The main highlight of my holiday season has been locating copies of two recent BBC broadcasts of the Royal Ballet in performance: last year's new production of "Cinderella" and this year's broadcast of a mixed bill celebrating the works of Frederick Ashton. What's more, the person who recorded them off the air recorded them onto DVD using her nifty DVD recording machine - oh the joys of new technology - making it easier for me to view them on my American TV and computer (European and Asian televisions use a different video format than we do; in order to watch a program formatted for those television systems you have to get everything reformatted....unless you are using DVD, in which case you can easily watch it on your computer, or simply use a DVD player that does the conversion automatically).
The Royal's production of "Cinderella" was seen Stateside in Orange County last year; despite the fact that critics hate the new designs, I loved the production. The choreography is by Frederick Ashton, and it's sublime choreography - this the critics concede about the production - and the Royal's dancers are truly spectacular dancing the steps, from the bottom ranks of the corps de ballet through to the starry principals. When the BBC aired their production, it was with Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg (Orange County's first cast during the run), who are just sparkling in the roles. BBC seems to have put a lot of effort into making the broadcast, and it turned out beautifully: very well shot, with mostly great framing of the dances. Of course, it helps that "Cinderella" is a story ballet that mostly revolves around soloists or pantomimed action, thus allowing for more zooms and more focused camera work. Things get a bit messy during scenes that eat the entire stage; choreography involving inctricate corps de ballet work, for instance, suffered slightly because the cameras didn't seem to enjoy zooming out for longer than, say, 15 seconds. Still though, the camera is much less fussy and zoom-heavy than in the recent recording of American Ballet Theatre's "The Dream" for PBS in the United States.
But perhaps most interesting about the "Cinderella" program is the commentary and featurettes that framed the performance itself. Hosted by Deborah Bull, we get archive footage and interviews talking about the history of the ballet, plus interesting tid bits about the new production. Basically, it explains why the hell people care about this "Cinderella", and also gives unfamiliar audiences a glimpse into details of the ballet. It was very interesting and highly informative.
The same goes for the second program I got. It's called "Ashton at 100: Fred's Steps" - a TV title for a mixed bill that was performed at the ROyal Opera House in October as part of the Frederick Ashton Centenary (which lasts through the end of the 2004-2005 season). The bill included several shorter Ashton ballets: Scenes de ballet, five divertissement pas de deux, and Daphnis and Chloe. The program was put together with much love and care, and a lot of work also went into little mini-documentaries that led into each of the individual ballets. The television director, Ross MacGibbon for both "Cinderella" and "Ashton at 100," went out and found all sorts of people to talk about the individual works; dancers who originally danced them, people who saw them, sometimes even archive footage of Ashton himself. It made the program very insightful and enjoyable to watch - not to mention the great dancing from the cast all around.
The two programs make me wish PBS would put more effort into the ballet programs that it airs. Yes, its great that they go up at all, but they lack the depth that these two programs had. Three of the most recent airings on PBS - ABT's "The Dream," San Francisco Ballet's "Othello," and Live from Lincoln Center's New York City Ballet Balanchine Centennial Gala - were either blandly self promotional (the NYCB Gala), or they barely got the ballet on the air with absolutely no extra commentary. "The Dream" featured a contrived, brief introduction from Pierce Brosnan - what exactly does Brosnan know about ballet? - before heading straight into the ballet, with the whole thing over with in under an hour. "Othello" had no intros to speak of, only text relating the story of the ballet and then the ballet itself. The NYCB gala - and, come to think of it, both the NYCB Diamond Project Gala from 3 years ago and ABT's documentary on leading male dancers - were gush fests in which the word 'genius' appeared too many times to count, or where everything was perfectly fine and rosy. No real history, no real insight. Granted, the Royal Ballet programs are overwhelmingly positive as well, but at least the insight is far more interesting and put together with some sense of objectivity. (The next ballet broadcast we get from PBS will be American Ballet Theatre's "Swan Lake," which will be recorded in Washtington, D.C., at the Kennedy Center, this February. Here's hoping for more?)
Anyway, I'm thrilled to have these two Royal Ballet programs to watch again and again. The Royal is, after all, my favorite ballet company to watch. It's too bad I live to far away to watch them regularly.
No comments:
Post a Comment