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National Ballet of ChinaOctober 2005 New York, Brooklyn Academy of Music by Eric Taub |
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While having gained a reputation as a formidable presenter of the classics, the National Ballet of China chose to showcase a ballet with a distinctly Chinese theme created in 2001, 'Raise the Red Lantern,' directed by Zhang Yimou after his popular 19TK film of the same name. Yes, like movies, operas and musicals, this ballet has a director; in the program notes, its two (count 'em, two!) choreographers, Wang Xinpeng and Wang Yuanyuan are credited in a tie for third place, after Zhang and Chen Qigang, the ballet's composer. It's not surprising, then, that 'Raise the Red Lantern' makes its greatest impression as a work of theater. Although there's lots of dancing, or, rather, movement, its choreography seldom rises above the illustrative, the connecting bits between one dramatic coup de theatre and the next. At moments where Zhang does allow his characters, to interact with a more elaborate (and, it must be said, familiar balleto-modern) dance vocabulary, there's a perfunctory quality, as if Zhang were standing in the wings with an eye on the clock, patiently waiting for the dancey bits to be over before he can get back to the weighty business of telling his story. Despite the Chinese dancers Russian-style luxuriance and intricacy of the clinches Wang and Wang devise for the ballet's doomed lovers, 'Raise the Red Lantern' has no White Swan pas de deux or Rose Adagio (or Agon pas for that matter) where we see a work's essence, distilled and focussed. 'Raise the Red Lantern' has its telling moments, but they're not told by dance as much as by theatrical effects which are always clever in their simplicity, and occasionally stunning. So this ballet is as much about the enormous red silk sheet which shields our eyes from the heroine's wedding-night rape at the end of the first act, or the falling snowflakes which slowly blanket the executed bodies of the three main protagonists at the ballet's end, and scores of other such artifices, as it is about dancing, or, really, more so. Zhang seems never to trust dance to carry the weight of his story (even though it's been considerably dumbed-down in its transition from screen to stage). Basically, the ballet's story is set in the 1930s, telling of a young girl who's apparently sold to be the concubine of a powerful man called only the Master (he is never actually seen in the movie), although said girl is actually in love with a performer in the Beijing Opera. The plot thickens as we're introduced to the Master's wife, and Concubine No. 1. The young girl becomes Concubine No. 2, and, as mentioned above, has a brutal wedding night. Concubine No. 1 feels threatened by her younger rival, and, when she discovers that No. 2 has been having trysts with her operatic lover, rats them out to the Master, who orders their execution. Rather than reward No. 1, he slaps her, although his reason is never made clear is it general humiliation, or perhaps a desire to slay the messenger? No. 2 becomes distraught, and, in a fit of lèse majesté, takes the Masters ceremonial lamp-lighting stick (described in the program as the emblem of his power), and lights rows of hanging red lanterns in the Master's compound. For this, of course, she's sentenced to be executed with the lovers she's ratted out. Nontheless, as all three await their execution, she begs the lovers' forgiveness, which they eventually grant, and all embrace. It's quite the happy ending, except for the dying part. Along the way, Zhang and his collaborators take us on a wild ride of color, stagecraft and theatrical effects. Dancers in gloriously colored qipaos (the three lead women have their toe-shoes dyed to match their dresses) fling about silk scarves and fans with wild abandon, or wave about long silk sleeves that ripple like water. We're treated to bits of what look (and sound) to be authentic Beijing opera performances, complete with onstage musicians, and choreographed combat looking almost like a wildly-costumed precursor to modern kung-fu movies. There's a massive mah-jong game, with nine busy tables. Much paper scenery gets rent the beautifully patterned backdrop through which the young heroine smashes again and again to escape the Master, and the red lanterns which the second concubine shreds madly after she's lit them. There's also the Master's army of thugs, all in black (of course), who occasionally explode in showy leaps when, and the Master himself, resplendent with an inches-long goatee which he tends to stroke lasciviously, contemplating his womenfolk as a gourmand might a box of candies. This ballet is the first I've seen with a leading man and three leading women (the wife and the two concubines) whose interactions never once awoke in my mind an echo of 'Apollo,' although I fear the next time I see 'Apollo' that goatee might emerge from the back of my mind, however I try to suppress it. Although much of 'Red Lantern' is quite beautiful, many of the effects seem a bit recherché. There's a lot I like about balletic kitsch, and with its theatricality, drama and sentimentality, 'Raise the Red Lantern' recalled, in some ways, Rotislav Zakharov's wonderful 1934 'The Fountain of Bakhchisaray.' While 'Bakhchisaray' is not high art, it's passionate and has what 'Red Lantern' lacks: juicy dancing roles, into which generations of ballerinas have sunk their teeth.
Given the thin balletic material they had to work with, the Chinese dancers did well enough, showing off beautiful feet and Russian training in their backs and carriage. As the young Second Concubine, Wang Qimin had an appropriately yearning demeanor, seemingly in pain even in her doomed clinches with the handsome Li Jun, her Beijing-Opera lover. Wang's role gave her little opportunity to develop her character, and it was Ming Ningning, the seductive and enraged Second Concubine who actually had, and made the most of, the better role, literally tearing the scenery as she figuratively chewed it.
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