This morning, the New York City Ballet celebrated the 4th of July with a two hour rehearsal of Union Jack, Balanchine’s ode to Great Britain—oops. After that bit of treason we returned to our Raymonda variations. Balanchine wrote—in Balanchine’s Festival of Ballet: Volume II (co-authored by Francis Mason)—that the plot of the original, full-length Raymonda (1898) choreographed by Petipa was, “nonsense,” and, “difficult to follow.” Story ballets are rarely based upon great pieces of literature, nor are they paragons of feminism (or even character development!). They mostly involve virginal women trapped in odd bodily forms—swans, sylphs, etc.—until some gloomy squire comes to their rescue via swords and marriage. Raymonda is no different, but it is really a mess.
The story was written by a Russian columnist, Lydia Pashkova. Yuri Grigorivich (the Bolshoi Raymonda choreographer and the author of The Authorized Bolshoi Ballet Book of Raymonda) says of Pashkova, “[h]er works were not brilliant; they were entertaining.”I’ll try my best to summarize. The setting is a castle in medieval Hungary. A young noblewoman named Raymonda awaits the arrival of her betrothed, Jeanne de Brienne, who is off fighting in the crusades. In his absence a
The story was written by a Russian columnist, Lydia Pashkova. Yuri Grigorivich (the Bolshoi Raymonda choreographer and the author of The Authorized Bolshoi Ballet Book of Raymonda) says of Pashkova, “[h]er works were not brilliant; they were entertaining.”I’ll try my best to summarize. The setting is a castle in medieval Hungary. A young noblewoman named Raymonda awaits the arrival of her betrothed, Jeanne de Brienne, who is off fighting in the crusades. In his absence a
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