Last year, I visited Copenhagen and saw two performances (see my posts here and here) by the RDB at the Operaen. This year, they are traveling to the US and their first stop is in Orange County at Segerstrom Hall. I went with Joan, my 90-something ballet teacher and my friend Ronnie. It's a long trek to Orange County from WLA but luckily it's a holiday weekend so a lot of people are out of town.
We had a lovely dinner at Silver Trumpet restaurant, where we can park the car for free and then leave it there and walk over to the hall. The food was wonderful, and except for some difficulty with serving espresso (my guess is they usually do cappucino) the service was fine.
The performance tonight is Napoli, which is a light-hearted ballet by the founder of Danish ballet, August Bournonville. His style is particularly noted for the lightness and clarity of the men's petit allegro. When I was in Denmark, I saw the company in repertory pieces, so this will be a first for me, to see them in a story ballet. The Pacific Symphony provided the musical accompaniment.
The story revolves around a poor fisherman and a young village girl who are in love. Of course there are obstacles (her mother's objections and competing suitors) and danger (she drowns in a grotto and is lured by a demon to become one of his naiads), the saving power of true love (the fisherman gets her to remember her real self through dance) and a celebratory wedding at the end. The artistic director of the RDB is Nicholaj Hubbe who is well known in the US as a principal dancer with NYCB prior to his retirement. He's taken the middle act (the grotto scene) and updated it with interesting video projection effects and more modern choreography. The first act is mainly to set the scene for us and introduce the characters. The village people do some dancing and show off the fishermen's lovely footwork. In the middle act, the modern choreography identifies the demon and his naiads along with lighting effects that make them look cold and blue. The fisherman is lighted with a warm light, and he dances the choreography that we saw in Act I, the traditional Bournonville, and as his love starts remembering who she is, she starts getting the warmer light and dancing the traditional steps. This act is a wonderful bridge between the first and third act, giving us a slightly darker and more moody atmosphere and allowing the bright quick dancing of the third act to really shine. The final act is a series of groups and solos where dancers get to show off their lovely lightness and beautiful feet. The interesting thing about this choreography that makes it so different from standard classical story ballets is the complete lack of show-off pyrotechnics. There's no posing, in fact the dancers barely stop dancing, transitioning in and out of center stage with barely time to take a bow. There is a purity to their dancing that is so refreshing. Plus they all look like they are having a lot of fun.
We had a great time but the glow of the performance did not last, as we got stuck on the 405, which was shut down completely at Long Beach with all traffic being diverted off the freeway. We later found out that two men were found shot in a van and the police investigation is what closed down the freeway. Our relatively quick 1 hour trip home turned in two hours.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment