Director spat leads to ballet walkout

The Royal Opera House have announced Johan Kobborg has withdrawn from choreographing  the massive ballet scene in October's new production of Les Vêpres siciliennes "as a result of artistically differing approaches to the project between Johan Kobborg and director Stefan Herheim". Not only that, but the Royal Ballet have pulled out from the opera project too.

After last week's shock announcement that Kobborg (together with partner Alina Cojocaru) is to leave the Royal Ballet at the end of this season, it's unsurprising that he's no longer involved in the Herheim production.

But "artistically differing approaches"?

The suddenness of Kobborg's departure - and the lack of explanation - led many to wonder whether there was more behind it than an injury-plagued season and the inevitable pressures of age (at 40, Kobborg was virtually geriatric in ballet terms). Speculation must now centre on how much the Herheim clash contributed to his decision.

Herheim is no stranger to artistic confrontation - most publicly with Daniel Barenboim.

Tickets for Vêpres went on sale last week to the ROH's highest-level patrons, some of whom pay thousands for the privilege of advance booking. The ballet fans amongst them will be furious the ROH didn't announce the change immediately.

Comments

[Emil Archambault]

Ummm...so who'll be dancing? Will it be modern dance? Did Herheim "fire" the Ballet? I see that the Danish Ballet pulled out at the same time, so it would not make sense to hire other classical ballet dancers.

[SJT]

O God, have you any idea how long the bloody ballet in Vespri is? It's at least half-an-hour, and has a narrative, of sorts (the four seasons). I don't recall anybody at the ROH ever thinking that the - much shorter, by about half - ballet in Verdi's other French opera, Don Carlo, was so very indispensable to the musical proceedings (though it's a damn sight more so than Vespri's).

Given Kobborg's scrupulous recreation in the house of La Sylphide - the only bit of his choreographic output I've seen, and in any case mainly confined to resurrecting Bournonville's - in full 1830s romantic Scottish fig, I can well imagine the, shall we say, disparity of approach between choreographer and director, who's doubtless relocating the opera's C13th Palermo setting to a psychiatric ward in Somalia....

By the way, Kobborg's farewell on Wednesday - together with that of his partner Alina Cojocaru - was one of the longest and floweriest affairs seen in the house for donkeys' years. I haven't witnessed quite this much heaving of the horticulture since Sutherland and Pavarotti sang Lucia di Lammermoor, rather more years ago now than I care to enumerate...
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Intermezzo replies - I understand the setting is a lot closer to home than Somalia.

[Sheila]

One wonders if Somalia bothers with psychiatric wards, but yes, it does seem an unlikely fit.

[Faye]

Hopefully the replacement dancers won't be that epileptic aerobics group who totally RUINED the ENO Giulio Cesare.....

[manou]

Where is Andrew George when we need him?

[Miriam]

Although the inclusion of the ballet did not influence my decision to book (which as a Supporting Friend I have already done) I am dissapointed that we shall not be seeing the complete work as originally written. I am a person who likes both opera and ballet, but more opera than ballet. I would not have thought that any "ballet fans" who are not also keen on opera would have wanted to sit through this extremely long work *only* for the sake of the half hour or so of ballet.
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Intermezzo replies - There are plenty of ballet fans happy to splash out on an opera ticket if it includes a brand new half hour ballet featuring the RB. I also know of people who have bought more expensive tickets than usual to get a good view of the dancing, and for more than one show. And for the record, I've never met a ballet who actively dislikes opera, even if they rarely or never go.

[manou]

On a less facetious note, there is of course Balanchine's Ballo Della Regina, although it is probably complicated to import the choreography (not to mention the ballet dancers able to cope with the choreography).

[manou]

I should stick to facetiousness. Ballo Della Regina was of course choreographed by Balanchine on the Don Carlos ballet music.

My apologies.

[SJT]

Oh, as somebody once sagely said, never apologise, and never tell them where you hid the loot either. You were, in fact, perilously close to the truth: and certainly in the right city and company; just the wrong choreographer.

Viola!

http://www.nycballet.com/ballets/f/the-four-seasons.aspx

[Oroveso]

Horrendous, diabolical heresy follows. Les Vêpres Siciliennes is a long show even without the extensive ballet (‘Le Quattro Stagioni’). If Verdi had written the opera as I Vespri Siciliani for an Italian theatre rather than for the Paris Opéra, (where in 1855 ballets were de rigueur), I strongly suspect the ballet wouldn’t have been written at all, or cut. In fact, Verdi himself cut the ballet for performances in Italy. Maybe ROH should just cut it? It’s not as if Fonteyn & Nureyev are coming back to perform it.

[SJT]

HOW MUCH "closer to home"? (he asked nervously clutching his mouse...)

You'd think that for an opera not seen at the ROH since the 1850s (if indeed it was ever seen even then) they might have tried to give it a staging of, oh I don't know, something approximating to medieval Italy. Some of us actually know what the whole Guelph/Ghibelline dust-up was all about, you know, and might actually enjoy the sight of late Romanesque Palermo....

[Siggy]

Quote from the ROH website:

"... His imaginative production draws parallels between the opera and the opera house for which it was written, including a spectacular re-creation of the Paris Opéra itself."

[Vecchio John]

After the lamentable ballet interludes in Les Troyens and Robert le Diabolical can we just ditch these otiose interludes all together. I've only ever seen Les Vepres once, at ENO, and it functioned very well without the ballet though it seemed over extended even then. Please leave complete scholarly editions to the library or CDs, especially if one is sitting cramped in the Amphi.

[SJT]

O what joy! IMAGINATION at work. (Everyone runs for cover)

Well let's hope he and his designers have a sure grasp of French opera house architectural history, because the "Opéra" Vespri was written for in 1855 wasn't the Palais Garnier - which everybody assumes but which was then still some twenty years in the future - but the Salle le Peletier, which didn't burn down until 1873.

As it happens, I've studied the Peletier's plans and drawings in the Archive National: I shall be watching very closely....

[SJT]

And a footnote.

Kenneth MacMillan choreographed it as "The Four Seasons" for the Royal Ballet in 1975, and like Jerome Robbins in NY threw in more music from I Lombardi and Don Carlo. At the original run of performances, it lasted 55': and was revived patchily until 1980 when Mrs. MacMillan re-did the costumes and the work seems to have lost ten minutes of its running time. Thereafter, all is silence.

Monica Mason danced "Summer" in every outing it had at the ROH: perhaps a little imaginative reconstruction work wouldn't be beyond her..

[CS]

You're questioning if Stefan Herheim does his research? Are you joking?

[SJT]

No.