Photo by Paul Kolnik
“I’ve got to get out of these ballets where I’m the only guy,” Andrew Veyette said to me this past Tuesday as we sat on the front of the stage to watch the final rehearsal of the opening night’s Raymonda Variations cast. (We were to perform it on Friday.) I laughed. This ballet really does feel like it belongs to us women. As I mentioned before, the plum dancing in Petipa’s full-length Raymonda belongs to the ballerina alone. Balanchine tweaks that idea and spreads the wealth more liberally in his treatment, but the feeling is the same. Although he gives the male principal plenty to chew on, it is clear that his role is that of an interloper—for Raymonda Variations is all about the paradox of the pretty little ballerina. It is girly froufrou on top and tough as nails underneath –a balletic wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Given how familiar Balanchine was with Petipa’s choreography, I think he purposefully plays with gender and rank in his adaptation too. In the original Raymonda the ballerina has six variations; in Balanchine’s version there are six women who perform variations. (Five of these women get one solo apiece while the principal ballerina gets two and a pas de deux.) What is interesting is that
Given how familiar Balanchine was with Petipa’s choreography, I think he purposefully plays with gender and rank in his adaptation too. In the original Raymonda the ballerina has six variations; in Balanchine’s version there are six women who perform variations. (Five of these women get one solo apiece while the principal ballerina gets two and a pas de deux.) What is interesting is that
Balanchine does not stick to the musical hierarchy of Petipa’s ballet. The lovely harp music for Raymonda’s most famous solo in the first act of Petipa’s version—“the veil solo”—is given to one of the five soloists in Raymonda Variations, likewise the music for Raymonda’s pizzicato solo. Conversely, the principal woman’s first solo in the Balanchine belongs to a female soloist in the story ballet. And one of male principal’s solos in the Balanchine version is set to music usually danced to by a female soloist in the classical production!
Most surprising of all is that Balanchine gives the biggest musical crescendo in his abridged Glazunov score to two female soloists as they lead the rest of the corps in a brisk coda. In the Petipa, this coda music is reserved to demonstrate only Raymonda’s prowess. As Rosemary Dunleavy explained to us, Balanchine made this ballet to show off his troupe’s impeccable training; perhaps he was showing off the depth of talent in the ranks as well. But maybe he was also demonstrating one of his biggest breaks with his Russian heritage: Balanchine wanted everyone in his ballets to be dancing all of the time, at a very high level. He expected every dancer on the stage to perform rigorously, and there are no dancers entailed as veritable scenery in his works. Even the choreography he gives to children is complex and physically difficult. In his Raymonda, there is no sitting on chairs and watching one person sweat as Frederic Franklin had feared.
Raymonda Variations is certainly one of the more challenging of Balanchine’s creations, but it is also exhilarating to perform. On Friday night my cast had a lot of fun. We were led by the intrepid Ashley Bouder, but we were all sweaty and spent when the curtain went down. And as per usual, to rev up for the show we played Beyoncé’s “Flawless” in the dressing room beforehand and then we whispered her refrain “bow down bitches” in the wings to each other before the coda. A ballet with roots in tsarist Russia that also elicits Beyoncé sing-alongs? Pretty damn great.
Most surprising of all is that Balanchine gives the biggest musical crescendo in his abridged Glazunov score to two female soloists as they lead the rest of the corps in a brisk coda. In the Petipa, this coda music is reserved to demonstrate only Raymonda’s prowess. As Rosemary Dunleavy explained to us, Balanchine made this ballet to show off his troupe’s impeccable training; perhaps he was showing off the depth of talent in the ranks as well. But maybe he was also demonstrating one of his biggest breaks with his Russian heritage: Balanchine wanted everyone in his ballets to be dancing all of the time, at a very high level. He expected every dancer on the stage to perform rigorously, and there are no dancers entailed as veritable scenery in his works. Even the choreography he gives to children is complex and physically difficult. In his Raymonda, there is no sitting on chairs and watching one person sweat as Frederic Franklin had feared.
Raymonda Variations is certainly one of the more challenging of Balanchine’s creations, but it is also exhilarating to perform. On Friday night my cast had a lot of fun. We were led by the intrepid Ashley Bouder, but we were all sweaty and spent when the curtain went down. And as per usual, to rev up for the show we played Beyoncé’s “Flawless” in the dressing room beforehand and then we whispered her refrain “bow down bitches” in the wings to each other before the coda. A ballet with roots in tsarist Russia that also elicits Beyoncé sing-alongs? Pretty damn great.
RSS Feed