English National Ballet at the Liverpool Empire

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English National Ballet The Nutcracker Liverpool Empire, 30 Nov 2019, 19:30

For many children who grew up in London and the Southeast in the 1960s and 1970s, the London Festival Ballet's Christmas seasons at the Royal Festival Hall offered a welcome alternative to pointless dialogues with the likes of Buttons or Wishee-Washee.  Instead of chanting "It's behind you" or "Oh no it isn't", they could marvel at Drosselmeyer's wizardry or the Sugarplum Fairy's daintiness.  The stage may have been less than ideal as the auditorium was a concert hall but those performances were superb.  Countless children developed a lifelong love of theatre in general and ballet in particular by those shows. Many of them will have pestered their parents for ballet lessons. At least a few will have been inspired to dance professionally.

The company has evolved since then.  It changed its name to English National Ballet or ENB many years ago. It has recently acquired new premises.  It has an impressive repertoire that includes groundbreaking new works.  It has performed to critical acclaim in many great opera houses and is recognized as one of the world's great companies.  Notwithstanding all those developments, it still performs The Nutcracker at Christmas though in conventional theatres rather than the Royal Festival Hall.  The version that it now performs was created by Wayne Eagling who directed the Dutch National Ballet between 1991 and 2003 and the English National Ballet between 2006 and 2012. He choreographed the Dutch National Ballet's version of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (see the trailer for the current season).  I had previously seen ENB's version at the Coliseum in 2013 with Vadum Muntagirov and Daria Klimentiva in the leading roles (see Cracking 14 Dec 2013). I saw it again at the Liverpool Empire on 30 Nov 2019.

In my previous review I wrote:

"English National's current version of The Nutcracker is by Wayne Eagling and he has made a few changes to Petipa's choreography and Hoffmann's story such as setting it by the Thames rather than somewhere in Mitteleuropa, casting Clara as a grown woman fusing her with The Sugar Plum Fairy and letting the mouse hang on (literally) into the second Act which I am not altogether sure that I like. Turning Clara into an adult in particular takes away some of the innocence and indeed charm of a ballet which for me and many others is about sweets, toy soldiers and rampaging rodents."

I would still make those same criticisms today.  However, I added:

"Despite those reservations, I thoroughly enjoyed The Nutcracker on the opening night of its Christmas season. It will be at the Coliseum until 5 Jan 2014. It is well worth seeing for Daria Klimentova and Vadim Muntagirov's brilliance, for Peter Farmer's designs, for the sparkling Spanish, Arabic and Russian dances and other divertissements in the second Act and the wonderful character artistry by Junor Souza as the Nutcracker and James Streeter as King Mouse. There are some cute touches like a rat in a kilt in Act 1 (which may become a regular feature in English versions if Scotland votes the wrong way in September), using a mousetrap as a catapult and the substitution of a balloon for a sleigh as a transport to the kingdom of sweets and the land of dreams."

I would also stand by the same commendation with the obvious observation that Junor Souza had been elevated to the Nutcracker in Liverpool and Shiori Kase danced Clara as an adult.  I think on balance that I prefer Eagling's version to Peter Wright's for the Royal Ballet and David Nixon's for Northern but I like Wright's version for the Birmingham Royal Ballet and Peter Darrell's for Scottish Ballet even more.

Kase was a delicious Sugarplum and Brooklyn Mack her gallant beau.  Streeter danced the Mouse King again in a thoroughly murine manner. So much so that he received a few unmerited boos at the reverence until he removed his mouse headgear whereupon h received deafening applause. Fabian Raimar was an impressive Drosselmeyer.  Drosselmeyer is probably key to the success of any performance of The Nutcracker since he appears in almost every scene.  I liked all the divertissements and congratulate all the artists who took part whose names are too numerous to mention.  If I had to single out any single performer it would be Precious Adams who led the flowers and snowflakes with consummate grace.  The advertised conductor was Gary Cornelius but the maestro who took the applause looked very much like Huddersfield's very own Gavin Sutherland.

Liverpool is a great place to watch ballet because the audience is always appreciative.  Possibly the best place in the United Kingdom and I say that as a native Mancunian and an adopted Londoner. Liverpudlians are England's Neapolitans.  If they like a show they do not so much clap and cheer as stamp and holler. The Empire's audience made a lot of noise on the Saturday night before last.

The Nutcracker is about to open in London where it will compete after Christmas with Birmingham's version in the Albert Hall but not with the Royal Ballet's this year.  Both shows are worth watching but readers are warned tickets will not be easy to get for either show.

Skeaping's Giselle

Engish National Ballet Giselle Coliseum 22 Jan 2017

Giselle may have been premiered on 28 June 1841 but it is no museum piece. Feudal landowners may be a bit thin on the ground these days but there is no shortage of spoilt wealthy young (and not so young) men who behave just like Albrecht. Nor, sadly, is there a shortage of women who are hurt by them, just as much as Giselle. They may not stab themselves with swords but they suffer in other ways and sometimes their suffering can be fatal.  There is no need to reimagine Giselle.  Leave that to the audience. That's why we are there.

In contrast to Akram Khn's Giselle, Mary Skeaping's keeps Adam's score and what we believe to have been Corelli and Perrot's choreography as varied by Petipa and sets the ballet in the German countryside. I find that helpful for then I can concentrate on the interpretation.  There are lots of possibilities. As Lauretta Summerscales says in her video on how she interprets the iconic role:

"If I do it 50 times, I'm sure I'd still find in that 50th time something new."

If one ballerina who dances Giselle regularly can conjure up her character in 50 different ways, how many more interpretations must there be for those who watch different productions or even the same production with different casts?

Although I bought my ticket before I knew who was dancing, I was glad to see that my Giselle today was Elisa Badenes. I cannot recall ever seeing her before because she dances with the Stuttgart Ballet so I looked her up and found that she had advanced from corps de ballet to principal in a very short time. On the way to London, I tweeted:

A dancer who can leap from corps to principal of @StuttgartBallet between 2011 to 2013 must be a very rare talent indeed. In for a treat!

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) January 22, 2017

She did not disappoint me.  She is a beautiful dancer, graceful. and aetherial. Her arms appear as subtle and as soft as gossamer in the wind.

Her Albrecht was Cesar Corrales who was a thrill to watch. Charming and athletic I can see why Giselle begged clemency from Myrtha and danced with him to keep him alive.  In other productions, I feel Albrecht gets off lightly compared to Hilarion, but not this time.  His jumps were thrilling - especially some spectacular entrechats just before the bell struck 4 where his legs interweaved like shuttles.

Hilarion, danced by Fabian Reimair, projected possessiveness, meanness and jealousy as well as recklessness.  For once I felt he had what was coming to him as Myrtha's wilis tossed him off stage.

As for Myrtha, she was portrayed steely and icily but with authority by Alison McWhinney. This was the first time I had noticed her in a major role but I shall certainly look out for this impressive dancer in future. Her attendants, Zulma and Moyna, danced by Rino Kanehara and Adela Ramirez, were splendid too,

The English National Ballet Philharmonic under Alex Ingram played magnificently from the opening bars of the overture. Adam's score needs an orchestra like them. David Walker's sets and costumes were gorgeous. Alex Ingram's lighting - particularly the flashes at the start of act II - conjured menace convincingly.

Altogether, one of the best performances of Giselle I have ever seen - and I have watched quite a few over the decades.

Swan Lake in the Round

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English National Ballet, Swan Lake, Royal Albert Hall, 12 June 2016

Watching ballet in the Royal Albert Hall is quite a different experience from watching it on a proscenium stage. Even though the performance space is so much larger it is in many ways more intimate. I think that may be because the audience surrounds the dancers who often down the aisles between them to enter the stage. Swan Lake is particularly well suited for arena performances because much of the action takes place around a lake which is by definition a space enclosed by land.

The scale of the production is staggering. According to the programme there were 120 dancers of whom 60 were swans. There were also 80 musicians in the orchestra. Many of the dances doubled in size. There were 8 cygnets and not just 4. The pas de six became a pas de douze. There were 8 princesses, 8 Spanish dancers and 8 Hungarians.

