A World-Class Company for a Changing Nation

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Ballet Cymru Rome a Juliet 31 May 2019 Riverfront Theatre, Newport

This is the third time I have seen Darius James and Amy Doughty's Romeo a Juliet and each time I see it I have found something new. Last night I saw two exceptional talents: Danila Marzilli, one of the finalists in the ballet category of the BBC Young Dancer of 2019, for the first time; and Beau Dillen whom I had seen two months earlier in Made in Wales. Marzilli danced Juliet in the second professional performance of her life (the first being the previous night) and Dillen the nurse, standing in for Krystal Lowe at the very last moment.

To give a young dancer straight out of ballet school the leading role is an incredibly risky thing to do both for the dancer and the company. James and Doughty did that once before with Gwenllian Davies the last time I saw Romeo a Juliet and it worked spectacularly well (see A Romeo and Juliet for Our Times 7 Nov 2016). It also worked last night with Mazilli. Mazilli is very accomplished technically but she can also act. The despair in the bedroom was palpable after Romeo had taken flight and her parents, grief-stricken with the loss of Tybalt, were piling on the pressure for her to marry Paris. So, too, was the fear as she considered whether to take Friar Larence's potion.  So, also, was the agony of finding Romeo's body in the Capulet family grave.  These and all the other thoughts and feelings fleeting through young Juliet's consciousness were communicated with considerable eloquence.

In most versions of Rome and Juliet and, of course, the play the nurse is much older than Juliet and her social inferior.  In James and Doughty she is a confidante.  In previous performances by this company, she has been called Cerys.  In last night's show, she was referred to simply as "Juliet's friend." As such, she adds a dynamic to the narrative that actually enhances Shakespeare.  She recognizes Romeo at her parents' ball and tries to lead Juliet away.  She tries to intercede with Juliet as she rejects Paris. It is she who finds Juliet stone cold the morning of her wedding. This is a role that requires maturity and authority which is why it is usually performed by one of the company's most experienced dancers. Dillen is the company's apprentice yet she filled that role magnificently.

Romeo was danced by Andrea Maria Battagia who performed that role the last time I saw the ballet.  He is everything a male lead should be.  A virtuoso who thrills with his solos but nevertheless displays his ballerina like the setting of a precious jewel so that she dazzles.  I think we owe a lot to Battagia for the way he partnered Mazilli last night, much as he did with Davies in 2016. Battagia can also act.  For the first time ever I saw Romeo as a flawed hero. Possibly because he despatched Tybalt and Paris with plebian knives rather than gentlemen's swords.  A whiff of brexit Britain rather than renaissance Verona.

That brings me on to another quality of James and Doughty's work. It is set in our time and our country.  The first time I saw the work I noted Tybalt's dragon tattoo and the substitution of Cerys as a confidante of Juliet in place of the nurse (see They're not from Chigwell - they're from a small Welsh Town called Newport 14 May 2013).  Instead of a duke, the brawl between the Capulets and the Montagues is broken up by the flashing lights and shadowy figures of the Gwent Constabulary. The knifings of Mercutio and Tybalt took place not in the Piazza of Verona but underneath the flyover of the exit lane from the bridge over the Usk.   I recognized the setting in the projections against the backdrop. Again there were the flashing lights of the Heddlu.

Talking of Tybalt it is always a delight to watch Robbie Moorcroft swagger on stage. Our hearts go out for Miguel Fernandes as Mercutio, the cub of the Montague pack with something to prove. Romeo tried to hold him back but too late.  He takes on the wily Tybalt who knifes him.  His bravado after his first wound is one of the most heart-rending scenes of classical dance. The second knifing turns Romeo and Juliet from a saccharine romance into drama. Romeo has to get involved.  He then has to go on the run. There is no way this story could end otherwise than badly.

