{"id":4271,"date":"2016-06-03T14:24:19","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T18:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=4271"},"modified":"2016-06-17T23:19:16","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T03:19:16","slug":"love-finds-a-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2016\/06\/love-finds-a-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Finds a Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

American Ballet Theatre revives its production of Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gard\u00e9e.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"James

James Whiteside and Stella Abrera of American Ballet Theatre as Colas and Lise in Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gard\u00e9e<\/em>. Photo: Rosalie O’Connor<\/p><\/div>\n

If I had been able to write about American Ballet Theatre\u2019s production of Frederick Ashton\u2019s La Fille Mal Gard\u00e9e<\/em> before the company\u2019s performances of it ended on May 30, I would have said, \u201cif you\u2019re having a bad day, go see this ballet.\u201d So fragrant, so tender is its depiction of love, innocence, mischief, and good-heartedness that the landscape it evokes seems perfectly believable, even when a rooster and his hens turn out to be diligent dancers.<\/p>\n

Numerous versions of La Fille mal gard\u00e9e<\/em> followed its premiere in Bordeaux on July 1, 1789. The storming of the Bastille occurred two weeks later. While there\u2019s no proof that the ballet\u2019s choreographer, Jean Dauberval, was making a political statement, its scenario\u2014unlike those propelling other ballets of the day\u2014 was not about the aristocracy but about farmers and a love that counted among the hay fields\u2019 summer harvests.<\/p>\n

In 1960, the year that Ashton\u2019s Fille mal gard\u00e9e <\/em>was first performed by Brtitain\u2019s Royal Ballet, the choreographer wrote that while reading the journals of William Wordsworth\u2019s sister, Dorothy, he had been \u201cswept by a longing for the country of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century.\u201d He also said that \u201cThere exists in my imagination a life in the country of eternally late spring, a leafy pastoral of perpetual sunshine and the humming of bees\u2014the suspended stillness of a Constable landscape of my beloved Suffolk, luminous and calm.\u201d He called his La Fille mal gard\u00e9e <\/em>his \u201cpoor man\u2019s Pastorale Symphony\u201d and often listened to that sixth symphony of Beethoven\u2019s while he was preparing his work. And \u201cfrom him I got the accumulative waves of movement that I tried to put into my ballet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story is simple enough. Widow Simone, a well-do-do farmer, plans to marry her only daughter, Lise, to Alain, the son of Thomas, an even richer vintner. Unaware of this (and also very aware that Alain has what amounts to a child\u2019s mind inside a man\u2019s body), Lise enjoys flirting with Colas, a scamp of a young farmer who is determined to have her despite her mother\u2019s disapproval. In the end, Lise and Colas are united by an unplanned moral decision. Simone has locked her wayward daughter in the house, but her wooer returns, hidden by his pals among the sheaves they have brought in. Once Lise is alone, he bursts ardently forth, but is forced to hide when a crowd is is heard at the door. The fireplace being too hot and a bureau drawer too small, she shoves him upstairs and into her bedroom. Oh-oh. She\u2019s ordered to go get ready for her wedding, which means that when Alain reluctantly knocks on her door, she and Colas are discovered in flagrante delicto<\/em> (or what passed for it among the virtuous peasants of 19th<\/sup>-century ballets). So they have<\/em> to get married.<\/p>\n

John Lanchbery drew on what could be found of Ferdinand H\u00e9rold\u2019s\u2019s score for the 1828 version of the ballet, but much of it was his own. It supports the drama as well as the dancing. The instruments warble morning bird calls in the overture. They clash furiously in the storm that ends Act 1, scene 2 and sends the revelers rushing around. The bassoon (or was it the tuba?) underscores Alain\u2019s clumsiness. And when one of the young men plays a flute for his chums to dance to, the orchestra magnifies his efforts.<\/p>\n

The cast I saw (there were four) featured Stella Abrera as Lise, James Whiteside as Colas, Aaron Scott as Alain, and. . . wait for it. . .Marcelo Gomes as the Widow Simone. ABT doesn\u2019t have character dancers on its roster, so Gomes of the princely bearing and the elegant technique essays a different type of virtuosity\u2014one that involves a bonnet, a padded bosom and butt, and a great deal of acting, both subtle and outrageous. He nails every no-nonsense finger-shaking, dignified making-nice, furious lamenting, and most of the nuances between them. And if he\u2019s not the best ever to master Ashton\u2019s delicious Lancashire clog dance, he\u2019s excellent enough, and his delight is palpable as he romps at the harvest fest with four maidens whose neat clogs double as pointe shoes.<\/p>\n

