New Adventures, 10/05/2017
Bernard Herrmann (arr. Terry Davies) : The Red Shoes
New Adventures
New Adventures Orchestra (pre-recorded)
Brett Morris
It has to be acknowledged that Matthew Bourne (Sir Matthew, now, of course, but as he doesn't use the honorific on his publicity material, I will do likewise) has a keen instinct for what's going to make a good show. His latest venture, premiered last December, is an adaptation of that greatest of ballet movies, Powell & Pressburger's The Red Shoes, a characteristically bold choice from Bourne that, when it was announced, somewhat boggled the mind. While I resisted the temptation to view the film again right before going to the performance, it was hardly necessary, I've seen it often enough, and how Bourne was going to re-create the atmosphere, or match the gloriously saturated Technicolor of the film remained to be seen.
In terms of appearance, Lez Brotherston has worked his usual magic. The stage is dominated by a mobile proscenium arch within the stage area, that can fly forward and back, and turn around on itself; the obverse shows an old-fashioned arch with a red velvet curtain, the reverse shows the rigging and the curtain from behind, as if you were standing on a stage. There's a little additional maritime scenery, and the concentric white frames for the main ballet-sequence, and one or two other panels, but otherwise you're mainly on a bare theatrical stage. The look is kept strictly to the period of the film, with many of the characters, notably Vicky Page, looking very much like their film counterparts. Visually, it's all very effective, the scene changes are quick and smooth, the flip from front to back-stage strikingly used.
The other real piece of inspiration is in the score. There was no question of using Brian Easdale's music - apart from the Red Shoes ballet itself, there simply isn't enough of it for a full evening's performance. Instead, Bourne's company composer Terry Davies put together a patchwork of Bernard Herrmann film scores, with Fahrenheit 451 providing the core of the music for the Red Shoes ballet sequence. Herrmann's post-Romantic lyricism fits the tone of the piece admirably, and Davies has ensured that the orchestration matches throughout, strings, with percussion, harp and/or piano.
I found that the evening took a little while to get going. It struck a false note with me right at the start, where we see a parody ballet number called "Countess Tamara's Dilemma", full of wildly exaggerated gesturing, which was exactly the sort of thing Diaghilev (and by extension Lermontov) was trying to get rid of, and I cannot imagine the Ballet Lermontov being seen dead performing! It's not until the company gets to Monte-Carlo, and the preparations for the Red Shoes ballet begin, that the show really starts to gel, starting with a charmingly playful 'beach ballet' deliberately evocative of Le train bleu.
Bourne's version of the Red Shoes ballet is certainly the highlight of the evening, an excellent adaptation of the concept, quite different from the film version, and rightly so. The stage setting gives way to a set of stark, white, concentric frames, a little skewed, like something Hitchcock might have envisaged, with shadowy grey backdrops to evoke places, and the costumes all in blacks and greys, with red highlights. Instead of the fairy tale with its demonic cobbler, here is an all-too well-known - but just as pertinent - tale of an innocent girl adrift in the big city, falling prey to the enticements of a pimp. The red shoes are the symbol of her prostitution, and her effective enslavement to the pimp. It does, perhaps, weaken the parallel to Vicky Page's life a little, but it works very well for the sequence.
The ballet sequence ends the first part of the show; the second begins with another very attractive seaside number, with the company collectively letting its hair down at a cafe, before a brief but rather striking pastiche of a later Diaghilev-style ballet (complete with Cocteau-designed back-drop), maybe something by Massine himself, during which Lermontov fires Julian, and Vicky leaves with him. However, from then on, the piece rather loses focus. It's not clear why Vicki next appears in some West End of London variety show, as part of an adagio number, the relationship between Julian and Vicky seems much more fragile here, and the tensions which lead to her suicide are not as obvious - if her relationship with Julian is weaker, she would not be so conflicted on returning to Lermontov.
As a whole, it's not a long show - two hours, pretty much on the nose, including interval - but it feels longer. There are, as always with Bourne, some very eye-catching moments - the train at the end is truly spectacular! - and some very funny ones, such as the Sand Dance in the second act (I was vividly reminded of Morecambe and Wise in "The Intelligence Men"). The actual Red Shoes ballet sequence is, frankly, tremendous. However, much of the characterisation is too quickly glossed over, and there is one fairly serious flaw. New Adventures has the unfortunate habit of not providing specific cast listings for each performance, only a general cast list for their entire tour; as a result, I am trying to match thumbnail shots with dancers in full make-up, wigs and costumes, and I am not a great physiognomist at the best of times. I think I saw Ashley Shaw as Vicky Page tonight, and while she's a perfectly good dancer/actress, she's not a classical ballerina in the way Moira Shearer was, and it shows.
Not that Bourne is a classical choreographer in that line either, he rarely choreographs for pointe shoe work, but it was necessary here, and there was a kind of delicacy (not to call it fragility) to the pointe work here that was out of place. I suspect this would be a problem with all of New Adventures dancers in this part. Few of them come from the kind of ballet training that, say, a Royal Ballet dancer does, they're much more multi-purpose than that in general, but it does mean that when a pure classical technique is demanded, they never look completely convincing. It is something that proved a faint but persistent niggle throughout the evening.