The reason for the scaling up was that those dances would have been lost to at least half the audience had they been performed with the usual numbers in the traditional way. However, there are some roles that cannot be scaled up. Clearly you can't have 2 Siegfrieds, 2 Odette-Odiles (except for Odette's 'don't be such a blithering idiot' bits of the black act which I shall mention later) or indeed 2 Rothbarts. For those roles the company needs to deploy dancers of exceptional versatility who are thrilling to watch and capable of filling the massive space single handed. All the dancers I saw yesterday met that requirement.

The key to the success of this ballet - unless you rewrite the story as Sir Matthew Bourne and David Nixon have done (see Wikipedia Swan Lake (Bourne) synopsis and Swan Lake Story on the Northern Ballet website) - is a strong Odette-Odile. She must be ethereal, delicate and almost fragile in the second and fourth acts and an only two human vamp in the third. Now what I perceive to be the difficulty for the ballerina - and it may well be that I am quite wrong about that - is that human personality leans towards one or the other and if you lean one way it is not easy to project the other.

One ballerina who can pull it off is Erina Takahashi.  I saw her dance Odette-Odile at the Palace in Manchester on the 9 Oct 2014 (see What Manchester does today 10 Oct 2014). Here is what I wrote about her then:

"Yesterday was the first time I had seen her (or at any rate the first time I had noticed her) and she impressed me considerably. She was a very convincing Odette in the prologue and second act - so delicate and feminine - and I couldn't imagine her as Odette but the lady is tough as well as beautiful and she is also an accomplished actor. She danced the seduction scene even more brilliantly than she had danced Odette."

I had forgotten that I had written those words for this is what I tweeted at 15:59 yesterday

Thoroughly looking forward to seeing @ErinaTakahashi_ in the Black Act. Can she do seductress.as well as the Swan Queen? Test of a ballerina

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) June 12, 2016

Immediately after seeing Act III I wrote:

At first I thought @ErinaTakahashi_ was too nice for Odile but the way she gave Siegfried the push at end of Act 3. She passed the test.

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) June 12, 2016

On the bus to King's Cross I concluded:

Loved @ENBallet's Swan Lake: @ErinaTakahashi_ equally convincing as Odette and Odile. @AcostaYonah a fine Siegfried. Great corps too.

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) June 12, 2016

I have never really believed that Siegfried could have been taken in by Odile's appearance because she moves and behaves so differently from Odette. I think he was so dazzled by Odile, and in particular by her 32 fouettés, that he temporarily forgot about Odette even when she fluttered in to warn him not to be such a blithering idiot. Had it been mistaken identity the spell could have been undone but as Siegfried's promise was intended it could not. At least not unless he jumped in the lake or fought Rothbart or something.

My view of Siegfried - any Siegfried - has recently been revised by David Dawson (see Empire Blanche: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2016). Siegfried is a blundering adolescent. Yes he really is impressed by silly things like cross bows.  He falls in love with visions. He makes promises he cannot keep. Yet he cannot be ignored for he is heir to the throne.  However, great virtuosity is required of him. He must thrill us in the third Act with his leaps and his turns in the air.  One of the most thrilling dancers in English National Ballet who filled that bill exactly was Yonah Acosta.

The third major player in the story is Rothbart.  He must also thrill and also chill even though he has no great solo. However, he does have a cape to wave or rather wings to flap and his appearances were heralded by flashing lights across the auditorium and the antics of his skull headed acrobatic acolytes. Yesterday his role was performed by Fabian Remair whom I had last seen as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (see Manchester's Favourite Ballet Company 28 Nov 2015). He had impressed me then and he did so again yesterday. A first soloist with the company he is clearly a name to watch.

There were fine performances also by Michael Coleman as Siegried's tutor and the master of ceremonies, Jane Haworth as Siegfried's mum (or the queen) and Shiori Kase and Vitor Menezes. Everybody in the cast did well. Although she did not dance a solo role on this occasion I am always delighted to glimpse Sarah Kundi, one of my favourite dancers, in any role. She was in the Spanish dance and I gave her an especially loud clap as she passed my box at the end of her piece.

This year the swans included Natasha Watson and the guests at Siegfried's party Andrew McFarlane who trained at Ballet West (see A Cause for Double Celebration at the Robin's Nest 9 Feb 2016). I could not recognize Andrew but I do know Natasha and I uttered a little "brava" for her at the end of the show. I am so proud of her and also of Andrew. Natasha is a Genée  medallist and was the only British finalist in Lausanne in 2015. She is on a trajectory to the top and I wish her all the best.

I should say a word about the expanded orchestra.  They played well.   Indeed rarely have I heard the English National Ballet Philharmonic play better.  I had expected Gavin Sutherland to cinduct them but instead Helena Bayo appeared. It was the first time I had seen her but I hope it will not be the last.  Often my eyes turned to her from the stage for her body was expressing the music too just as beautifully as any of the dancers.  She directed the musicians with passion but also with sensitivity. The result was a most delightful rendering of one of my favourite ballet scores.

Some things have to be done differently in the round.  A real live dancer who is obviously not Takahashi has to represent Odette during the seduction scene. The ballerina could not lead the admirable Helena Bayo onto the stage. All that could be done was a reverence by the lead dancers and a kiss from the conductor blown back to them.  There were also monitors around the auditorium with the camera fixed on the conductor. I surmise that was for the benefit of the dancers.

Although I enjoyed yesterday's performance tremendously I do have reservations.  It is spectacular but at times I felt the emphasis was on the spectacle - the flashing lights, the acrobatics, the costumes and the sheer numbers on the stage - rather than on the dancing.  It is obviously more expensive to stage than a proscenium show because the ticket prices were high even for London.  However there were plenty of people able and willing to pay the price for the Albert Hall was packed to the gunnels. In The Arena Phenomenon in the programme noted that the novelty and appeal of ballet in the round attracts audiences who do not regularly attend conventional performances. The absence of a ripple of applause when the principals appeared or at turn 28 of Odile's fouettés, someone from my box shouting out "He's behind you" when Rothbart took his curtain call to mixed cheers and boos, the middle age man in the box next to mine sticking his fingers in his mouth and whistling his appreciation at the end of Act III and the eyes of so many on the synopsis page of the programmes suggested that was indeed the case. Nothing wrong with that of course if ballet in the round inspires a love of ballet generally, but it is an indulgence which, like chocolate, should be savoured only sparingly.

A Good Old Fashioned Swan Lake without Gimmicks

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Swan Lake is special to me and it has become even more special since I tried to learn the cygnets' dance, Siegfried's solo and the swans' entry at KNT's Swan Lake intensive last year (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3). The last "Swan Lake" I saw had bikes, a whole load of new characters with names like Anthony and Odilia and a completely different story set somewhere where they vote for Bernie Sanders. I didn't like it the first time I saw it in 2004 even though it had a stellar cast (see  Don't Expect Petipa 5 Jan 2016) and I didn't like it any better when I saw it again in March (see Up the Swannee 17 March 2016).

So my tongue is hanging out for a real Swan Lake with a Siegfried, Odette-Odile and Rothbart with all the usual divertissements plus Legnani's 32 fouettés but minus the bikes and other gimmicks. And I am glad to see that English National Ballet have offered us  exactly that with Yonah Acosta as Siegfried, Erina Takahashi as Odette-Odile and Fabian Raimair as Rothbart. That would be more than enough to justify the somewhat steep - nay mountainous - ticket price and the return rail fare to London but my cup would run over were I to see Sarah Kundi and Natasha Watson on stage too.

Audiences in England already know Kundi well and my readers have read how much I admire her work but they may not have seen Watson before.   They should for she is a name to look out for. She is a graduate of Ballet West and I have mentioned her in this blog more than once (see Yet More Good News from Ballet West - Natasha Watson's Medal in the Genée 30 Sept 2013, Natasha Watson in Lausanne 15 Nov 2014, and A Cause for Double Celebration at the Robin's Nest 9 Feb 2016). You will find her picture here.

Watson is interviewed together with other young artists in yesterday's post to the English National Ballet's blog "It’s hard work being a swan!" 30 May 2016 ENB blog. You can say that again folks.  I KNOW. I'VE TRIED TO DO IT."