Lord and Lady Capulet danced by two of my favourite dancers, Alex Hallas and Beth Meadway, added yet another quality to the work. Other productions show a tearful, vengeful Lady Capulet but her husband's role is usually minor.  Not in James and Doughty's work. They are sleek, powerful, authoritarian - and Northern. It just so happens they are both from Yorkshire. I could almost hear them:

"Now listen up, our kid. There's nowt wrong with Paris. You could do a lot worse than wed him. I know he's not much to look at but he's got brass and he's not wanted by the law. Not like that Romeo Montague. Ooh, I do hope they catch him, lock him up and throw away the key. How could you even look at him after what he did to Tybalt?"

And with her friend joining in, is it any wonder that Juliet buried her face in a pillow before quaffing Friar Lawrence's potion and eventually killing herself?

Everyone in this show danced well.  Joshua Feist was a perfect Paris, another recent recruit whose career I shall follow with interest. Isobel Holland was an impressive Friar Lawrence. Much closer to Shakespeare than the manipulative cleric in Jean-Christophe Maillot's version of the ballet. Maria Teresa Brunello was a convincing Benvolio.  Not easy to dance a role of the opposite gender.  Holland and Brunello are to be congratulated for that alone.   Especially as there are some in ballet who would not countenance it.   I recently met a teacher and choreographer who was scandalized by my learning to dance the bronze idol in an adult ballet intensive.

James and Doughty have big plans for their company.  They are touring China soon where I am sure they will be admired.   They hope to employ their dancers on full-term rather than short-term contracts.  Ballet Cymru reminds me a lot of Scottish Ballet when they first moved to Glasgow 50 years ago.

Like Scotland in the 1970s, Wales is changing fast.  I sense a growing sense of nationhood.  The National Assembly now makes primary legislation.  The Supreme Court already sits in Cardiff and there are calls even from Unionists for a separate Welsh court system.   Until a few years ago the economy of the North was largely rural and that of the South was not unlike that of the American rust belt.  The economy is changing rapidly into one that is knowledge-based.   I see signs of that transformation every time I visit M-Sparc, Aber Innovation or the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre.  The entrepreneurs, innovators and creative folk who are driving that change need the arts and expect the best.  They demand world-class dance and Ballet Cymru is delivering it to them.

Ballet West's Best Show Ever

Ballet West The Nutcracker McRobert Centre, Stirling 2 Feb 2019 19:30

Ballet West is a ballet school on the outskirts of a little village not far from Oban.  Every winter it tours Scotland with a full-length ballet to give its students stage experience.   This year it offers a new production of The Nutcracker.   I have been following Ballet West for nearly 6 years and I have seen at least one performance of every show that it has taken on tour.  I  say without hesitation that this is the company's best show yet.  I add that I don't think I have ever enjoyed a performance of The Nutcracker as much as tonight's.

The production is an original interpretation of Hoffmann's tale of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King that nevertheless remains true to the story.  The Stahlbaums' house is set by a lake in the country rather than in a town in Germany. Some nifty computer-generated graphics take the audience inside where we see falling snow through the windows. There Mr and Mrs Stahlbam (Alex Hallas and Hannah Tokely) with their children Clara (Michaela Fairon) and Fitz (Luciano Ghidoli) receive their guests who include Ballet Cymru's Miguel Fernandes. The most important guest is, of course, the conjurer, Drosselmeyer, danced impressively by second year student, Rahul Pradeed.  I noticed that young man for the first time last year and I am convinced he is going places.  Another impressive character dancer was the grandmother, Lauren Pountney-Barnes.  She grabbed Fritz by the ear, patted Clara on the head before performing a spirited solo before the guests and collapsing in a heap. A small role, maybe, but an important one that has been performed by the likes of Marion Tait and Hannah Bateman in other productions.

A detail of a previous version of The Nutcracker which seems to be unique to Ballet Weast is the furtive dram taken by the servants after the Stahlbaums have taken to their beds.  I was delighted to see that Daniel Job, who has staged this work, has retained that detail in the new production.  They assemble around the butler glass in hand. Like traffic drill, they look to the left, then to the right and even to the ceiling before downing their bevvy.  I don't know why because that scene could occur anywhere but it just seems so Scottish - like the children dancing around their patents as in an eightsome reel.  Yet another fragment of the former production that has been preserved.

