Dead white males
Part deux: the ballet
DYLAN FERGUSON STAFF
I was positively delighted when the opportunity presented itself for me to review the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I must admit, my knowledge of the ballet is not quite as robust as I would like it to be. All of the ballets I have had the pleasure of attending during my lifetime number only about a dozen (since the lines separating the performance arts are notoriously ill-defined, I use the term “ballet” loosely, and have included several strip shows of exceptional artistic merit in that figure. About 11.) But, though I am no expert, I do know this much: the “t” is silent.
The RWB show I was so courteously invited to attend was their recent, original production, The Magic Flute. It is based on an opera by Mozart. To all you philistines out there, in the music world Mozart is like Wayne Gretzky on crack, man.
Therefore, the symphonic salad-bar served up a salivating smorgasbord of scintillating sounds. The choreography, by Mark Godden, was also good, with every pirouette, plie, en-pointe, and various other French terms executed with graceful precision by the talented cast of ballerinas and, uh, ballerinos.
My biggest problem was trying to understand the storyline. Before the curtain, an unfunny man in a nice suit informed the audience that the story is much easier to follow if you consult the synopsis in your program. It only took me a quick rifle through the program to realize there was no synopsis in there. It took the elderly lady sitting next to me about 45 minutes and a lot of senile grumbling to reach the same conclusion. Way to drop the ball, RWB writing department.
The show’s underway. It starts off with a couple of guys in flashy costumes chasing after teasing girls dressed up like, well, ballerinas. I am immediately struck by how sparse the stage is, just a black curtain, with no set whatsoever. This would remain for most of the show, which I thought was bizarre and unappealing. I considered the possibility that this is traditional for a ballet, but I put the question to my girlfriend, and she assured me it was unusual. My girlfriend is much more knowledgeable in these matters than I am. (Before all you wiseacres out there pipe up with, “well, then why didn’t you let her review the show?” I asked her and she wouldn’t do it, OK!)
Most of the first half of the story, from what I could tell, consisted of various objects, no doubt symbolic of something — a branch, a necklace, a block of ice and, that’s right, a flute — being produced by a certain character, who then gives it to another character, the end result being a lot of dancing. I had no fucking clue what was going on. Nonetheless, I was entertained by the insuppressible energy of Yosuke Mino as the flamboyant ladies’ man Papageno, and when more and more dancers joined the stage, it got more elaborate and fun. The costumes, many of which seemed to be ’60s-inspired, were very incongruous (but maybe they were just eclectic, who knows?) Before long, the ballet was beginning to evoke an overwhelming feeling of —Intermission.
I was invited to spend the intermission in the “green room,” which, as it turns out, was full of people in well-tailored suits and dresses, most of whom were wearing nametags, all of whom were chatting knowingly. The “room,” which was actually mahogany-red, boasted fine champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries, and a paralyzing sense of awkwardness for an unkempt individual wearing jeans and a leather jacket, such as myself.
The second act got more modern, bizarre, and performance-arty, evoking thoughts of lattes. It was a bit of a refreshing change, with impressive weird-out sound design. In surround! A wall of ice-blocks at the back of the stage formed the only set in the production, and helped to alleviate my fears that the RWB’s set-designer had died and they weren’t telling anybody. The story, from this point, focused more on Pamina (CindyMarie Small, who’s a very elegant dancer), and Sarastro (Alexander Gamayunov, who totally looks like Yul Brenner in The King and I). Heaps of white powder were dumped from burlap sacks, and various dancers, including men in blazers and a woman wrapped up in surgical bandages, tugged and pushed at one another. I checked my program for that fucking synopsis one more time, just to make sure.
Though I was hardly blown away by what seemed like a sparse and visually inconsistent show, I had fun. My second-favourite part of the production was the lovably whimsical tone that endowed every scene.
My favourite part was how there was no consistency as to when people applauded politely. Everybody applauds when other people applaud, and I’m sure there’s one guy in the audience who’s always the instigating clapper, and he has complete, totalitarian control over every single lemming-like spectator. I kept trying to pick him out, but I couldn’t.
On the whole, The Magic Flute provided a pleasant few hours of whimsy, delight, and cough-suppression