A bold idea, therefore, and often well-executed, but I'll stick with the film, thank you.
[Next : 12th May]
New Adventures
New Adventures Orchestra (pre-recorded)
Brett Morris
It has to be acknowledged that Matthew Bourne (Sir Matthew, now, of course, but as he doesn't use the honorific on his publicity material, I will do likewise) has a keen instinct for what's going to make a good show. His latest venture, premiered last December, is an adaptation of that greatest of ballet movies, Powell & Pressburger's The Red Shoes, a characteristically bold choice from Bourne that, when it was announced, somewhat boggled the mind. While I resisted the temptation to view the film again right before going to the performance, it was hardly necessary, I've seen it often enough, and how Bourne was going to re-create the atmosphere, or match the gloriously saturated Technicolor of the film remained to be seen.
In terms of appearance, Lez Brotherston has worked his usual magic. The stage is dominated by a mobile proscenium arch within the stage area, that can fly forward and back, and turn around on itself; the obverse shows an old-fashioned arch with a red velvet curtain, the reverse shows the rigging and the curtain from behind, as if you were standing on a stage. There's a little additional maritime scenery, and the concentric white frames for the main ballet-sequence, and one or two other panels, but otherwise you're mainly on a bare theatrical stage. The look is kept strictly to the period of the film, with many of the characters, notably Vicky Page, looking very much like their film counterparts. Visually, it's all very effective, the scene changes are quick and smooth, the flip from front to back-stage strikingly used.
The other real piece of inspiration is in the score. There was no question of using Brian Easdale's music - apart from the Red Shoes ballet itself, there simply isn't enough of it for a full evening's performance. Instead, Bourne's company composer Terry Davies put together a patchwork of Bernard Herrmann film scores, with Fahrenheit 451 providing the core of the music for the Red Shoes ballet sequence. Herrmann's post-Romantic lyricism fits the tone of the piece admirably, and Davies has ensured that the orchestration matches throughout, strings, with percussion, harp and/or piano.
I found that the evening took a little while to get going. It struck a false note with me right at the start, where we see a parody ballet number called "Countess Tamara's Dilemma", full of wildly exaggerated gesturing, which was exactly the sort of thing Diaghilev (and by extension Lermontov) was trying to get rid of, and I cannot imagine the Ballet Lermontov being seen dead performing! It's not until the company gets to Monte-Carlo, and the preparations for the Red Shoes ballet begin, that the show really starts to gel, starting with a charmingly playful 'beach ballet' deliberately evocative of Le train bleu.
Bourne's version of the Red Shoes ballet is certainly the highlight of the evening, an excellent adaptation of the concept, quite different from the film version, and rightly so. The stage setting gives way to a set of stark, white, concentric frames, a little skewed, like something Hitchcock might have envisaged, with shadowy grey backdrops to evoke places, and the costumes all in blacks and greys, with red highlights. Instead of the fairy tale with its demonic cobbler, here is an all-too well-known - but just as pertinent - tale of an innocent girl adrift in the big city, falling prey to the enticements of a pimp. The red shoes are the symbol of her prostitution, and her effective enslavement to the pimp. It does, perhaps, weaken the parallel to Vicky Page's life a little, but it works very well for the sequence.
 |
| Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes : The Company in the Red Shoes ballet sequence (Photo © Johan Persson 2016) |
As a whole, it's not a long show - two hours, pretty much on the nose, including interval - but it feels longer. There are, as always with Bourne, some very eye-catching moments - the train at the end is truly spectacular! - and some very funny ones, such as the Sand Dance in the second act (I was vividly reminded of Morecambe and Wise in "The Intelligence Men"). The actual Red Shoes ballet sequence is, frankly, tremendous. However, much of the characterisation is too quickly glossed over, and there is one fairly serious flaw. New Adventures has the unfortunate habit of not providing specific cast listings for each performance, only a general cast list for their entire tour; as a result, I am trying to match thumbnail shots with dancers in full make-up, wigs and costumes, and I am not a great physiognomist at the best of times. I think I saw Ashley Shaw as Vicky Page tonight, and while she's a perfectly good dancer/actress, she's not a classical ballerina in the way Moira Shearer was, and it shows.
Not that Bourne is a classical choreographer in that line either, he rarely choreographs for pointe shoe work, but it was necessary here, and there was a kind of delicacy (not to call it fragility) to the pointe work here that was out of place. I suspect this would be a problem with all of New Adventures dancers in this part. Few of them come from the kind of ballet training that, say, a Royal Ballet dancer does, they're much more multi-purpose than that in general, but it does mean that when a pure classical technique is demanded, they never look completely convincing. It is something that proved a faint but persistent niggle throughout the evening.
A bold idea, therefore, and often well-executed, but I'll stick with the film, thank you.
[Next : 12th May]