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Bordeaux Opera Ballet23rd August 2003 (matinee) Edinburgh, Playhouse by Lynette Halewood |
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The title was enough to draw in a good audience: Picasso is nothing if not an eye catcher. Three of the four items on this generous programme featured sets and costumes by Picasso, designed at varying times between 1917 and 1962. These three – Parade, The Three Cornered Hat, Icarus, might have formed enough of a programme on their own, but we also had the bonus of Balanchine’s Prodigal Son, which featured an appearance by the company’s artistic director, Charles Jude. After a slow start, the audience very much warmed to the company.
The somewhat problematic opener was Parade, the earliest piece from 1917. This features a group of travelling music hall players – just the kind of people who inhabit many of Picasso’s pictures of this period. But whereas the pictures have a particular haunting atmosphere with their sad acrobats and clowns looking rather vulnerable and forlorn, the ballet failed to bring off the same kind of atmosphere. Only the rather fey and mannered Chinese conjurer managed to evoke the artifice unease of Picasso’s painted world. And yet the designs surely aim at the air of oppression – great dark brooding painted buildings. Perhaps we should put this down to Massine, the choreographer, or to this revival, which didn’t quite spring to life. Best pantomime horse of the year though, in wonderful pink cubist designs. The costume design for the managers are more like cubist sculptures inside which the dancers parade – quite fascinating to see something like this moving and presenting several different profiles simultaneously, when you have always thought of these as pictures viewed in a flat plane. An interesting experiment but this revival at least didn’t come off.
 The Chinese Man in Leonide Massine's Parade © Douglas Robertson The audience warmed much more to the Spanish music and colours of Massine’s The Three Cornered Hat. I have happy memories of this when it was in the repertory of Birmingham Royal Ballet, featuring performances by the fondly remembered Joe Cipolla and Chenca Williams. Since the theme of this programme was design, there were some points that struck me about this production. In BRB’s the vine on the outside of the Miller’s house was painted on, and it was particularly pointed out in an article in BRB’s 1995 programme at the time that this was done personally by Picasso at Diaghilev’s request. In this production it was a plastic vine pinned on to the wall. Not quite the same thing. The set still invokes Spain, heat and atmosphere with remarkable simplicity and economy, and the swirling primary colours of the bold costumes are dazzling. This was the work that showed the company off to best advantage, putting large forces on stage and it might have been presented as a closing item. Eric Frederick as the Miller looked very stylish and projected his character strongly. The company looked very lively and appeared to be relishing their dancing. It is a popular piece even if perhaps a little over-long.
Serge Lifar’s Icarus also had designs of great simplicity and clarity. But this wasn’t such a feel good experience. Instead of De Falla’s tunes, (nicely played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia) it is accompanied by various recorded rhythmic and percussive sounds created by Lifar himself. This work is on s modest scale with a corps of four men and four women and the characters of Daedalus and Icarus. As such it was rather exposing, with the series of double tours for the men sometimes rather dicey. The work has to stand or fall by its central role: the guest artist Igor Yebra gave a sweatily committed performance as Icarus. I couldn’t be quite persuaded of this – lots of anguished jumping and rolling – and I’m not at all sure whether this is Lifar’s fault rather than the performers. The freight of overwrought emotion seemed to great for the choreography to carry, just as Icarus was too heavy for his wings.
 Stéphanie Roublot as The Courtisan in Balanchine's The Prodigal Son © Douglas Robertson The final item was Balanchine’s Prodigal Son, a work designed by Roualt rather than Picasso but of a similar period. This hasn’t been seen in the UK for some time, and it was pleasing to see it again – and surprising too in many ways, because I’d forgotten how odd some of the movement for the men is in this with their strange squatting stance, legs wide apart, not like anything that “Balanchine” normally conjures up. Charles Jude took the role of the Son: he is by no means a young man, a veteran who has been dancing since 1972, and perhaps rather thicker in the waist than your ideal cast would be. But he knows what he can do and what he can’t and has the stage presence and authority to carry the role. And his partnering of the Siren (Emanuelle Grizot, possessing the requisite killer legs) was impeccable. I do enjoy seeing older dancers still performing because of the depth of experience and detail they bring to their roles: but I’m amazed he manages this testing role twice in one day.
This was an interesting evening, bringing us ballets not that frequently seen, which is what the Edinburgh Festival is about – the unfamiliar and unknown. Even if all the works didn’t quite come off it was a dazzling view, and an introduction to an attractive company.
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