Ballet Black Back in Nottingham

I embedded this film of Ballet Black in My Personal Ballet Highlights of 2014 because they are a particularly beautiful company. I have also met some of them and they are delightful people. Last year they came to the Nottingham Playhouse where they were magnificent (see Best Ever - Ballet Black at the Nottingham Playhouse 3 July 2014. They are returning to that theatre on the the 26 June 2015 for one night only.

Ballet Black are bringing two new works to Nottingham as well as one old favourite. The new works are Kit Holder's To Fetch A Pail of Water and Mark Bruce's Second Coming. The old favourite is Will Tuckett's Depouillement. I saw the show at The Linbury in February and loved it (see Ballet Black's Best Performance Yet 17 Feb 2015).

Since that show I have seen Holder's Hopper danced by Ballet Central and I have become quite a fan of that choreographer   Indeed. one of the reasons I am traipsing down to High Wycombe and back tomorrow is to see his Quatrain (see It takes Three to Tango 19 May 2015).

I am not sure when Ballet Black will next be in the North so this may be our only chance to see the triple bill this year. You can access the Playhouse's box office by clicking this link.

Fille bien gardée - Nottingham 26 June 2014

Birmingham Royal Ballet - La Fille mal gardée trailer from Rob Lindsay on Vimeo.

La Fille mal gardée is the oldest ballet that is still performed regularly. It was first staged in the Grand Theatre of Bordeaux two weeks before the storming of the Bastille, the event that precipitated the French Revolution. In another sense it is a very modern ballet. It has no shades or wilis, no wicked magicians who transform girls into swans, no kings or queens, princes or princesses. It takes place not in some mythical or exotic land but in rural France. Normandy judging by Osbert Lancaster's backdrops, It is about a young man and a young woman in love who find a way to be together despite the best efforts of the young woman's mother to marry her off to the wealthy but in every other way unsuitable village idiot. For those who have yet to see the ballet, here's the story guide,

The version of the ballet with which British audiences are most familiar was choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton in 1960 to an arrangement of the music of Ferdinand Hérold by John Lanchbery with sets and costumes by Lancaster. He created powerful roles for the lovers in which he cast Nadia Nerina and David Blair but he also created amusing character roles for Stanley Holden as the social climbing mother and Alexander Grant as the halfwitted suitor. I never saw Nerina but I did see Merle Park and Doreen Wells in the title role as well as Holden and Grant.  Ashton's ballet contains some of the best known and best loved scenes such as the clog dance and the "Fanny Elssler pas de duex".

The Birmingham Royal Ballet has taken La Fille mal gardée on a summer tour which David Bintley describes as part of a "small celebration" of the work of the Royal Ballet's founder Frederick Ashton. I caught it at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham which is a delightful building with a more than passing resemblance to the Grand Theatre in Bordeaux. The lovers were danced by Maureya Lebowitz and Chi Cao, the mother by Rory Mackay, the halfwit by Kit Holder and his dad by Jonathan Payn.

Lebowitz was a delightful Lise - witty and pretty - just like Park as I remember her.  It took me longer to warm to Chi Cao.  He is a powerful dancer and I loved his turns and jumps. But Colas has a funny side. For example he likes his drink and he's also a  bit cheeky. Chi Cao played it very straight which is by no means wrong as there are some who would like that interpretation. As for the character dancers I loved them all, particularly MacKay as widow Simone.

Leaving the theatre, everyone seemed to smile or grin. It's a feel good ballet that I have already seen many times and hope to see many times again. Nobody - not even the London Royal Ballet does Ashton as well as Birmingham. They are Ashton's heirs and they have kept their Fille very well indeed.