Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 08/02/2017

Max Richter : Woolf Works

Artists of The Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Koen Kessels

Woolf Works is not so much a three-act ballet, as a trilogy of connected one-act ballets, all inspired by the writings and life of Virginia Woolf, choreographed by the Royal Ballet's Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor.  It was created in May 2015, and this current run of performances are its first revival with, for the cinema broadcast, most of the original cast.  It's an impressive display of the company's principal dancers; one rarely gets to see so many of them together on stage in one evening.  However, as with the original performances, the line-up is dominated by the Italian ballerina Alessandra Ferri, a member of the Royal Ballet in the early 80s, at the start of her career, and who had, officially, retired in 2007.  However, she made a return to the stage in 2013, and McGregor specifically created the main parts in the outer ballets of this triptych for her.

If there are Woolf novels directly associated with each of the three ballets, only the first can really be seen as having an actual narrative; the other two are much more loosely connected.  "I Now, I Then" is based on Mrs Dalloway, with Ferri as the "now" Clarissa, and Beatriz Stix-Brunell as the "then" Clarissa, whom Ferri observes with fond nostalgia in her mostly playful encounters with the somewhat feckless Peter (Federico Bonelli), and with her best friend Sally (Francesca Hayward), both of whom are also love interests of the young Clarissa.

Alongside Clarissa's memories, there is the unravelling life of Septimus Smith, a veteran of WWI suffering from PTSD-induced hallucinations, mostly of his best friend Evans who died in the war.  In the novel, Clarissa and Septimus never meet; she gets to hear of him at the party she is holding at the end of the single day during which the events of the book actually take place, and during which he has committed suicide.  McGregor, however, brings them together, the soft fluidity of Ferri contrasted with Edward Watson's different sort of flexibility, that allows him to create whatever shapes he requires of his body, always to striking effect.  The most interesting aspect of the music for this section is the sensation of passing time that keeps coming up, bells ringing, or the obsessive tick of the clock, otherwise, it's nice, but on the bland side.

The second ballet, "Becomings" is based on the extravagant fantasy Orlando: A Biography.  The lighting design for this, by Lucy Carter, is a rather spectacular laser show, while the ballet itself is quite high octane, but there's not too much that can be directly associated with the novel.  Intermittent (and removable) references to Elizabethan costume, and a fair degree of gender fluidity, as is appropriate for the subject, seems to me to be about as far as it goes.  The primary interest of this section in terms of the dance was the dazzling febrility of Natalia Osipova, and seeing Watson and Stephen McRae together, both of them eye-catching as ever.

The downside was the music.  For this, Richter added his name to the long, long list of composers who have written variations on "La Folia", but he might have spared us.  The orchestral sections sounded like Michael Nyman, while the electronic ones sounded like old-fashioned MOOG synthesizer sci-fi soundtrack music (including a certain 'whooshing' sound that really comes straight out of the original Star Trek series!).

However, the best was saved for last.  "Tuesday" is nominally based on The Waves, but it was prefaced by a reading of Woolf's suicide letter to her husband, and what we saw was an intense study of depression and resignation.  If Ferri was meant to be Rhoda (who is, perhaps, Woolf herself), she was also playing Woolf, in her last months, and her walk towards death.

Alessandra Ferri in "Tuesday" (Tristram Kenton, © 2015)

Set against a mesmerising video of breaking waves in very slow motion, Ferri projected an aching sense of regret and vulnerability, amidst the ebb and flow of the dancers around her, every line of her body expressive of an overwhelming weariness and isolation, even amongst the others, while the music surged in a sinusoidal flow of sound.  This was half-an-hour that passed in an instant, heartbreakingly powerful, with Ferri as the fulcrum, and expressive appearances from Bonelli and Sarah Lamb.

[Next : 9th February]