Manchester's Favourite Ballet Company

Manchester Town Hall

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English National Ballet, Romeo and Juliet, Palace Theatre, 28 Nov 2015

Last night was the 46th anniversary of the first performance by Northern Dance Theatre (later known as Northern Ballet) at the University Theatre in Manchester. Northern Ballet crossed the Pennines many years ago leaving our city without our own major ballet company. Or did it?  I think Manchester has a special relationship with English National Ballet which goes back a very long way. The company gave its first performance at the Opera House on 5 Feb 1951 (see Our History) and it has chosen Manchester for the première of Akram Khan's Giselle on  27 Sept 2016. Last night and on Tuesday English National Ballet pulled out all the stops for us. I don't think I have ever seen English National Ballet dance better since I started following it in 1955.

On Tuesday the company performed Lest we forget (see Lest we Forget 25 Nov 2015). For the rest of the week it has been dancing Nureyev's production of Romeo and Juliet. Yesterday was the first time I had seen that version and I liked it a lot. It has a lot of imaginative and original features some of which, such as the unfolding of Friar Lawrence's cunning plan, seem to have been borrowed from the cinema. It is tense and tight and packed with action. There are lots of colourful touches from the dropping of the black and red cloth in the prologue to the Montagues' flag dance in Act II. There are whole new scenes such as Mercutio's death scene when Romeo and his mates think he is play acting or Juliet's solo with the dagger after Romeo has gone into exile and her parents are trying to force her to marry Paris. The shock when Romeo realizes that Mercutio is dead explains the rush of blood that goaded him to pick up a sword even better than the play. Having said that it is much closer to its source material than either Jean-Christophe Maillot's for Northern Ballet with its focus on Friar Lawrence or Krzysztof Pastor's for Scottish Ballet with its potted history of Italy even though I must add that I liked both versions well enough at the time (see Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way 8 March 2015 and Scottish Ballet's Timeless Romeo and Juliet 18 May 2015).

Though I admired Nureyev's choreography, the orchestration of Prokofiev's magnificent score and Ezio Frigerio's designs it was the dancing that made the evening for me. The casting of Max Westwell and. in particular, Lauretta Summerscales in the title roles was inspired. On her web page she mentions Juliet as the role she would love to dance. The company gave her the chance to dance that role and she grabbed that chance with both hands. I don't think I have ever seen a better Juliet although I have seen some of the world's greatest ballerinas in that role. The quality that she brought to that role was her youth. When playing with her nurse and girl friends in Act I she looked as though she might actually be 13. She grew into a mature woman before our eyes. Westwell was an excellent partner for her.  I can quite see how he became a finalist of the emerging dancer contest. His web page says that Romeo and Juliet is his favourite production too and he also made the most of his opportunity to dance the leading role.

All the cast did well and it is perhaps unfair to single any of them for special praise but Fernando Bufalá was a great Mercutio. He was the life and soul of every party (even the one he gate crashed) and clowning even as he died. Fabian Reimair was a seething Tybalt, Jeanette Kakareka a delightful Rosaline and Daniele Silingardi a decent Paris. He seems to have loved Juliet and would have been quite a catch for almost every other young woman. I felt really sorry that he had to die in the tomb.

But the casting that delighted me most was to see Sarah Kundi as Lady Capulet. I have followed that dancer ever since she danced in Leeds. It was she who led me to Ballet Black and through MurleyDance to Richard Chappell. She is tall and elegant with the most expressive face. An actor as much as a dancer, yesterday's role was perfect for her. It is an important one in Nureyev's production for it is Lady Capulet who forces her daughter to take desperate measurers. How I clapped at the curtain call.  I fear my "brava" roared from the middle of the stalls would have been drowned out by everyone else's applause by the time it reached the stage. Had this show been in London I could have tossed flowers at her. She and everyone on stage would have deserved them.

So farewell to English National Ballet until its next season in our city.  Heartfelt thanks for two magnificent shows. Now that we are to build our fine new £78 million arts centre (see The Factory begins to take Shape 26 Nov 2015) maybe we can tempt it back more often and to stay with us a little longer each time it returns.