It is in the fight scenes of act I that the computer-generated graphics come into their own. Toy soldiers descend from the sky by parachute.  An intrusive rodent with the word "PRESS" on its back takes photos of a dying murine. The artist who designed those graphics is a genius.  I wonder how long it will take for Sir Matthew Bourne or someone like him to snap up that animator.  "Never," said the director with the force of the late Sir Ian Paisley, "we're keeping him" and I fervently hope they do.

The first act concluded with a delightful pas de deux by Hallas who had morphed from Clara's dad into the snow king and Natasha Watson, his queen.  The recording that Ballet West used for their show made better use of the choir than in most productions. The voices seemed to linger to the very end of the snow scene which I appreciated.  I left the auditorium at the interval grinning like a Cheshire cat. The director and Mr Job could see from my face how much I had enjoyed that act.

The kingdom of the sweets is very saccharine with representations of lollies and bonbons in most productions.  However, "sweet" can have a figurative meaning and it was the figurative meaning that the designer seems to have had in mind for this work. The backdrop was more Far Pavilions or Shangrila than Willy Wonka or the witch's hut in Hansel and Gretel.  The usual divertissements - the Spanish, Arabian and Chinese dances representing chocolate and tea followed by Cossacks, mirlitons and flowers - were performed with verve.  There were also new divertissements that gave Sara-Maria Barton's associates a chance to shine. One divertissement was performed by some very young kids but they were kids who knew how to hold an audience.   Three, in particular, dazzled us with their acrobatics.  In previous productions, there had been a scene for kids called "Mother Ginger".  She has been dropped from this version and I doubt that the show has suffered from her absence in the least.

The highpoint of the ballet is the pas de deux by the sugar plum fairy and her cavalier.  It is the bit that audiences remember and it is the yardstick by which some print critics seem to rate a Nutcracker.  Those roles were performed by Lucy Malin, another student who impressed me last year. and Maxine Quiroga. They were magnificent. They were exciting to watch. They justified my trip to Scotland.  Those folks are seriously good. They deserve to go far.

This is a short season and the students never stray furth of Scotland.  If you want to see them - and if I were looking for dancers I would want to see them for they consistently win medals at the Genée and other competitions - you have to travel.  London may be a Weltstadt and its ballet schools are good but they have no monopoly of excellence.

Ballet Cymru's Cinderella Second Time Round

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Ballet Cymru Cinderella Waterside Arts Centre, Sale 2 June 2018, 19:30

I expected great things from Wales's national ballet company (see Ballet Cymru 2018 Summer Tour 21 April 2018). I was not disappointed. Cinderella is the best work in Ballet Cymru's repertoire and their Cinderella is (in my humble, northern, rustic opinion) pretty well the best anywhere. But then what do I know? After all, I have only seen Ashton's, Bintley's, Bourne's, Gable's, Hampson's, Nixon's, Ratmansky's, Wheeldon's and probably one or two others that I have forgotten. While I love nearly all those other works, Darius James and Amy Doughty's is the one I love best.

There are four reasons why I love James and Doughty's version so much. The first is that it is very pure.  The libretto sticks closely to Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's story which is actually quite short and very tight. So, too, is the ballet.  As I noted in Ballet Cymru's Cinderella 15 June 2015:

"This is a very tight production that adapts well to touring with ingenious costume and stage design and lighting. It is dramatic and poignant in parts but also witty. It is exactly the right length. It tells the story in full but does not drag for a second. It makes maximum use of the company's small but very talented troupe of dancers."

