Wang Theatre, Boston, 16 mai 2009
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Centennial Celebration at the Wang Theatre was quite an experience, as I knew it would be. I’d never been to the Boston Ballet, or to the Wang. It was the expected assortment bluehairs, professional homosexuals with money to burn, the “upwardly-mobile” and maybe a sprinkling of trust-fund babies. As per usual, I was the evening’s token pariah- lots of pointing and staring, but I’m used to that sort of thing I guess.
My seat was perfect - orchestra seating, 12 rows from the stage, perfect view of the entire show. The orchestra, conducted by Johathan McPhee, was exhilarating. I wasn’t really familiar with any of the music apart from Stravinsky, but The Rite of Spring was easily better than any recorded version I’ve heard. It was a rush. Like being in the middle of a perfect storm.
Now, bear in mind I’m no ballet expert or afficionado, it’s just something I happen to enjoy every now and then and I hadn’t actually seen a ballet performance since my days in Eugene (yikes) - but here is my brief little review of what I saw, for the benefit of my memory and the two or three of you who care : Prodigal Son, Prokofiev’s retelling of “a parable from the Gospel of St. Luke in which a rebellious son leaves his father’s home to find adventure in the wider world, only to return after experiencing the cruelties of humankind,” was stunning. The choreography by George Balanchine, which debuted in Paris in 1928, was truly awesome. Even 81 years later, it felt fresh and inventive. It was provocative and I didn’t expect that- I was actually kind of shocked by some of the moves. Not just the elegance of the choreography and the skillful execution of the dancers, but the sexuality of it – I’d never seen that in a ballet before. It was very intimate.
To say the male lead gave me the vapors would be to understate ; I was fanning myself like Karl Lagerfeld after he’s taken one too many Adderall and one of his models just did a face-plant in the middle of the runway.
It was the unexpected high point of the night.
The scenery for this first ballet was underwhelming and that would be my one complaint ; it was brutish and totally out of harmony with the elegance of everything else.
Next came Le Spectre de la Rose - this was about 15 minutes long, and was basically a girl’s dream of a dancing rose. I don’t know why they presented this ballet ; it was excruciating. The music was uninspiring (though composed by Weber and orchestrated by one of my favorites, Hector Berlioz, which was a surprise) ; the choreography and dancing was.... Not even underwhelming – it was stultifying. The best thing about it was the scenery, which consisted of two regal 20-foot windows through which the ’dancing rose’ made his entrance and exit.
At one point I began to imagine that the windows were closed, and that the dancing rose swept the girl off her feet and threw her casually through the window in a hail of glass. Fantasizing about this gave me the church giggles.
The third ballet, Afternoon of a Faun by Debussy, did indeed employ a replica of the original scenery by Leon Bakst and that was the best thing about it- the scenery and the lighting were beautiful.
The dancing, alas, was wooden and the Faun... Well the Faun, portrayed by Altankhuyah Dugaraa- he originally from Mongolia, was made up to look like a drag queen (ballet + delicate asian facial features + a heavy hand in the make-up chair = the most effete dancer you’ve ever seen- and that’s really saying something when you’re talking about ballet).
This is a ballet about animal lust ; it requires a MASCULINE lead if we are to believe the Faun is exalted by these girls at play in his world. The whole time I was thinking, “trannie !” and I was reasonably convinced this Faun wanted to BE one of the girls, forget about lusting after them.
Oh, and his costume – well. Bewildering. A faun (I had to look it up) is “one of a class of rural deities represented as men with the ears, horns, tail, and later also the hind legs of a goat”- basically, it’s Pan. It’s the tail that got me. It was this stubby little pink thing, about six inches long, and it looked suspiciously penile. And Dugaraa’s wooden, robotic dancing didn’t help matters- that six-inch stub wiggled around like a stiff penis growing out of a place no penis should ever grow. (Wasn’t there just an item in the news recently about a baby born with, errr, some extra junk growing out of his trunk ? But I digress.)
Lastly... We came to what I thought would be the hands-down pièce de résistance, Stravinsky’s immortal Le Sacre du Printemps, one of my favorite pieces of classical music. The orchestration, as I mentioned, was truly stunning and that alone was quite an experience. Likewise, the single set piece- a wall of fire spanning the width of the stage : it reflected off the floor and gave the whole piece this marvelous feeling of being in an inferno.
One of the hazards of attending a performance of Le Sacre (this was my second in person, and I’ve seen a couple on television) is that the choreographer inevitably tries to do things that are innovative & shocking (when it premiered in 1913, it was so scandalous that it caused a riot- I guess modern choreographers feel obliged to carry on this legacy). Unfortunately, more often than not the result is shockingly bad, and this was no exception.
Now, again- I’m no ballet expert- but there was entirely too much modern dance choreography for my taste. There were moments that felt ’strictly ballroom’ (which was not helped at all by the red-sequined costumes worn by the entire corps), others that seemed straight out of “Riverdance” - there were jazz hands (!) and pantomime (? ?) and even moves that looked suspiciously derived from urban hip-hop (the mind reels). The costuming lent an air of a Vegas showroom. One of my favorite pieces of music, hopelessly defiled by kitsch. A shame.
I also felt the choreography lacked any coherent MEANING. This is a ballet about sacrifice- it’s about a girl dancing herself to death as a sacrifice to the gods ! It’s about death and rebirth. It’s supposed to be violent and imposing- and the dancing, I thought, neither told this story nor conveyed any of the emotions it should have.
Naturally it received a standing ovation. I did not stand. I marvel that anyone did (were we watching the same show ?). Maria Callas apparently once said that standing ovations mean nothing this side of the Atlantic, and sadly I think that’s true. I think shouting “bravo !” over any piece of tripe makes American audiences feel more sophisticated and European. It’s kind of tragic.