Music/Ballet: Two Great 20th century artists
Last night I attended a performance of the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center. It would be better termed a concert of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, with dancing. That was great! Ballet is something I do not always enjoy. I have noted through the years that people enjoy it for a variety of reasons:
1. Grandeur, epic sweeping drama (e.g. Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty)
2. Personality cult of specific dancers (opera has these kind of swooning fans too)
3. Athletic performance comparisons, like watching gymnastics at the Olympics
4. Titillation (I remember a colleague a few years ago who pointed out only which guys did and did not have great bodies).
As for me, I really enjoy those ballets where watching the dance amplifies my appreciation for the music, which also needs to be excellent for me to have a good time. This cultural amplification effect occurs in a different way in opera, where the music amplifies the plot. Ballet amplification was on display last night in the all-Stravinsky program. Each ballet was choreographed by George Balanchine, perhaps the greatest 20th century choreographer, who bridges classical and modern dance seamlessly with acute attention to the music he is setting. He had a long artistic relationship with Igor Stravinsky, and the New York City Ballet has historically been the leading repository of this collaboration. In Balanchine, the dance does not just float above the music, inspired by it--it actually illustrates the music's structure and rhythm. While this is not unique to Balanchine (the same thing happens in the Joffrey Ballet's great Rite of Spring reconstruction of the original Nijinskii choreography), it is exciting to learn more about a piece of music by watching it. This happened last night.
The five pieces had in common a bare stage, minimalist lighting and the use of rehearsal-style clothing by dancers...nothing to distract from the music and movement. Also, the orchestra musicians were prominent visually. In Duo Concertante, a difficult violin-piano sonata, the two musicians were on stage, and the dancers began by listening to the performers, leaning on the piano. They then danced, seemingly inspired by the music, and kept interrupting the dancing later to come back and admire the musicians again. This was a pretty explicit demonstration of Balanchine's belief in musical-dance symbiosis. Interestingly, the two least compelling pieces on the concert were pieces that I did not musically like so much: Monumentum pro Gesualdo, a neo-renaissance piece that was a bit ponderous and didn't really sound like the over-the-top Gesualdo, and Movements for Orchestra, a serialist piece from the late 1950's, arid like much of the music of that time. Stravinsky sort of admitted that, when he said that Balanchine's choreography put on the building on top of his floorplan. Neither of these really rose to any heights, although Balanchine's choreography was appropriate to the style in each case, dancelike and ceremonial in Monumentum and angular and energetic in Movements.
The two big pieces were the Violin Concerto (well played by orchestra concertmaster Kurt Nikkanen, who was nicely on display in the pit so you could always see him) and Symphony in Three Movements. Both are rhythmic, often neoclassical Stravinsky that make you tap your foot, so easy to see why Balanchine was inspired here. I loved the way Balanchine responds to the music. In one slow section of the concerto, the music has a section where strings and winds play similar material, but lagging a bit behind one another before unifying, a bit like a canon. On stage, two groups of dancers did the same thing. I may not have noticed the musical effect without seeing the dance. Part of the first movement of the symphony breaks into polyrhythms, sounding like The Rite of Spring is about to break out, and the dance there clarified each rhythm, reminding me of the Nijinskii choreography I remembered from the Joffrey performance years ago...I have to think Balanchine was familiar with this. Balanchine was not just a slave to the composer's intent however. In the Symphony (composed in the mid 1940's), the choreographer, if not the composer, was apparently inspired by the Pacific military theater of World War II. This agenda was revealed not with explicit narrative, but symbolically with military marching movements, Asian (Balinese? Indian art?) intertwining arms and legs in the central pas de deux
and what to me looked like the corps of women about to take off from an aircraft carrier (esp. at the striking start of the ballet) and later high-flying airplane action from some men (see below, and you can see the ballet opening here).
The musical and dance performances were excellent, considering that this rhythmic, exacting style exposes all flaws. It must be tough on the performers when the music and choreography are so transparent, minimally set and costumed so that they are perpetually under the microscope. Overall, this program exemplified what I enjoy most about ballet. I wanted to come home and listen to the music again, but now with a visual picture of it in my head.
