Well!

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Scottish Ballet Coppelia Theatre Royal, Glasgow 25 May 2022 19:30

Scottish Ballet has specialized in reinterpreting the classical repertoire ever since Peter Darrell's Beauty and the Beast.   Sometimes it has been spectacularly successful, as with David Dawson's Swan Lake or Matthew Bourne's Highland Fling. Others such as Krzysztof Pastor's Romeo and Juliet less so.  Despite excellent performances by Rishan Benjamin as Swanhilda and Thomas Edwards as Dr Coppelius which saved my evening, I regret to say that Morgann Runacre-Temple and Jessica Wright's  Coppelia did not work for me.

Coppelia is not a story that needs to be reworked.  It is basically Pygmalion which has fascinated human beings since classical times. Ted Brandsen has set it in modern dress but kept the story intact in his  Coppelia.  As my readers will gather from the synopsis, Runacre-Temple and Wright have transplanted Dr Coppelius to Silicon Valley.  Instead of an eccentric old codger with a workshop full of automatons, Coppelisu is the founder and CEO of the sinister startup NuLife.

The conventional Coppelia would not have retained its popularity for more than 150 years had it focused on Dr Coppelis's experiments.  Audiences like the lovely mazurkas of the first act, the humour of the village girls' overtures to Dr Coppelius's doll. Swanhilda's increasing exasperation with Franz as he flirts with the doll, the mugging where Dr Coppelius loses his house keys, the break-in by Swanhilda and her girlfriends to the workshop, the girls' nervousness, the cacophony when Swnhilda sets off the toys as she makes her escape, the charming dance of the hours of the last act and of course a delightful pas de deux at the end.

There is none of that in Runacre-Temple and Wright's work.  It was essentially about Coppelius and his interview with pant-suited investigative journalist Swanhilda,   A voice-over asks Coppelius how he deals with his critics.   "Do I have any?" asked another voice which made me smile as I was already thinking about this review.  There were lots of lights and screen images, a percussive score with the occasional echo of Delibes and snatches of dialogue such as "This table does not exist."  Everything was packed into a single 80-minute act.  Altogether. I found it heavy going.

Now I have to say out of fairness that most of the audience seemed to love the show.  There was a standing ovation which was the first I have ever seen in Scotland.  But it was not a simultaneous rising as I had seen in Leeds the previous week but a phased one like the opening night of Akram Khan's Giselle or at the Lowry after Sir Matthew Bourne's Romeo and Juliet.  In a phased standing ovation unlike a spontaneous one, audience members rise to their feet because others have done so and they feel they should or maybe they just want to see the stage at the curtain call,  

Now I want to end my review on a positive note because I have followed Scottish Ballet ever since they were in Bristol and I love them to bits.   This was the first time I had seen them live since lockdown and I had been looking forward to the show for weeks.  For me, the evening was saved by Benjamin and Edwards.  Particularly Benjamin.  This was the first time I had noticed her. She is still listed simply as an "artist".  I am not sure when she joined the company but I think her future is bright.  She reminds me a lot of Michaela DePrince.  She commands the stage in much the same way. 

There were good performances from Evan Loudon who danced Franz and Amy McEntee, Xolisweh Richards. Roseanna Leney, Noa Barry,  Urara Takata, Grace Horler, Melissa Parsons, Aisling Brangan, Hannah Cubitt, Nicholas Vavrecka,, Rimbaud Patron, James Garrington, Harvey Evans, Andrea Azzari., Ben Thomas, Ishan Mahabir-Stokes. Joel Wright and Jamie Reid as lab technicians. Franz was not quite the same role as in the conventional Coppelia.  Reed was also the cameraman.

As I said above I don't think it is necessary to update Coppelia because the challenge of artificial intelligence has existed since 1870 if not from the ancient Greeks.  However, if Scottish Ballet wants to modernize that gorgeous work it need look no further than one of its own board members.

Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme

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Northern Ballet  Mixed Programme (The Kingdom of Back, Mamela, The Shape of Sound) Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds 15 Sep 2018, 19:30

A triple bill should be balanced and varied like a good meal.  The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company got it right in their fifth anniversary performance earlier this year (see "In the Future" - Junior Company's Fifth Anniversary Performance 17 April 2018). They started with a bit of Bournonville, continued with Juanjo Arqués's Fingers in the Air and finished with some vintage van Manen.  In contrast Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme was samey and far too long. 

That was a shame because each of the works in the Mixed Programme was worthy enough but they  would have been appreciated more had there been a little more variety.   Northern Ballet has plenty of works in its repertoire that it could have used - Mark Godden's Angels in the Architecture, Hans van Manen's Concertante and Jonathan Watkins's Northern Trilogy to name just three.  Had any of those works been sandwiched between say a Watkins and a van Manen the evening would have been much better.

Of the three works in the programme I liked Kenneth Tindall's The Shape of Sound  best.  His score was Vivaldi's Four Seasons recomposed by Max Richter.  There were some spectacular moments such as when his male dancers bounded onto stage in unison almost in silhouette.  There were also quieter moments when the dancers seemed to become architecture.  There was clever lighting some of which appears to have been designed by Tindall himself.  There were curious touches like linear makeup intersecting the eye line at angles of 90 degrees.  Tindall's cast included Hannah Bateman, Antoinette Brooks-Daw,  Ashley Dixon and Abigail Prudames,

Mlindi Kulashe is an exciting dancer so I had expected some exciting choreography from him.  His piece, Mamela.....  which means "listen" in Xhosa, turned out to be pensive and restrained - subdued even.  That may be because the programme states that it encompasses frustration, escapism and imprisonment though he left it to each member of the audience to create his or her own narrative.  I am mot sure how many of those themes came over. Imprisonment perhaps but only because of the greyish blue dungaree style costumes and the absence of women until some way into the piece.   Kulashe chose a score by Jack Edmonds which opens and ends with the human voices.  The movements were jerky with sudden turns and stretches.  Kulashe used 9 dancers of various levels of seniority from first soloists Joseph Taylor and Abigail Prudames to members of the corps.  One dancer who stood out for me was Ommaira Kanga Perez and I shall look out for her in future.

The Kingdom of Back by Morgann Runacre-Temple offered the only levity in the evening.  It opened with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's elder sister bearing an elaborate 18th century hair piece on her head which she removes at her brother's behest.  The piece focused on the relationship between the siblings relationship with their father and each other.   Some of my favourite dancers were in the piece including Javier Torres who was my male dancer of the year last year and Mlindi  Kulashe, Antoinette Brooks-Daw and Rachael Gillespie.  A lot of composers contributed to the score including Wolfgang Amadeus and Leopold Mozart and David Bowie.  The ballet grabbed my attention with its start but I had to work hard to follow it towards the end.  A good idea but it was rather long.

The Mixed Programme will be performed again at the Cast theatre in Doncaster tonight and tomorrow and in Newcastle in April. It is worth attending though I have seen better work including better triple bills from Northern Ballet.