Not Only Opera

Sound: Within the Golden Hour/Medusa/Flight Pattern at the ROH

Within the Golden Hour / Medusa / Flight Pattern
Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House
Amphitheatre A77, staff Christmas ticket
8 May 2019
ROH page

Designing a mixed programme is by no means an easy task, but this one – a risky new work nestled between a safely pleasant ballet and the first revival of the company’s most unambiguous recent success – is sound. All contemporary; all distinctive; each you could imagine being some person’s favourite (though I’ll judge them if it’s not Flight Pattern).

I’m always tempted to write off Within the Golden Hour as a bit of a background nonentity, but it certainly has its frissons where I feel myself overcome by the sheer beauty of movement of the dancers. Still, the music by Ezzio Bosso is samey, and though I enjoy Wheeldon’s careful cycling through different combinations I think Golden Hour is a few movements too long. The casting provides some interest, particularly of the tall, muscly Nicol Edmonds and Tomas Mock in the crowd-pleasing male duet, a pas de deux the fleet rapidity of which I associate with dancers more slight. The longer lines and deeper weight of Edmonds/Mock lend a new colour. Of the three main couples the pitch is clear for the charm offensive of Beatriz Stix-Brunel and Vadim Muntagirov, stunners together, and the wonderful small corps. New sparkly costumes by Jasper Conran are nice, but as ever I think the real design kudos should go to lighting designer Peter Mumford for his ethereally drifting scrim.

I had no preconceptions for Medusa; my only touchpoint was Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Natalia Ospiva’s collaboration in her otherwise godawful programme with Sergei Polunin at Sadler’s Wells back in 2016. This longer, more complex work suffers from a bit of scope-creep that lead it down some paths to the godawful; but attractive dancing throughout and one stunning moment move it considerably towards redemption.

The key pause for thought is the suitability of the story given the rightly reviled misogyny of the last new RB work created on Osipova, The Wind: there she was raped, here she’s raped, mutilated and has her head cut off. Progress! At times I felt entered into a fetishistic fantasy, the choreographer contorting his muse through different acts – here she’s pliant; here she’s angry; look at those feet, man, they could kill you! In tone the ballet feels a mish-mash, not helped by the score. The cast sheet credits ‘music’ by Purcell and ‘electronic music’ by Olga Wojciechowska – a telling distinction. We get Purcell and Wojciechowska alternating neatly, with zero discernible relationship to the events on stage. It felt easy to mock the designs, as well, beigely straight from Muji.

So what was the redeeming moment? It occurs in the duet between Osipova and Hirano as Poseidon, presumably at the rape though the dance is thankfully ambiguous. While not the smoothest partner Hirano shows here his value on sheer strength, seeming to levitate Osipova; despite a clunky setup the ultimate movement itself is extraordinary, time seeming to stand still.

I had reservations about Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern at its premiere. Seeing it again I can only assume that my expectations were too high and my irritation at the use of the Górecki too much anticipated. There is the occasional swing towards the sentimental, problematic in a work of such seriousness: when Kristen McNally’s pile of coats falls apart to become a baby lost, when Marcelino Sambé freestyles in rage at his misery, and worst of all when petals delicately drop from the ceiling, Pite urges us too far to wallow; at these points it feels the refugee crisis becomes a vehicle for Pite’s work, no doubt not intended but with the sense of exploitation.

But they are moments and the rest of the piece is astonishingly well put together, responsive to the music in a way so little contemporary choreography is, constructing a non-narrative arc of incredible elegance and marshalling the large cast smoothly and expertly. Those will sound cold points to appreciate given the emotionality of the subject matter but it is through these abstract gestures that Flight Pattern, for me, finds its true power. It’s more than enough to make you grateful Pite creates the kind of work she does and that the formidable dancers of the Royal Ballet are part of her art.