Not Only Opera

It’s not a competition: Concerto / Le Baiser de la fée / Elite Syncopations at the ROH

Concerto / Le Baiser de la fée / Elite Syncopations
BIrmingham Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Royal Ballet and guest companies
Royal Opera House
Balcony D30, £6
18 October 2017
ROH page

While excited about the prospect of seeing representatives of all the British ballet companies on the same stage at the same time for this celebration of Kenneth MacMillan, I did basically assume it would boil down to a competition of who was best (which, loyalist that I am, I assumed the Royal Ballet would soundly win). This opening night of the festival just went to show that I should have had more faith in the concept: though an element of competition is there, this is principally and very succcessfully a celebration not only of MacMillan but of British ballet as a whole.

The ballets ‘owned’ by English National Ballet and Northern Ballet return in later programmes in the festival, so this was primarily an opportunity to acknowledge and consider the relative strengths of each of BRB, Scottish Ballet and the Royal Ballet. No doubt I oversimplify when I boil them down into three main classes: the amazingly tall and muscular men of the BRB; the preternatural, Russian-like unity of the SB corps; and the speed and precision of the RB. These and dependent characteristics showed through so clearly in the three that, MacMillan or no MacMIllan, it made me think the exercise of bringing companies together should be repeated.

Of the ballets themselves, Concerto is a known quantity and I still can’t decide whether I think it’s just the right amount of silly or a bit much. Given the music and the costumes and the ballet’s original context I still think it makes most sense when danced by students: but of course it’s a pleasure to see it danced by professionals, especially all those tall and muscular men.

I know Baiser is widely considered a problem ballet and sadly I now proscribe to that opinion. I love the score but on the basis of this, my first experience of seeing it danced, I think it needs either a new story or to be performed shorn of movement. As it is, it feels like there is too much music for the amount of story there is, which ultimately amounts to one guy leaving one girl for another, the fairy part essentially incidental. MacMillan provides typically MacMillan-y complex and always-musical steps, which are pleasing if not sufficiently interesting.

I went into Elite with some trepidation, expecting the combination of the vulgar costumes, Scott Joplin-types and ‘comic’ choreography to be on the nauseating side. What a grump that shows me to be! Though perhaps a tad over-long, Elite is just as delightful as everyone says it is. I’m not sure, though, that it works quite as well in the festival context as it should. It’s great to see the solos taken by dancers from different companies – but with the corps numbers danced exclusively by the Royal Ballet, it means those solo characters are double-cast. It seems unkind to dancers from both sides to have a visible RB dancer yield his solo to an interloper. Presumably it is an inevitable result of limited rehearsal time, but it feels like a missed opportunity.