best work. It would be good to see more of them in our city and there is no reason why they should not do so. After all, the Australian Ballet has a strong base in Sydney as well as Melbourne and the Miami City Ballet has homes in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach as well as Miami. As I have said many times, the company is called Northern Ballet, not Leeds City or even Yorkshire Ballet. If Birmingham Royal Ballet can manage two seasons a year in our city region I see no reason why Northern Ballet could nit do the same if it really wanted to do so.

Bibliography: Reviews and Insights

20 April	Louise Levene	Casanova, Milton Keynes Theatre, UK — a blur of conquests	Financial Times
19 April	Bruce Marriott	Northern Ballet – Casanova – Leeds	Dance Tabs
7 April	Judith Mackrell	Casanova review – too much plot, not enough passion for Northern Ballet's limp lothario	The Guardian
12 March	Mark Brown	Casanova is an impressive and exhilarating evening's ballet – review	Daily Telegraph
12 March	Jane Lambert	Casanova - "it has been a long time since I enjoyed a show by Northern Ballet as much as I enjoyed Casanova last night"	Terpsichore
4 March	Jane Lambert	"A Many Sided Genius" - Tindall on Casanova	Terpsichore
16 Feb	Jane Lambert	Casanova Unmasked	Terpsichore
24 May 2016	Jane Lambert	Casanova	Terpsichore

My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet

Photo Marie-Lan Nguyen
Source Wikipedia

Before I left for Birmingham I listened to a panel discussion advertised as a State of the Art Panel Discussion: Narrative Dance in Ballet. It took place in the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre between 13:15 and 15:00 on 20 June. The panel was chaired by Mike Dixon and consisted of the critics Mary Brennan, Louise Levene and Graham Watts, Christopher Hampson, the artistic director of Scottish Ballet and dancers Tobias Batley and Dreda Blow.

Northern Ballet's artistic director, David Nixon, introduced the session by explaining that this discussion was part of the Tell Tale Steps programme the purpose of which was research. He described the work that had been carried out by Kenneth Tindall, Ludovic Ondiviela, Constant Vigier and Andrew McNicol as a "laboratory" and not a workshop. The crucial difference, he explained, is that a workshop is for creating things whereas a laboratory is where experiments take place.

It all sounded very exciting and I awaited inspiration and erudition with bated breath. Although it was a very interesting discussion that did not exactly happen.  I certainly didn't learn anything I did not already know or could not easily have looked up on Google. If that was the case for me it must have been even more true for Nixon and the other dance makers and dance artists who attended.

The problem was that the panel was too large and their experience was too diverse.  Each of the speakers spoke about his or her personal experience. The critics spoke about the criteria for judging a ballet. Hampson spoke about how he creates a ballet which is very personal. Batley spoke about his reading before works starts on a new ballet and produced his copy of The Great Gatsby bristling with post it notes. He gave an example of how he considered a sentence in the novel about his character's smile and tried to incorporate it into his performance. Blow spoke about the ballet that she had created for children.

To me the discussion was unfocussed.  Maybe because I am a lawyer I would have appreciated some definitions. The title of the discussion was "Narrative Dance in Ballet" but what exactly did the panellists mean by "narrative dance"? Something with a plot like Sleeping Beauty? But that would exclude an awful lot of ballets like Les Sylphides which has characters like sylphs and a poet and indeed tells a story but does not have a plot as such. On the other there are some ballets like Giselle where the plot is best forgotten. Others like The Nutcracker where the plot is tenuous at best. I was bursting to ask that question from very early in the discussion but I did not get my opportunity until the very end.  In fact, only Gita and I managed to get a word in edgeways.

There were topics that I really wish the panel could have developed. Brennan mentioned the work of Peter Darrell who was artistic director of Western Theatre Ballet when it moved to Glasgow. Another panellist mentioned all the versions of Cinderella that had been produced lately including Hampson's and wondered whether there was a trend. Yet another discussed how technology enabled dance makers to explore topics that could not have been addressed before. Anther opined that it was impossible to choreograph ballets to Beethoven. I could have contributed to all those discussions.

The topic I most wanted to discuss was Darrell. I was at St Andrews when Western Theatre Ballet moved to Glasgow and one of our professors was John Steer who later chaired the company. Scottish Theatre Ballet (as the company called itself after the move) was the first company that I got to know and love. That was because Darrell had ignited my love of ballet. I met him once and got to know some of his dancers better. I am still a Friend of Scottish Ballet and I greatly admire the work of Hampson, his successor. Some of the things that were said about Darrell, his work and legacy did not sound quite right,

Although the panel discussed Cinderella, nobody mentioned Darius James's version for Ballet Cymru which I saw last week and is the very best version of the story I have seen to date (see Ballet Cymru's Cinderella 15 June 2015). They spoke about Ashton's, Ratmansly's, "Christopher's" (I am not sure whether they were referring to Wheeldon or Hampson) but not the gem that has recently been touring the nation.

On the use of technology and whether it increases the dance maker's range I wanted to sound a note of caution.  The use of film to represent flashbacks was not new. I had seen MacMillan's Anastasia and modern choreographers should treat such technologies with circumspection.

As to whether Beethoven can be choreographed, nobody mentioned Ashton's magnificent Creatures of Prometheus to the Eroica symphony which marked the bicentenary of the composer's birth.

I had hoped to introduce myself to Hampson and Watts but the panellists were whisked away to the boardroom after the discussion.  Gita buttonholed Brennan for a while and she seemed to want to talk but even Brennan was eventually RKO'd from the profanum vulgus by a minder. I think that was a big mistake (huge) on the part of the organizers. The folk who gave up their Saturday afternoons to attend the seminars are the ones who keep the ballerinas in pointe shoes, whether as theatre goers, taxpayers, Friends of the company or in many cases all three and we have ideas, views and experiences to contribute that could be useful.