That brings me on to the second reason why that ballet is so good which is that James and Doughty give every character his or her moment in the spotlight. Let me give just one example.  In the first act Cas (Cinderella's stepbrother) spins Seren (her stepsister) spectacularly around the stage. Those names lead me to the fourth point. The ballet is very Welsh by which I mean that it is free of frippery and frivolity like a Calvinist chapel but, like the singing that might emanate from such chapel, emotionally very strong.  And most Welsh of all (the fourth reason why I love this ballet) is Jack White's simple, moving, beautiful score.

There have been a few changes to the production since 2015. The company relies heavily on its lighting design to set the scene and there seem to have been some new projections. There seem to be fewer voice overs from the Grimms' text. The ballet opens with the words:

"Dear child, remain pious and good, and then our dear God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you."

But I can't remember any others which is a shame because I think they were useful cues for the audience in the performance that I saw in Lincoln. I think there may have been some minor changes to the libretto. I remember a chair in which Cinderella's mother died which seems to have disappeared but I do not remember a bike for Prince Madoc or his chum Maldwyn which seems to have added this time.

The biggest change of all, of course, is in the dancers who have joined the company.  Beth Meadway was an enchanting Cinders. Before the show I noted on Facebook that she comes from Hull, the city of Xander Parish and Kevin O'Hare. Xander picked it up and reacted with a "like". Well, all I can say is that they would both have been proud of their fellow codhead.  Another dancer who impressed Gita, in particular, was Eka Mastrangelo. Gita, who has studied Indian dance as well as ballet, noticed how Eka moved. "She must have studied Bharatanatyam" remarked Gita during the interval.  And so it transpired when we met the cast briefly after the show. Eka also confirmed that she worked with her eyes which help to tell the story in Indian dance. Gita also had a fair old chinwag with Alex Hallas who comes from Baildon near Bradford, another city that has produced more top class dancers.  I congratulated Isobel Holland who doubled as Cinderella's dying mum and the bird that looked after her and Maria Teresa Brunello who danced Seren.

It was good also to see again the dancers we already knew: Robbie Moorcroft who danced Prince Madoc, Miguel Fernandes who danced Maldwyn and Dan Morrison who danced Cinderella's father.

Much as I love this ballet there is one aspect that saddens me deeply.  The last time I saw it was a  rehearsal of the second act that the company performed in its studio for the members of the London Ballet Circle (see Ballet Cymru at Home 5 Oct 2015).  Maldwyn was danced by Mandev Sokhi who died a few days later.  Mandev was a beautiful dancer. What was particularly poignant last night is that he had connections with Cheshire. He certainly trained there - possibly at the Hammond.  In Remembering Mandev Sokhi 27 Nov 2015 I wrote:

"Mandev will be remembered tonight far beyond Newport and indeed well beyond Wales for he danced wth Ballet Cymru in every part of the United Kingdom."

I suggested two practical ways of remembering him one of which was to attend an even that has now passed. The other is still available and that is to become a Friend of the company.  Ballet Cymru is a national treasure not just of Wales but of the whole United Kingdom and we owe it to ourselves to help it grow and flourish.

If you you live in Northwest England and missed the show last night you can still catch it tonight in Preston, Otherwise you will have to travel.  But like a restaurant in the Guide Rouge with three rosettes, this show is well worth the journey.

"A Most Rare Vision ...... A Dream"

Ballet Cymru A Midsummer Night's Dream 7 June 2017  19:30

Yesterday I had to make a tough choice between two ballet's derived from A Midsummer Night's Dream. In my local cinema was The Dream by Sir Frederick Ashton, one of my favourite ballets because I shall always associate it with Dame Antoinette Sibley and Sir Anthony Dowell, streamed live from Covent Garden. At the Preston Guild Hall and Charter Theatre was a live performance by Ballet Cymru of Darius James's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

What made the choice particularly hard was that The Dream was to be performed as part of a triple bill with Symphonic Variations and Marguerite and Armand.  Just as I associate The Dream with Sibley and Dowell I shall always associate Marguerite and Armand with Rudolf Nureyev and Dame Margot Fonteyn and Symphonic Variations. Making the choice even harder was the knowledge that Zenaida Yanowsky was due to make her last appearance yesterday.