1. Grandeur, epic sweeping drama (e.g. Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty)
2. Personality cult of specific dancers (opera has these kind of swooning fans too)
3. Athletic performance comparisons, like watching gymnastics at the Olympics
4. Titillation (I remember a colleague a few years ago who pointed out only which guys did and did not have great bodies).
As for me, I really enjoy those ballets where watching the dance amplifies my appreciation for the music, which also needs to be excellent for me to have a good time. This cultural amplification effect occurs in a different way in opera, where the music amplifies the plot. Ballet amplification was on display last night in the all-Stravinsky program. Each ballet was choreographed by George Balanchine, perhaps the greatest 20th century choreographer, who bridges classical and modern dance seamlessly with acute attention to the music he is setting. He had a long artistic relationship with Igor Stravinsky, and the New York City Ballet has historically been the leading repository of this collaboration. In Balanchine, the dance does not just float above the music, inspired by it--it actually illustrates the music's structure and rhythm. While this is not unique to Balanchine (the same thing happens in the Joffrey Ballet's great Rite of Spring reconstruction of the original Nijinskii choreography), it is exciting to learn more about a piece of music by watching it. This happened last night.
The five pieces had in common a bare stage, minimalist lighting and the use of rehearsal-style clothing by dancers...nothing to distract from the music and movement. Also, the orchestra musicians were prominent visually. In Duo Concertante, a difficult violin-piano sonata, the two musicians were on stage, and the dancers began by listening to the performers, leaning on the piano. They then danced, seemingly inspired by the music, and kept interrupting the dancing later to come back and admire the musicians again. This was a pretty explicit demonstration of Balanchine's belief in musical-dance symbiosis. Interestingly, the two least compelling pieces on the concert were pieces that I did not musically like so much: Monumentum pro Gesualdo, a neo-renaissance piece that was a bit ponderous and didn't really sound like the over-the-top Gesualdo, and Movements for Orchestra, a serialist piece from the late 1950's, arid like much of the music of that time. Stravinsky sort of admitted that, when he said that Balanchine's choreography put on the building on top of his floorplan. Neither of these really rose to any heights, although Balanchine's choreography was appropriate to the style in each case, dancelike and ceremonial in Monumentum and angular and energetic in Movements.
The two big pieces were the Violin Concerto (well played by orchestra concertmaster Kurt Nikkanen, who was nicely on display in the pit so you could always see him) and Symphony in Three Movements. Both are rhythmic, often neoclassical Stravinsky that make you tap your foot, so easy to see why Balanchine was inspired here. I loved the way Balanchine responds to the music. In one slow section of the concerto, the music has a section where strings and winds play similar material, but lagging a bit behind one another before unifying, a bit like a canon. On stage, two groups of dancers did the same thing. I may not have noticed the musical effect without seeing the dance. Part of the first movement of the symphony breaks into polyrhythms, sounding like The Rite of Spring is about to break out, and the dance there clarified each rhythm, reminding me of the Nijinskii choreography I remembered from the Joffrey performance years ago...I have to think Balanchine was familiar with this. Balanchine was not just a slave to the composer's intent however. In the Symphony (composed in the mid 1940's), the choreographer, if not the composer, was apparently inspired by the Pacific military theater of World War II. This agenda was revealed not with explicit narrative, but symbolically with military marching movements, Asian (Balinese? Indian art?) intertwining arms and legs in the central pas de deux
and what to me looked like the corps of women about to take off from an aircraft carrier (esp. at the striking start of the ballet) and later high-flying airplane action from some men (see below, and you can see the ballet opening here).
The musical and dance performances were excellent, considering that this rhythmic, exacting style exposes all flaws. It must be tough on the performers when the music and choreography are so transparent, minimally set and costumed so that they are perpetually under the microscope. Overall, this program exemplified what I enjoy most about ballet. I wanted to come home and listen to the music again, but now with a visual picture of it in my head.
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