5.3 this morning.
And a CCC might be coming later if I can decipher what it was I saw yesterday.
Colin’s Cultural Corner
12th June 2023 The Royal Ballet - Royal Opera House
Untitled, 2023
Corybantic Games
Anastasia Act III
This much praised program of dance has been given rave views in the press. Perhaps they were at an actual rave because I’m not sure what they were watching was this lot.
First up is Wayne McGregor’s new work
Untitled, 2023.
Curtain up (figuratively speaking as there was no curtain) on a plain white stage with two features: a triangle reminiscent of the Pizza Hut roof logo but here painted in a exact colour match to the green of the squishy mint chew Pacer; and a white triangular arch off to the side of the stage.
The arch was large enough to obscure some of the dancers but not so large that they could either dance through or on it. I am not sure what purpose it served unless it was a subliminal ad for Toblerone maybe.
Dancers enter from various points and are all in similar Pacer-green and white costumes. They dance. They dance expressively. They dance solo. They dance in pairs. They dance in trios and more. They stand still. They do exercises which take me back to the first movement classes I ever did, mirroring a partner perhaps or trust exercises maybe. The dancers roll around on the floor in muscular fashion. Then they don’t.
There’s music of course but honestly I couldn’t see any relationship between what the orchestra was playing and how the dancers were contorting themselves on stage supposedly for the entertainment of us, the audience.
When the piece did finally end a few of us audience members turned to each other and did a quick straw poll. Nobody could get any meaning from what we’d just seen. A few, myself included, thought the music was ‘interesting’ but that the choreography was so patchy that it let the whole thing down.
I note that this isn't the first time I’ve been non-plussed by a McGregor work and I’m not sure I’ll rush to see his more experimental things again.
INTERVAL I
Now this is where the fun starts. A couple of elderly ladies arrived to take up their seats behind me. They’d watched Untitled, 2023 on monitors outside as they were late because Iolanthe and Bodica have had a huge argument but they’re not to blame as it’s all down to that shower of a man Sebastian and how he’s treated them.
One of the ladies has been to Iolanthe and Boudica’s this afternoon consoling them after Sebastian announced that he didn’t want to go to Cap Ferret with them this summer as he was going to Glyndebourne. What made matters worse was that he was going with Ithaca and her partner Leander.
What drama! What names! What on earth possess a parent to give their kids names like these I wonder? But then again they are rather more interesting that Dave, Deborah, Deidre or even Dick.
Boudica has thrown Sebastian out of the house (both of them: the one in the Cotswolds and the one in, what according to Lady 1 behind me, is in a really rough part of Knightsbridge) and Lady 2 has called him all the names under the sun and then lights dim and it’s time for less exciting things to happen on stage.
Corybantic Games which is choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon.
I can’t recall anything about how this was staged other than it being quite a sparse set. The music is great as it’s Bernstein before he wrote West Side Story and there are clear hints in this piece about the direction in which his music was headed. Bernstein wrote this piece as a gift for Isaac Stern, the great violinist, and here the solo violin is extraordinary. The dancing was again a bit hit and miss for me.
It was another piece without a linear narrative but seemed to be about the difference between the sexes with the male dancers adopting typically muscular, strong poses and the ballerinas being oh-so-graceful and light.
I got that there was tension, probably intended to be sexual tension, between the men and women and it also seemed to be a bit about the tension between humanity and nature but without reading into the background more I’m not convinced I got the intended meaning behind this at all.
It was still enjoyable but just left me wanting more. Which was convenient because now it was time for the second interval and more about Iolanthe, Boudica, Sebastian and Leander.
I possibly missed a few details as I had to go to the loo and the water bottle fill station for a top up but then it’s back to the juicy stuff!
So... it turns out that Iolanthe adored Sebastian. Boudica always thought he was a bit of a heel but put up with him because Iolanthe was rather enamoured of him. She used to go out with Leander back at Uni in St Andrews before he came out as gay.
I can see where this is headed and I think you can too but bless their cotton socks the two ladies behind me really can’t.
Sebastian is going to be staying with Leander for a while before they head to Glyndebourne and they’re also planning a quick break for some sun and to get over the stress of the friendship breakup. They’re going to “a little village on the beach not far from Barcelona” thinks Lady 2.
Being blessed with detective skills akin to those of Sherlock Poirot if he were ever to exist, I deduce that Sebastian and Leander are headed to Sitges. And further deductions also suggest that the reason why Iolanthe’s love for Sebastian was unrequited is that he’s gay and is about to shack up with Leander.
Honestly this was so convoluted that someone ought to write an opera about it!
Anyway... I wish them luck in their fledgling relationship and hope they find all the happiness that eluded the title character in the third piece we’re presented with tonight,
Anastasia.
Choreographed by Keneth McMillan this is based on the story of the supposed survivor of the Romanov family, Anastasia. That story has been told many times and in many ways but suffice to say this one is based on the historical facts behind the myth and not the Disney-type fairytale it has sometimes morphed in to.
By Act III Anastasia is in an insane asylum. Nobody believes she’s related to the Romanovs. Her identity is known. Her husband has been located. She’s broken and alone. Apart from the figures from the past and from her imagined memories which she conjures up as dance partners whilst in her room in the hospital.
The whole piece is sublime. The dancing amazing, Powerful. Painful. Powerless. Anastasia is tormented by her memories of the Imperial family and by the asylum staff. Revolutionary soldiers march through the set, guns raised and aimed as if a firing squad. The Tsar and family saunter through at leisure or run through scared of the inevitable execution. Anastasia sinks into more desperate psychosis.
I’m trying to recall how it ends, and I think it’s with the murder of the family members and Anastasia calmly retreating to the safety of her bed but I’m not entirely sure if I’m misremembering something here. Not that it really matters. What does matter is that the next time I see this announced in a forthcoming season I’ll be there as I want to see it all now.
C’est fin.
