The Palais Garnier, or Paris Opera, is a 2,200 seat opera house built in 1875.
More than once, the San Francisco Ballet’s artistic director Helgi Tomasson has noted the most significant change he has witnessed during his many years in the dance profession - the loss of national identity among the world’s major ballet companies.
To cite a few examples, a couple of generations ago, you might have expected the Royal Danish Ballet and England’s Royal Ballet to be made up exclusively of Danish and British dancers (barring, of course, a charismatic defector, like Rudolf Nureyev). Now, increasingly, one sees much evidence of an international style among dancers. What you find in Copenhagen may very well stylistically resemble what you watch in London. That trend goes a long way towards explaining how Tomasson succeeded in assembling such a remarkably versatile, international company in San Francisco, a place where a dancer trained at the Bolshoi School in Moscow can dance a Paul Taylor solo set to an old Andrews Sisters record with aplomb.
Nevertheless, if there’s one institution where a national spirit and house style still prevail, it is at the Ballet de l’Opéra national de Paris (the Paris Opera Ballet), and its school, founded by Louis XIV in 1713. That makes it the oldest professional training school for dancers in the world, and the sense of pride in an unbroken chain of accomplishment is astonishing. The Paris Opera Ballet (POB) School, formerly housed within the Palais Garnier, relocated to a specially built facility in suburban Nanterre several years ago.
But for important events, these youthful dancers return to the center of Paris. Last month, I attended the annual school show (or "Spectacle de l’École de Danse") at the Garnier, and it was both an eye-opener and a soul satisfier. The POB style is not some mystical quality sprinkled over the premises like fairy dust by the ghost of Noverre. It derives from tradition in the finest sense of the world. Students are admitted to the POB school as young as eight, and, in addition to ballet, they are trained in such related subjects as anatomy, folklore and jazz. Mornings are devoted to academic studies. And the competition to enter the senior company after graduation is fierce.
Under former director Claude Bessy, the POB school became a legend in international dance circles and a wellspring of dancers now populating companies all over the globe, not least of all, San Francisco. Judging from what I saw on the Garnier stage, Bessy’s successor, the former étoile, Elisabeth Platel, is continuing the tradition superbly. So popular have these annual spectacles become that the POB added performances this spring to satisfy the demand.
At these annual "spectacles," the members of the École de Danse receive the royal treatment. No recordings here; they perform with the regular Opera Orchestra (here conducted by Philippe Hui) in the pit. The two surviving choreographers whose ballets were featured on the program came in person to coach their dances. And to accompany the school presentation, the Opera published one of those lavish, gorgeously illustrated program books that find a permanent niche on our dance library shelves.
Most heartening of all was the demanding material assayed by these students, some of whom who are on the threshold of major careers. The program on April 12 included Léo Staats’ Soir de fête, Roland Petit’s Les Forains and Nils Christe’s Symphonie en trios mouvements, which entered the repertoire on this occasion. The brilliantly chosen trio represents three very different approaches to classicism and exposed these dancers to the challenges they will encounter during stints in companies around the world.
In fact, I can think of only a handful of American ballet troupes which dance at this level of sophistication and confidence. In Paris, signs of youth were evident, partnering gambits that missed the ultimate degree of poise, for example. But the overall freshness of the performance was so disarming that the observer quickly cast aside the examiner’s cap and simply enjoyed the choreography through the dancing. At times, a moral imperative seemed to impel the dancers.
I was mostly drawn to the Staats, whose work I had previously known only on videotape. Staats entered POB in 1887 and devoted 50 years of his life to the company, as student, dancer, teacher, ballet master and choreographer, and it was he who restored the tradition of the annual POB grand défilé, the grand ritual that introduces every performer from the youngest to the most senior étoile. Jour de fête (1925) offers a window into late Romantic French style (Staats studied with Louis Mérante, which places us back in the 19th century). Coached here by Christiane Vaussard (who danced in earlier casts) and Platel, this is a sparkling gem of a ballet, set to portions of Léo Delibes’ score for La Source.
