At the Ballet
Ballet Internationale is about to open its season with a performance of two one-act ballets, Interzone and Carmen. As it happens, this weekend is Rosh Hashannah, so mom and I went to the dress rehearsal tonight. There’s an old theater saying about how a bad dress rehearsal means a good performance. If it’s true, then this weekend’s performances of Carmen should be stellar.
As an aside, I ought to mention that it’s not the same Carmen story as the opera. The names are the same, but not a whole lot else.
Both ballets are very modern; Interzone is billed as modern dance on point, although it really isn’t. The music is by Art of Noise, the production design is excellent, and at the risk of jinxing tomorrow’s performance, what I saw of it was very good. Someone needs to tell the lighting director that the lightning should be before the the thunder, but otherwise, it went well.
Not so for Carmen. The thing about a dress rehearsal is that you can hear the director interacting with the dancers. He was completely silent during Interzone; it might well have been a live performance. Carmen was peppered with director commentary in both Russian and English. I wish my Russian were better, because I’d like to know if the director and I were noticing the same things. Also, the woman playing Carmen was a good enough dancer, but there wasn’t much in the way of acting. She might as well have been brushing her teeth; there was no heat whatsoever in her performance.
Powered by FireStats
September 26th, 2003 at 6:41 pm
The thing about the heat is the way I could really tell the prinicipals from the soloists in the last ballet I attended.
The soloists were good dancers. The principals could act with gesture and movement.