{"id":946,"date":"2014-07-30T16:44:50","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T15:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=946"},"modified":"2014-07-30T16:44:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T15:44:50","slug":"dead-parrot-ballet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2014\/07\/dead-parrot-ballet.html","title":{"rendered":"Dead parrot ballet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"R&J<\/a><\/p>\n

Prokofiev\u2019s score for Romeo and Juliet<\/em> is pitiless\u00a0in its\u00a0tragedy, singing with a desperate hope. I mention this, because you\u2019d never have guessed from the flatlining revival that opened the Mariinsky\u2019s London season<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n

As Clement Crisp<\/a> remarks, Romeo and Juliet<\/em> was created during the siege of Leningrad, a response perhaps to cruel historical forces and to the fragility of individuals seeking to escape their circumstances. Leonid Lavrovsky\u2019s production had something urgent to say to its day \u2013 I imagine a revival that revisited that original historical moment could make it speak again. But that day has passed, and no one responsible for its latest incarnation seems remotely interested in a living production of a classic that should bubble with urgent vitality.<\/p>\n

Instead, opening night at Covent Garden offered cloth pillars wafting limply in the dancers\u2019 wake, wigs reeking of embalming fluid, gestures so broad they could command their own postcode. Is this all the Mariinsky thinks of the masterpiece it premiered? Is Romeo<\/em> really such shallow material that it doesn\u2019t deserve a new exploration? Only Diana Vishneva<\/a> and Vladimir Shklyarov in the title roles brought an ardent curiosity to the stage. Each has limpid arms, unfurling like a sigh, and a poignantly heightened lyricism. In a narrative that drives its protagonists towards death, they were the only living creatures. These committed, fine-grained artists galloped like thoroughbreds while all around people spent an evening dutifully flogging a dead horse. As Monty Python <\/a>would have it, the ballet was not resting, nor was it pining for the fjords. This is an ex-ballet.<\/p>\n

\"Vishneva<\/a>

Vishneva and Shklyarov in Romeo and Juliet Photo: \u00a9 Sasha Gouliaev<\/p><\/div>\n

When the Mariinsky caravan trundles into town, ballet\u2019s true believers book as many performances of each production as purse and health allow. In theory, I\u2019d be with them \u2013 it would have been fascinating to view the second-night cast, showcasing two of the Mariinsky\u2019s rare foreign recruits: Hull\u2019s finest, Xander Parish<\/a>, as Romeo, and the emerging Korean star Kimin Kim<\/a> as Mercutio. Parish\u2019s elegant integrity, Kim\u2019s unforced panache, would be a treat. But could anyone with any love for performance bear successive helpings of the flea-bitten sham-dram peddled by the Petersburg troupe?<\/p>\n

Across the ocean, the Bolshoi<\/a> recently bounded into New York. It\u2019s a sign of that company\u2019s artistic retrenchment that it brought a notably conservative repertoire, heavy on the work of Yuri Grigorovitch, the Cold War\u2019s signature producer. It seems that his bombastic Spartacus<\/em> and Swan Lake<\/em> fell like an iron fist in an iron glove. Under Alexei Ratmansky<\/a>, the company had a thrilling sense of purpose \u2013 as if they knew not only what they were dancing, but why. To Alastair Macaulay<\/a>, writing in the New York Times<\/em>, this latest season was a dismaying throwback that sent the Bolshoi \u2018tumbling back into a pre-1989 nightmare.\u2019<\/p>\n

So, the two companies which for many represent the classical gold standard choose to tour shows that seemed less revived than embalmed. Things elsewhere are less gloomy: San Francisco Ballet\u2019s generous tasting menu, for example, caused trills of pleasure<\/a> in Paris.<\/p>\n

Among British companies, Birmingham Royal Ballet\u2019s classics have a restrained dignity, while Scottish Ballet can take advantage of its less ample forces to look askance at the Petipa works. The previous director, Ashley Page<\/a>, devised sharp, skewed productions, their colours ripe and queasy, which tackled the fabular strangeness of these stories head-on. The Royal Ballet\u2019s core classics are not always heart-racing (a staid Sleeping Beauty<\/em> and Nutcracker),<\/em> though its lambent Giselle<\/em> and fin-de-si\u00e8cle Swan Lake<\/em> maintain a properly dramatic pulse.<\/p>\n

Tamara Rojo<\/a>, at English National Ballet, deserves credit for trying to extend her company\u2019s repertoire but she has also fallen back on some depthless warhorses \u2013 a cheerful airhead of a Copp\u00e9lia<\/em><\/a> and a vapid Romeo and Juliet<\/em>. If you\u2019re waiting for the Benedict Andrews<\/a>, Katie Mitchell<\/a> or Ivo van Hove<\/a> of the ballet stage \u2013 scorched-earth directors who make old plays seem as if they\u2019ve just arrived in your inbox \u2013 you\u2019ll be waiting a long time.<\/p>\n

\"Benedict<\/a>

Benedict Andrews’ production of A Streetcar Named Desire (Young Vic) Photo: (c) Johan Persson<\/p><\/div>\n

If the unexamined life is not worth living, is the unexamined ballet worth dancing? In a theatrical moment when the texts of the past are routinely brought up for scrutiny, no theatre company would settle for the incurious, slack-jawed routine of their ballet equivalents. These artistic directors believe their audiences deserve little more than a bit of bounce and sparkle. It\u2019s an insult to their audiences, to their dancers and the works that languish in sheer intellectual inertia. As an artistic strategy? It\u2019s bleeding demised.<\/p>\n

Main image: Diana Vishneva with Igor Kolb in Romeo and Juliet Photo: (c) Alexander Gouliaev<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow David: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Prokofiev\u2019s score for Romeo and Juliet is pitiless\u00a0in its\u00a0tragedy, singing with a desperate hope. I mention this, because you\u2019d never have guessed from the flatlining revival that opened the Mariinsky\u2019s London season earlier this week. As Clement Crisp remarks, Romeo and Juliet was created during the siege of Leningrad, a response perhaps to cruel historical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":947,"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],"class_list":{"0":"post-946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-ballet","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946","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=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":950,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions\/950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}