danceview
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Reviews

Sleeping Beauty in Seattle

by Rita Felciano
copyright © 2001 by Rita Felciano
Spring 2001

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s first Sleeping Beauty, as seen through the eyes of British choreographer Ronald Hynd and his wife Annette Page, who danced in the fabled Royal Ballet’s 1946 version and then set it on the English National Ballet in 1993, is a marvel of restored details. Multi-layered story-telling, and expressive and clear mime cannot take the place of beautifully performed classical dancing, but it can, and in this case did, amplify and enrich all those passages where in other productions we basically wait for the dancing to begin. The mime passages added layers of background and brilliantly set into relief the classic dancing. This Beauty reminded of a building whose strong architectural lines, strength and elegance we had always admired but whose decorative elements some time ago had been stripped away because of some misplaced sense of decoration being superficial and outmoded, but now had been restored. Other Sleeping Beauties might be more spectacularly danced, but they might be hard pressed to match the humanity and warmth of this rich and exceptional production.

The ballet was a stretch for the 45 member company, and many of the dancers were cast in multiple roles. PNB also had to use some of their advanced students for the corps numbers. But then this is within a rich tradition of giving aspiring dancers valuable stage experience. Sometimes the ensemble dancing may not have been as crisp as one would have wanted, but the value gained by creating such rich and vibrant stage pictures more than compensated for the inevitable small glitches.

Not that there weren’t any missteps but they had to with production value and not the quality of the dancing. Peter Doherty designed simple white columns (on which brambles begin to grow at the end of act 1), suggesting an airy portico of vaguely classical proportions with a generous expanse of sky which could be, and was, effectively lit (by PNB Lighting Designer Randall G. Chiarelli): a Claude Lorraine-colored sky for the Prologue, an Azulean blue for the Birthday party, pink-rimmed clouds for the Wedding celebration. Except for the Wedding Scene, where it looked somewhat thin, this basic set worked, as did the Panorama Scene in which Florimund had to make his way through a threatening labyrinth of overgrown vegetation to reach Aurora’s s chamber, slightly elevated at the back of the stage.

Unfortunately, some of Doherty’s costumes, however, looked downright cheap. While those for the peasants and the hunting party in the Vision scene were adequate, the green and blues of the high-waisted gowns for the court ladies in the Prologue looked as if they had come off bolts of remaindered material. Shiny gold boots, Hallmark-style crowns and exaggerated musketeer hats didn’t make it. Florestan’s fake ermine cape made up for length what it lacked in elegance. At one point he carried it draped over his arm; it looked like folded laundry. Worst of all were glittery white gowns for the nymphs in the Vision scene; they simply screamed polyester and a cheap sweet 16 party. More than anything the designs lacked an overall vision that would anchored the story in a time and place.

The Christening.

The Prologue, in particular, was full in rich narrative details. The ladies of the court repeatedly begged (wagging folded hands) to see the royal baby; a grandiloquent Catalabutte (Uko Gorter) grumpily agreed but warned them to be quiet (finger on the lips) and shooed them away as they (wagging bottoms and all) excitedly crowded around the cradle.

The fairies’s entrance was unlike any I had ever seen. Legs tight together and arms in demi-second the cavaliers carried them overhead; they looked like statues that had been plucked off their pedestals. But they became alive the minute their feet touched ground. It made for a lovely transition to the upcoming waltz sequences. Cavaliers, fairy and Lilac attendants moved in and out of kaleidoscopic and linear patterns. Full of rounded arms and skimming steps in opposing concentric circles, Lilac presided at the center like a star surrounded by her revolving planets. One sequence, though it ended in a pretty picture with young dancers lying on their sides supporting their chins on their index finger, looked awkward. Hynd had lined up the fairies across the stage, supported by their cavaliers, with a row of attendants behind them. But as the fairies rose in supported pirouettes, the third line of dancing simply disappeared from sight. Here a more elaborate stage set, maybe with a platform, would have helped the overall effect.

Carabosse’s arrival was hilarious. Three panicked guards rushed in one after another, each adding a detail to what they had seen: something with huge wings (flapping arms) a large nose (fingers cupped over nose ), an ugly face (hands outlining a grimace). The alarmed king ordered the palace doors locked and just as the soldiers barred the entrance with their lances—in flew Carabosse, right over everyone’s head.

