{"id":1237,"date":"2016-02-14T21:26:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T21:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1237"},"modified":"2016-02-14T23:32:49","modified_gmt":"2016-02-14T23:32:50","slug":"coming-into-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2016\/02\/coming-into-land.html","title":{"rendered":"Coming into land"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"strapless2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t ballet have previews? Wouldn\u2019t it help dancers and choreographers alike? As with most bad things, the money says no. Ballets have short runs, so you slap \u2019em on stage and get reviews and publicity whirring at the earliest opportunity. Good for box office and bar takings, but how about the art?<\/p>\n

A triple bill by a living choreographer is a rarity at the Royal Ballet, usually only granted on presentation of a death certificate. But the current meaty programme by Christopher Wheeldon<\/a> includes two toothsome revivals \u2013 the abstract After the Rain<\/em> and Within the Golden Hour<\/em> \u2013 sandwiching a chewy, messy premiere: Strapless<\/a>,<\/em> based on the shoulder-baring scandal <\/a>of John Singer Sergeant\u2019s 1884 portrait Madame X<\/em>. Might it have landed more smartly with a preview or two? A performance isn\u2019t merely about artists showing an audience what they\u2019ve got; it\u2019s about an audience helping artists see what\u2019ve created. Previews let them rethink and refine. Strapless<\/em> needs an audience to pinpoint the narrative blurs and occluded intent.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t read Wheeldon\u2019s source, Deborah Davis\u2019 book of the same name, though in synopsis, it\u2019s the novel Edith Wharton never wrote: two Americans feel they are flowering in Paris, only to bump into the limits of the culture and their self-reinvention. Tricky material for dance, it depends on social and psychological nuance, without a novel\u2019s linguistic ambiguities or the map of facial warmth and freeze that cinema allows. In the evening\u2019s other ballets, dancers press flesh in minimal costume \u2013 the frisson of an exposed shoulder is hard to convey.<\/p>\n

Doing the don’t<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wheeldon\u2019s work centres on Sargent (Edward Watson) and Am\u00e9lie Gautreau (Natalia Osipova): the painter whose being is seeing, the muse who longs to be seen. Gautreau\u2019s trademark move is a turn \u2013 give us a twirl, Am\u00e9lie \u2013 offering a delighted display in all directions. She borders on the classic ballet flirt, taking the town and catching eyes with her sexy moves.<\/p>\n

\"Strapless<\/a><\/p>\n

Sargent\u2019s gift as a portraitist was for swagger and suggestion \u2013 his sitters look fabulous, but their longing (and the artist\u2019s own?) peeks through. Wheeldon presents one recurring subject, the young aristo-artist Albert de Belleroche (Matthew Ball), as Sargent\u2019s lover (to some homophobic disappointment<\/a>) \u2013 and his most interesting sequence takes flight from the fact that the painter sketched both sitters in near-identical poses. Osipova and Ball glide in profile past an opaque canvas, and join Watson in a snaky, tenderly knotted trio (above, in rehearsal \u2013 photo Andrej Uspenski\/ROH). Is the woman a substitute for the youth, or is the portrait an ambiguous palimpsest of Sargent\u2019s art and heart<\/a>? For both artist and muse, is painting a sexual act?<\/p>\n

Wheeldon doesn\u2019t quite nail the image; nor the waft between high society and bohemia (we get an ooh-la-la caf\u00e9 cluttered with cancan dancers); nor the weight of Parisian disapproval (people wear black and point). Ballet can do sex \u2013 Am\u00e9lie\u2019s affair with Dr Pozzi<\/a> (Federico Bonelli), the hornbucket gynaecologist from one of Sargent\u2019s most famous portraits, is conducted with a brisk crotch shuttle, suggesting that the doc did indeed know his way around lady parts. Bonelli also has a moment with Watson and serial fumble with the caf\u00e9 minxes: ballet can suggest doing the do, but doing the don\u2019t is more complex.<\/p>\n

The most telling scene, for me, was the last (pictured top<\/em>, by Bill Cooper). Osipova is in her vulnerable undies \u2013 her undress figuring not sex but shame \u2013 and is almost swept away by an advancing wall displaying her portrait. Time vindicates the artwork but ignores the woman who inspired it: reinforced by the modern gallery visitors and their guide (Watson again) who cluster around the painting oblivious to Osipova. As my chum noted, I had missed the final line of the synopsis: \u2018The painting ultimately brings Am\u00e9lie the fame and immortality she had so craved in life.\u2019 Arrogantly, I find that sentimental baloney, and prefer my mistaken reading. The artwork is lauded, its subject all but forgotten. The desire that animated its origin becomes a note in the catalogue.<\/p>\n

Art takes time, and it takes work. Wheeldon successfully retuned Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland<\/em> between the premiere and first revival (adding an extra interval; cutting not quite enough), and could similarly revisit The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/a><\/em> when it returns in April. The furore over Benedict Cumberbatch\u2019s Hamlet<\/a> spotlit how previews are theatre\u2019s test kitchen; last autumn I saw Mr Foote\u2019s Other Leg<\/a><\/em> having already\u00a0caught a preview, and was impressed at how much sharper and funnier it had become after just a few nights. The Bolshoi will perform Strapless<\/em> next year, and Wheeldon may land it with greater force. But wouldn\u2019t choreographers love a chance to complete work first time round? Does this happen elsewhere? As Strapless<\/em> suggests, art is in for the long haul: an underdone premiere satisfies no one.<\/p>\n

UPDATE Soon after posting, it occurred to me that something was wrong with the photo of the last scene. In my memory, Osipova had been wearing white rather than black. I asked Twitter to help resolve the question and @millymillon and @annakardar both confirmed the ballerina wore white. That change must have taken place following the dress rehearsal (and for good, making the vulnerability keener). It reinforces my conviction that previews could be\u00a0immensely valuable.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shouldn\u2019t ballet have previews? Wouldn\u2019t it help dancers and choreographers alike? As with most bad things, the money says no. Ballets have short runs, so you slap \u2019em on stage and get reviews and publicity whirring at the earliest opportunity. Good for box office and bar takings, but how about the art? A triple bill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1240,"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":[1],"tags":[30,60,29,61,131],"class_list":{"0":"post-1237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-ballet","9":"tag-christopher-wheeldon","10":"tag-dance","11":"tag-edward-watson","12":"tag-royal-ballet","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1237"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1246,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237\/revisions\/1246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}