A fistful of feathers: Asphodel Meadows / The Two Pigeons at the ROH
Asphodel Meadows / The Two Pigeons
Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House
Upper Slips CC13, £6
18 January 2019
ROH page
The Two Pigeons has a slight ugly-duckling air to my mind. Why is that? On the front of it there’s much to enjoy. The Messager score, adapted by Lanchbery, is very jolly; Jacques Dupont’s designs have been beautifully revived and make a feast for the eyes; there’s ample opportunity to admire the corps de ballet and their mastery of the incredible detail Ashton demands; and in the lead roles you really couldn’t ask for better interpreters than Lauren Cuthbertson and Vadim Muntagirov, she witty, tireless, phenomenally precise, he by turns sweetly sulky and magnificently heroic.
So what is it? Unquestionably it feels dated, with the kitschy comedy between the Girl and the Man, and the deplorable adherence to stereotype in the thieving, murderous gypsies. But there are consolations (in ballet terms, at least) for both of those: the Girl is the most interesting of the two, and the gypsies get easily the best music and the best dances. I think really the problem I have is all the bird stuff: chicken wings and jabbing heads and all of that tiresome nonsense. It certainly makes the piece unusual, and I imagine this particular Ashtonian idiosyncrasy was part of the reason the ballet was revived. But even with the ideal pairing of Cuthbertson and Muntagirov it looks awkward – can’t we just get it out of the way and focus on the ballet?
And maybe the other part of it is that The Two Pigeons presents a programming problem: too short to be performed on its own, too long to feel balanced in a mixed programme. The candidate here is Asphodel Meadows, the ballet that on its premiere in 2010 cemented Liam Scarlett’s reputation as a bright young talent. Seeing it for the first time, I certainly found much to admire: like all of Scarlett’s choreography it’s demonstrably responsive to the music, here Poulenc’s prickly and peculiar Concerto for Two Pianos; lovely use is made of a small corps, for this performance populated by many of the company’s newest members; and the choreography for the three principal couples is astonishingly intricate and fluid, this time a particularly gorgeous showcase for William Bracewell and his partnership with Laura Morera (Bracewell, just seems to get more and more wonderful). I only wondered by the end if it was perhaps a touch too slick – spinning together beautiful shapes from beautiful people without, perhaps, too much interest in doing anything else – but, of all things, that’s not too big a problem to have.
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