Despite her spectacular entry, I found Hynd’s conception of Carabosse, however, wanting. She is more than a revengeful old woman who scoots around lashing out at everyone and sadistically enjoys pulling hair. Carabosse can’t be just a nasty hag, she needs to have dignity and convey a sense of justified outrage. This one acted too much like the Witched Witch of the North. Olivier Wevers gave the more nuanced of the two interpretations (the other was by Paul Gibson) that I saw; he worked himself up into a fulminating energy which blew him off the stage at the end of the Prologue.

Hynd’s most significant change in the Prologue was the addition of a sixth Fairy for whom he borrowed music from the Silver variation at the beginning of Act III. It worked nicely, and allowed for symmetry with the Lilac Fairy during her variations being supported by three dancers on each side . Long-limbed Adrianna Lallone, accompanied by eight attendants was a regal Lilac (the other was a Kimberly Davey in the matinee), grand in the manner she pulled those arching developpés from the opening waltz melody.

Of the individual fairies, I particularly appreciated Rachel Butler’s calm and expansive port de bras in the first fairy variation (Candide, here called Beauty) and Davey’s musicality in accenting the pizzicatos with her hops in attitude in the third variation (Generosity, here called Purity) in the evening performance. A few of the variations, particularly their finishes perhaps were not quite pristine, but this was high caliber, intelligent and refined dancing. These dancers also saw themselves and their particular variation as part of a larger picture.

The Spell.

The first act opened with Catalabutte, chasing three hags across the stage towards Carabosse at her spinning wheel. If they had been caught knitting, as the libretto says, I didn’t catch the mime. But the escalation of the silent shouting match between the hard of hearing Carabosse (she used a grand ear horn) and Catalabutte was beautifully timed. As was the King’s fury. He not only showed that they will be put to death but how—by forming an imaginary noose around his head, it also took quite a while for him to be dissuaded. The leisureliness of this detailed narrative set the lively contrast to the subsequent dances.

Curiously, the skipping valse villageoise with its Italianate peasants looked as if it had been borrowed from Napoli. Hynd’s Garland dances were full of bourrees for the women and leaps for the mean; their interlocking patterns supplemented with young people from the school. At one point he had three garland dances going at the same time, with two simpler ones (by students) framing the one mid stage. The section culminated in a three tiered revolving circle in which arm-wafting dancers supported on various levels created the image of an elaborate birthday cake. Even though this sugary image was technically a little wobbly, it was a charming and sweet idea.

Louise Nadeau was the matinee’s Aurora. Almost childlike in the way she threw herself into the initial pas de chats and jetes, she acted respectfully towards her parents and clearly enjoyed the attention of her suitors. When she sank into the arabesque penchee, finger on her chin, she looked quite the little flirt. Holding her balances securely and easily, she became close to giddy as she increased her turns with every rose offered. Energy and exuberance, however, did not infer with but her technique but guided her securely through the bounding enchainments of her solo variations. The evening’s Aurora, Lisa Apple, at first seemed very much daddy’s little girl, listened attentively to the King’s telling her now that she has grown up, has become beautiful, she will get married, to a suitor of her own choice. Maybe a little more dramatic than Nadeau, Apple was a pristine and growing-in-maturity Aurora, almost Giselle-like after the pricking of her finger.

The Vision. Both Jeffrey Staunton, in the matinee, and Christophe Maraval, in the evening performance convinced me as Florimunds. Staunton was the more regal of the two, with a lovely long line and a properly regal demeanor though Maraval’s melancholy, because of his upper body comported, looked a little deeper.

The beginning of the Vision with its ensemble dances can look rather generic. Not here. In his short solo, to which Florimund had acceded without reservation, revealed long lines, good elevation and a noble and modest bearing. The subsequent narrative sequences fleshed out his character. Welcomed with a drink by Gallison, the tutor, Florimund insisted that he pass the goblet to the noble woman behind him. His rejection of the pushy Countess (Alexandra Dickinson, Erin Joseph) was courteous but firm. Her disgust at the peasant request to dance with the nobility, contrasted sharply with Florimund positive response, resulting in one of ballet’s more democratic ensemble numbers. Peasants and royalty not only danced together, but executed the same steps. Flemming Halby was the extraordinary Gallison, befuddled and confused, but genuinely hurt in the Blind Man’s Buff section. We couldn’t help but seeing that teasing sequence through his eyes—not an innocent game but a cruel way of entertaining yourself at the cost of an old man and social inferior.