We know that George Balanchine admired Jour de fête tremendously and it is not hard to catch combinations or gestures that recall moments in Balanchine’s "French" ballets, like "Emeralds," La Source, Sonatine and the greatest of all, Symphony in C, which, of course, was made for POB (as Palais de Cristal). Staats’ feathery enchaînements and the stunning patterns he creates will come as a revelation. The beats are complex and elegant, the arabesques are deep, and, if some observers deem the duets a bit sentimental, the ballet as a whole emits a glow that spans the centuries. Charm meets style here, the how is every bit as important as the what; and the POB students danced Jour de fête for what it is - a glorious part of the French classical heritage. Jean-Denis Malclès’ soigné, color-coded costumes and airy gazebo décor were, in this context, close to perfection.
It was also enlightening, after many years, to catch up again with Les Forains. Petit created the work for his newly formed company, Les Ballets des Champs-Élysées, in 1945, and the sense of a nation re-gathering its strength after a devastating world war is everywhere in this impression of an itinerant circus. The troupe literally carries its life on its shoulders. The entertainers arrive in a village, rehearse the show, perform it and simply move on to the next town. I imagine that this glimpse into the hearts of common folk must have made quite a stir when it was new, and Petit makes no attempt to plead for anything; rather, he allows the material, accompanied by Henri Sauguet’s impressive commissioned score, to unfold. Here, in Les Forains, rather than in the inflated extravaganzas of his later years, is where Petit’s considerable gifts are most appreciated.
The POB school students let modesty work in their favor. One never sensed that they felt superior to such naïve material, and the effect was infinitely touching. One shouldn’t single out individual performances, perhaps, but Takeru Coste’s magician had international career written all over it. Christian Bérard’s original décor has retained its allure.
I wish I could be more sympathetic to Christe’s Symphony in Three Movements, which stands in the long shadow cast by Balanchine’s 1972 masterpiece set to the same Stravinsky score. If this were an unattributed canvas, it’s likely we would brand it as "School of Kylián" and dismiss it as another high-energy exercise. Christe relies on clumps of dancers in constant lateral movements, much of it in unison. The problem is that the choreographer finds it necessary to interpret every bar of the Stravinsky score and it looks fussy. Balanchine took a more spacious view of the score - opting for a longer, more organic view - leavened with wit, and he conjured a great ballet. But, even here, the 24 POB students scored personal triumphs, dispatching the piece with incomparable commitment. Something tells me that, in their professional lives, they’re more likely to encounter ballets that resemble the Christe more than the Staats or Petit. Alas.
I recalled Tomasson’s observation on international style, when, in London, a week later, I went to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, to see a performance of the Royal Ballet’s latest version of The Sleeping Beauty. That English classic wasn’t looking quite so English on this occasion. Consider that the Aurora (Tamara Rojo) was Spanish, the Florimund (Federico Bonelli) was Italian, the Lilac Fairy (Laura McCulloch) English, the Bluebird (Yohei Sasaki) Japanese, and the Florine (Sarah Lamb) and Fairies of the Crystal Fountain and the Enchanted Garden (Alessandra Ansanelli and Deirdre Chapman) Americans.
In addition, this attempt by Monica Mason and Christopher Newton to recreate the legendary 1946 Sadler’s Wells production now features additional and revised choreography by sundry hands, including Frederick Ashton, Anthony Dowell and Christopher Wheeldon, and there are moments of stylistic disconnect. The fabled Royal Ballet style wasn’t always evident in the corps and soloist contributions. Yet, Rojo offered a remarkably poised and articulate Aurora, without ever communicating much of the character’s vulnerability, Bonelli revealed a terrific danseur sensibility, and Lamb, formerly of the Boston Ballet, simply presented a Florine that compares favorably with any seen in the past couple of decades. Perhaps the time has finally come when American dancers can teach Europeans a thing or two about this European art form. Geography isn’t destiny any longer.