Much as I love the Royal Ballet and Yanowsky I chose Ballet Cymru without hesitation. In my book, living breathing human beings on stage will always trump images flashed onto a screen. Also, there is a chance of seeing a recording of last night's transmission though, sadly, there are not many cinemas advertising the encore. I think I made the right call because last night's performance was outstanding.

Darius James first created the ballet for the company in 1997. It was an immediate success. The Sunday Telegraph described the dancers as "impressively able" and commended James for making use of "every gift they have." The Theatre Critics of Wales nominated it for the best dance production of 2013. It is not hard to see why for James is a skilled narrator with an exceptionally keen eye for detail and a superb gift for transposing Shakespeare's words into movement.

James understands Shakespeare better than most.  In A Romeo and Juliet for our Times 7 Nov 2016 I described his Romeo a Juliet as James and Doughty's best work yet which shows how a small company of young dancers with modest resources can stage a full-length ballet brilliantly. Other plays that have inspired James are The Tempest, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet which I should very much like to see.

Unlike Ashton, who focuses on the quarrel between Titania and Oberon and their reconciliation, James follows the play faithfully. That could not have been easy because the plot is complex. In addition to the quarrel there is the love affair between Hermia and Lysander and Helena's pursuit of Demetrius, Puck's mischief making, Titania's infatuation with Bottom, the mechanicals' performance of Pyramus and Thisbe and the nuptials of Theseus and Hippolyta. James's solution is to divide the ballet into three parts. The first part embraces everything except the merchanicals' play and Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. The second part is that play.  The third is a Petipa style pas de deux with Hippolyta in a classical tutu. It may sound bitty when described in words on a page but, in fact, it works very well indeed.

One day Ballet Cymru may have principals, soloists, coryphées and a corps but at present it has twelve young, very able and very ambitious young dancers. All of them had important roles in the ballet that reflected their personalities as well as their respective technical skills. Each and every one of them performed his or her role brilliantly.

Oberon and Titania were performed by Adreamaria Battagia and Gwenllian Davies who had impressed me so much in Romeo a Juliet.  They do comedy as well as they do tragedy. They also doubled as Theseus and Hippolyta. For me, the pas de deux at the end was the high point of the show. Casting Miguel Fernandes was inspired. He is a talented character dancer as well as a splendid virtuoso. Anna Pujol was a delightful Hermia and Robbie Moorcroft a gallant Lysander but it was as Bottom where Moorcroft's brilliance shone through. The company's latest recruits, Miles Carrott and Beth Meadway, were each given two demanding roles which they performed magnificently. Medway touched our hearts as poor spurned Helena and our funny bones as Snug. Carrott excelled as Demetrius and Quince. Natalie Debono was a spirited Peasebottom. Ann Wall, who doubled as fairy and mechanical, was a hilarious man in the moon complete with lamp and dog.

The music for most of the ballet was Mendelssohn which James tells us in the programme is a delight to dance.  No wonder as the score has so many familiar tunes. For Pyramus and Thisbe, however, the dancers provided their own music on tin whistles and kazoo which virtually spoke the words of the play. I was amused by Pyramus's death throes and the Death March that the motley band managed to conjure from their assorted instruments.

As a small touring company Ballet Cymru has to travel light so it relies on projections to create scenery and atmosphere. Chris Illingworth's designs were inspired.  So, too, were Yvonne Greenleaf's costumes. The simple body hugging costumes for the fairies with their fluffy, white wigs worked well. So, too, did the mechanicals' working clothes and, of course, Bottom's ears.

The company will perform A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Waterside Arts Centre in Sale on Saturday. A tip to all my classmates at KNT - if you are free on Saturday afternoon or evening. try to get down there.  After Sale the show moves on to Bangor on the 15 June followed by Tewkesbury, Poole, Taunton, Stvenage, Hereford, Basingstoke, Ayr, Porthcawl, Newbury and Lichfield.