Review of “Ravel’s Evening” at the Monte Carlo Ballet

On the stage of the Grimaldi Forum, with the premiere of “An Evening of Ravel”, the Monte Carlo Ballet celebrated the centenary of the birth of Prince Rainier III, weaving a whole tangle of memorial events in one program. How Balanchine’s “Waltz” and Jean-Christophe Maillot’s “The Child and the Magic” are related to the events of a hundred years ago, says Tatiana Kuznetsova.

Strictly speaking, there was only one premiere that evening: Jean-Christophe Maillot prepared Ravel’s opera-ballet “The Child and the Magic” for the Christmas holidays, combining in his performance the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Molardo Soriano, the children’s choir of the local Academy of Music, the chorus of the Monte-Carlo Opera, young soloists from the Accademia Cecilia Bartoli and the Monte-Carlo Ballet. The combination of these teams in one project is in itself very rare. The dedication of the “Ravel Evening” to the centenary of the most revered ruler of Monaco gave the event secular exclusivity, and the “genius loci” ensured historical continuity: after all, it was the Monte Carlo Opera, which gave shelter to Diaghilev’s troupe, that played a key role in the birth of the works included in the program and in life their creators.

Sergei Pavlovich ordered Ravel’s “Waltz” in 1919, but rejected it with the elegant formulation: “This is a masterpiece, but not a ballet,” which mortally offended the composer. Because of this, six years later he did not shake hands with Diaghilev, when in Monaco they were preparing for the production of “The Child and the Magic,” an opera-ballet written by Ravel to a libretto by the children’s writer Colette, commissioned by the Monte Carlo Opera. The Russian Ballet was contractually obliged to dance this “musical fantasy”; the performance was staged by 21-year-old Balanchine (this was his first work in the West), but Diaghilev, offended by the lack of a handshake, vowed to disrupt the premiere, and only the threat of a lawsuit forced him to retreat. “The Child and Magic” won well-deserved laurels at the premiere. However, the composer, conductor and orchestra were mostly praised – the production did not receive the attention of critics, but young Prokofiev noted in his diary “a ballet of very dubious taste.”

Balanchine never returned to the ballet-opera with exotic characters in the form of Fire, Smoke, Squirrels and Butterflies. But he staged “The Waltz,” rejected by Diaghilev, in 1951 for his troupe, the New York City Ballet; This gothic ballet novella, rare for “Mr. B,” became the favorite performance of Grace Kelly, who continued to be friends with the choreographer as Princess Grace. She also infected her husband Rainier with her passion for ballet in general and for “The Waltz” in particular: in the 1960s, at his invitation, Balanchine’s troupe performed this ballet on the square in front of the Royal Palace. But “The Child and the Magic” was not deprived of the monarch’s attention: it was after the premiere of this ballet in 1992 that Jean-Christophe Maillot received the post of artistic director of the Monte Carlo Ballet.

The evening opened with the Waltz, transferred to Monaco by Patricia Neary, one of the most strict representatives of the Balanchine Foundation. She once again confirmed her reputation, achieving from the troupe, accustomed to the author’s style of its leader, ideally Balanchine tempos and gestures, especially important in this “palace” ballet: exquisite hands, whimsical poses and ceremonial bows. And once again I was struck by the imperishability of Balanchine’s choreography, even the “plot” one – with the black stranger-Death, presenting an enthusiastic girl with a black necklace, a black bouquet, black gloves and a black dress. The bright, almost classicist clarity of Balanchine’s choreography is capable of turning even such seemingly feminine “gothic” into poetry, and the quiet suspense whipped up by the last part of the ballet was reminiscent of Hitchcock’s films – it is not surprising that Princess Grace was so attracted to this ballet.

A striking but logical contrast to “Waltz” – both musical and meaningful – was “The Child and the Magic”. Of course, 31 years later, Jean-Christophe Maillot did not repeat his early triumph, but presented a new version of the opera-ballet, although Colette’s libretto and the structure of Ravel’s “fantasy” tie the director hand and foot. What, really, can be changed in this damnably inventive in music and hilariously absurdist in text story of a mischievous lonely child who destroys everything around him, against whom objects and animals that offend him take up arms? Well, maybe replace the clumsy chair and couch with the child’s parents, the static trees with light leaves, and the boy with a girl: the young, long-legged, angular Ashley Krauhaus, dressed in black swimming trunks and a black and white vest, moves and reacts like a real teenager, although Jean -Christophe Maillot does not at all imitate the body language of modern children. It seems that he is not trying to assert himself as a choreographer at all, but is simply looking for suitable plasticity for each character. Actually, it is the polyphony and variety of “languages” that make this light divertissement entertaining.

Mayo’s main ally in this performance was not Ravel at all: as at the premiere almost a century ago, the composer eclipsed the choreographer, even though the solo singers were hidden in a black box above the orchestra, and the female and male choirs were completely sent to the balconies. An artist helped Jean-Christophe Maillot compete with Ravel in picturesqueness: the wizard Jerome Kaplan came up with amazing costumes – light, colorful, adding figurative expressiveness and originality to the choreography. One of the main joint masterpieces of the artist and choreographer turned out to be the dance of a broken clock: four male “gears” toss, twist and grind the silver dancer “arrow” with the “teeth” of their cut packs. A bat with a wingspan of six meters, the ends of which are “weighted” by dancers, flies in the most literal sense; the furiously jumping Fire (three dancers studded with sharp tongues of “flame” and a tall dancer shrouded in an airy blanket) sweeps away everything in its path; Squirrel’s own corrugated tail cannot keep up with the rapidly mincing, jumping curved sissons. Unpredictable ingenuity, lively humor and galloping action turned the century-old morality play into an exemplary Christmas performance, equally delighting children and their parents falling into childhood.