Alexandra Danilova, for whom the role was choreographed, says in her memoir Choura that, “[i]n an ordinary pas de deux, the woman is somehow engaged by the man, and she goes toward him. But I was going toward the moon. And that attracts the Poet, because he can’t make contact with this woman….[he] knows that she belongs to the moon.” This connects back to the aria, as the libretto translates to, “Oh return my hope or let me die/ Come, beloved, the moon is in the sky!” Allegra Kent, for whom the ballet was revived in 1960, has described the Sleepwalker as someone who cannot awaken from a nightmare—a state that she claims reflected her complicated personal life at the time in her compelling biography Once a Dancer. She also writes, smartly, that the role is
The Sleepwalker role in Balanchine’s La Sonnambula is uncannily open to multiple readings and interpretations. What makes it especially unusual is that although the role is so clearly the spiritual component of the ballet, it can also take on very dark shadings. The music for the Sleepwalker/Poet pas is “Qui la voce” from I Puritani. When I saw Olga Peretyako sing this aria at the Met last year it made me think that maybe this Bellini opera had more in common with Balanchine’s ballet than the eponymous La Sonnambula. The aria is part of the soprano’s mad scene, and the way that Peretyako (clad in a wedding gown after being stood up by her betrothed) pulled dementedly at her white veil seemed unnerving in the vein of the Sleepwalker. The jilted bride of Puritani and the Sleepwalker are both pure, good figures—but there is also something a little off about them.
Alexandra Danilova, for whom the role was choreographed, says in her memoir Choura that, “[i]n an ordinary pas de deux, the woman is somehow engaged by the man, and she goes toward him. But I was going toward the moon. And that attracts the Poet, because he can’t make contact with this woman….[he] knows that she belongs to the moon.” This connects back to the aria, as the libretto translates to, “Oh return my hope or let me die/ Come, beloved, the moon is in the sky!” Allegra Kent, for whom the ballet was revived in 1960, has described the Sleepwalker as someone who cannot awaken from a nightmare—a state that she claims reflected her complicated personal life at the time in her compelling biography Once a Dancer. She also writes, smartly, that the role is
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I had a wonderful time performing one of my favorite roles over the weekend—the Coquette in Balanchine’s La Sonnambula. The ballet was originally called Night Shadow when it was choreographed in1946, and it is surely one of Balanchine’s most bizarre creations. Although it is set to composer Vittorio Rieti’s adaptations of music from the Bellini operas La Sonnambula and I Puritani (and to a lesser extent Norma and I Capuleti e I Montecchi), the ballet has little to do with the plots of those works. As far as I can tell, no one is exactly sure of the ballet’s storyline—which I confess rather annoyed me when I was first learning the ballet years ago, but I quickly found it to be liberating. The story’s ambiguity means that we dancers can play with various interpretations of the central roles: the Coquette, the Baron, the Poet, and the Sleepwalker. The concrete actions of the plot are as follows: a poet interrupts a masked ball thrown by a wealthy Baron and his mistress, the Coquette. The Poet is quite taken with the Coquette and they flirt during a series of divertissements. After the guests drift away the Poet and the Coquette dance a lusty pas de deux in the deserted ballroom. When the mob returns the couple pretends as if nothing has happened and they join them in group dances and games like blind man’s bluff. As they all exit for dinner the Baron returns and snatches the Coquette away from the Poet, who is left alone with his thoughts.
Suddenly the Poet notices candlelight descending from the upper story of the mansion and a mysterious somnambulist appears, clad in a nightgown and holding a flickering taper. She does not appear to see him or awaken, but they dance together and he falls in love with her. The Coquette, who has escaped the dinner to look for him, stumbles onto the scene just in time to I have been informed by the Library of the Performing Arts that I must return a book that I have had out for many months now, oops. It is a beautiful old pamphlet called Hommage á Balanchine which was published in Paris in May of 1952. It contains ballet-inspired drawings by Picasso, Matisse, and Jean Cocteau as well as glossy black and white photos of Balanchine, Nora Kaye, Maria Tallchief, Francisco Moncion, Jerome Robbins and others. It also has several essays about Balanchine’s art by Jean Babilée, Serge Lifar, Dinah Maggie, Irene Lidova, and—most exciting of all—a brief but potent piece by Balanchine himself called “Creation of a Ballet” that is dated October 7, 1931. I have been leafing through this pamphlet often of late because for the past month I have been understudying the new Alexei Ratmansky piece—which premieres this evening—and I feel
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