The cat and mouse game of Florimund’s looking for the reticent yet intrigued Aurora among the nymphs was fluidly and delicately worked out with Lallone’s Lilac Fairy as a lovely hovering spirit facilitating and obstructing this courting game. The Panorama Scene at the end of the second act was staged with Florimund following Lilac’s lead’s through a very dark and threatening forest, fighting off the evil spirits of Carabosse and her cohorts. At the end of act I Lilac had inexplicably blessed a sleeping guard’s sword. It this weapon that Florimund grabbed now to hack his way through the vegetation. With sword in hand, he reached Aurora, bent over to kiss her when Carabosse sneaked up from behind, and in best hero fashion he killed her with one stroke. She melted away—just like the Wicked Witch. The Panorama scene, with Florimund genuinely terrified, but faithfully trusting Lilac, reminded —maybe because the music sounded so Mozartian at one point—of Pamina leading Tamino leading through the final tests in The Magic Flute.

The Wedding.

To tell the truth, this last act, which is supposed to be a kind of apotheosis, looked almost anticlimactic. One of this Sleeping Beauty’s charms lies in its quasi egalitarian atmosphere and the minutiae of ordinary life which frame the dancing so eloquently. The queen fusses over her baby, the king is overtly solicitous for his wife; he carefully listens to the entreaties for mercy; they are loving parents, kind to their subjects, even Catalabutte is forgiven. Florimund, for his part, is kind to his subjects and disapproves of snobs. In this act there is no room for the humdrum that filled out the previous acts. Hynd tried but it didn’t quite work. As the curtain went up, pages were lighting the chandeliers which then were raised to the ceiling. It felt a little like having arrived at a party too early.

Additionally both the Prologue and the Spell with their elaborate group dances made a point of offering rich, billowing stage pictures creating a sense of communality, involving everyone from pillow carrying tots to the ubiquitous spear carriers and horn blowing servants. The Wedding scene offers few of these possibilities. It is supposed to function on a higher level of consciousness. Framed by the opening Polacca (in which the wedding couple did not take part) and the closing Mazurka, which are festive though not particularly imaginative, this act has to be carried by the divertissements and the pas de deux.

Hynd chose to include four divertissements: Gold and Silver pas de trois (for two men and one woman), White Cat & Puss in Boots, Bluebirds pas de deux (his title) and Red Riding Hood & the Wolf.

After the initial unison waltz the pas de trois featured glittering fast footwork, full of entrechats and cabrioles, with quick partner changes and each of the dancers having short solos somehow reminiscent of the fairy variations. Both teams—Alexandra Dickson, Valeri Hristov, Astrit Zejnati (matinee) and (Imler, Batkhurel Bold and Casey Herd (evening)—delivered themselves honorably. In the matinee Maria Chapman’s sexy little White Cat to Patrick Telleners’ Puss had it a little over the evening’s Butler and Zejnati. Nicholas Ade’s Bluebird, however, showed neither the elevation nor the requisite arched body line; Jonathan Porretta, security despite the required speed, came much closer. Both men were paired with Jodie Thomas who showed lovely liquid extensions and brisk footwork. The Red Riding Hood & the Wolf teams (Kara Zimmerman and Herd, Mara Vinson and Charles Newton) clearly relished the humor in the mime sequences, with the Wolf actually donning grandmother cap and gown before carrying off the trembling waif. Given the extended mime of this Sleeping Beauty, this divertissement, which otherwise often looks negligible, fit in very nicely.

Neither of the two couples Nadeau/Stanton and Apple/Maraval, quite had the grandeur and self-confident authority that I would like to see in an ideal Grand Pas de Deux. But both Auroras radiated a measure of calm maturity even as their dancing echoed the innocence we remembered. Nadeau’s Aurora was particularly beguiling, luminous, clear and sure of herself even though, as a wonderfully gallant Stanton showed her off in the promenades, she seemed full of wonderment at what had happened to her. At times a joyous gusto spurted out, snapping her leg into an angle in the fish dive or sending her circling wrists upward and swinging them side to side in her variations. Apple’s too was a pleasing and convincing with her presence, her arabesques distinct and placed just so. I thought it a particularly charming touch that at the end of her supported pirouettes, she leaned just a tad toward her beloved groom. The ballet closed with everybody paying tribute to the smiling Lilac Fairy who materialized high above the stage in a medallion setting, surrounded by her arm-wafting attendants. It was a touching but in its echoes of Victorian imagery, also curiously homely ending, maybe as close to an apotheosis as we had the right to expect.