\"Lise

Lise (Stella Abrera) helps her mother (Marcelo Gomes) with the spinning. Photo: Rosalie O’Connor<\/p><\/div>\n

Malin Thoors staged this production of the ballet and deserves much credit for the niceties of emotion and pantomime that mark the developing and falling apart of relationships. How, for instance, does a girl churn dutifully but petulantly? How does a young man sneak unobserved into, and out of, a duet that the girl he loves is performing with an impish, unsuitable suitor. Abrera and Whiteside not only dance with beautiful fluency and clarity, they manage with conviction the changing emotions of this meant-for-each-other couple, whom we easily imagine to be teenagers. Arron Scott excels in the comical role of Alain, who cherishes his red umbrella so much that he\u2019d sooner lose his bride-to-be than that beloved object. This is not an easy role (and hardly a politically correct one), but Ashton made for Alain an eccentric solo that shows his sly wit and nimble feet, as well as his simple-mindedness. And one of the most touching moments is the one in which his fat, pompous father (Thomas Forster) pats his son\u2019s cowlick sadly and affectionately when it becomes obvious that he\u2019s not going to marry pretty Lise after all.<\/p>\n

Ashton, as always, created marvelous dancing for all his characters. His scenario, like the original one, allots plenty of time for group celebration; his peasants in clean, bright-colored attire dance wielding sickles, perform maneuvers linked by holding small sticks, and join to make a maypole. Colas shows his nimble footwork by dancing between around and over two wine bottles. When the leading characters perform alone or together, their feet are busy, their bodies expressive, and he puts classical steps together in innovative ways\u2014surprising you with a beginning that turns unpredictable, or an ending that isn\u2019t one. He had some lovely ideas. When Lise is locked in the house, Colas appears at the transom above the door, reaching down to lift her and swing her off the floor, as well as turning her on one toe to show that, if love can conquer restraints, so can a pas de deux.<\/p>\n

Ribbons become a running them. Lise finds the crook that Colas has decorated with a lover\u2019s knot\u2014reason enough to dance happily. Finding her momentarily alone, he invents games with a longer ribbon. She can turn rapidly within it, getting closer and closer to him as it furls around her. It can be rippled like a little river. He can take the middle of it between his teeth and play horsey to the driver he loves. In addition to the maypole dance, there\u2019s another, much more innovative ribbon number, into the center of which Lise steps\u2014taking in one hand the ends of all the ribbons fanned out around her by her girlfriends; there she stands in attitude<\/em> on one toe, unwavering as they walk in circle around her, rotating her in the process. It\u2019s a beautiful image, as trustful as it is virtuosic.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting to ponder how much 19th<\/sup>-century European choreographers knew about one another\u2019s work. I think of the storm in August Bournonville\u2019s 1846 Napoli<\/em>, as well as his own possible influences on later choreographers. One of the solos in Napoli<\/em>\u2019s last act features the same piquant pauses in the steps and music that characterize one of Ashton\u2019s solos for Lise. His ballet as a whole acknowledges many of those pretty, good-at-heart predecessors, with everyone dressed up for some festival or other, and happy endings obtained at some cost and with a bit of suspense. In the last- act duet for Lise and Colas, he lifts her and bears her across the stage; we know she\u2019s a dead weight (she doesn\u2019t help him with a preparatory spring), but she looks as light as air. You can believe that he\u2019s teaching her to fly, and eventually he lifts her higher. What better metaphor for love?<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American Ballet Theatre revives its production of Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gard\u00e9e. If I had been able to write about American Ballet Theatre\u2019s production of Frederick Ashton\u2019s La Fille Mal Gard\u00e9e before the company\u2019s performances of it ended on May 30, I would have said, \u201cif you\u2019re having a bad day, go see this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65,796,353,1202,2113,2112,455,798],"class_list":{"0":"post-4271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ballet","8":"tag-american-ballet-theatre","9":"tag-arron-scott","10":"tag-frederick-ashton","11":"tag-james-whiteside","12":"tag-john-lanchbery","13":"tag-la-fille-mal-gardee","14":"tag-marcelo-gomes","15":"tag-stella-abrera","16":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4271"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4305,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions\/4305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}