July 3, 2014

  • Roland Petit's Notre-Dame Returns--Music by Jarre

     

    Roland Petit’s Notre-Dame De Paris (BluRay)
    Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro alla Scalla/Paul Connelly
    Opus Arte 7146
    Total Time:  1:34;19:00 (concert); Bonus Features 14:00
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****
    Presentation: ***/****

    Roland Petit was one of the great late 20th Century French choreographers whose work was cutting edge and highly regarded throughout his life.  In 1965, he presented an intriguing adaptation of one of French literature’s greatest novels, Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The streamlined ballet version presents the sprawling novel in just under 95 minutes in Notre-Dame de Paris.  The music for the ballet was composed by Maurice Jarre, then mostly known for his epic David Lean scores.  Upon its premiere, the ballet was an instant hit and has essentially entered modern French ballet repertoire.  Oddly, apart from videos of the ballet, there is no real recording of just the score on disc (though a couple of years ago a premiere of a dance suite appeared).

    Opus Arte’s release is taken from this year's celebrated performance from the Ballet della Teatro alla Scala with direction by Makhar Vaziev, informed by dancers and choreographers who knew and danced in Petit’s company.  The production is intended as a tribute to Petit who died in 2011.  The recreating attempts to be faithful to the original down to the unusual costuming by Yves-Saint Laurent.  The set itself is a rather stark affair with the costuming and unusual dance movements certainly being the highlight of the visual aspects of this performance.  Jarre’s score calls for a large symphony orchestra including a huge percussion section and chorus.  The work is cast in two uneven acts with Act Two being not quite a third of the whole work.

    The ballet opens with stark orchestral writing in a 7/8 rhythmic pattern that recalls Stravinsky’s modernism.  Even Dhiagelev feels not far in the past here with the very angular dance postures in the crowd sequences especially leaving more fluid movements for the soloists.  The ballet’s power must come from four main characters: Esmeralda (Natalia Osipova), Quasimodo (Roberto Bolle), Frollo (Mick Zeni), and Phoebus (Eris Nezha).  The result is that the ballet seems to move between different love triangles or relationships from Esmeralda-Quasimodo-Frollo, to Esmeralda-Frollo-Phoebus, and Esmeralda-any of the 3 male leads-the ballet company itself.  These unusual mixtures allow for interesting musical accompaniment along the way.

    When Quasimodo appears, he is accompanied by an off-kilter melody in waltz tempo that musically captures both his deformity and underlying humanity.  It lies in stark contrast to the open intervals and harsher harmonic writing of the crowd sequences.  A sequence featuring the appearance of Frollo and the sort of shadow that the cathedral casts upon the people and story lends itself to chant-like choral writing with a Gothic orchestral approach that feels part Messiaen and part Saint-Saens, complete with organ—a sound that is also mimicked well in the orchestration.  Some of the first of the percussion batteries will appear here and are reminiscent of Jarre’s score for The Tin Drum.  Esmeralda's appearance is marked by seductive thematic writing and sexual tension and lies in contrast to the preceding solo dance for Frollo.  Later, Jarre uses an approach that takes small melodic fragments and that build emotionally through immediate repetition, almost like a round.  One of these sections features Quasimodo and the exhilarating amount of pitched percussion brings the music a primitive, jungle-like dance quality.  The primary love triangle comes to a head in The Pillory designed as a dance for Esmeralda and Phoebus with an increasingly aggravated Frollo looking on.  While the sequence features some of the scores most romantic gestures the whole scene takes a bit too long to unfold with some dance sequences obviously designed to “shock”.

    The use of the pas de deux moments becomes one way that Jarre’s music is able to quickly provide thematic reference points and then move into more descriptive language as the dancers carry the emotional brunt of the storyline.  As Act 2 begins, we see Quasimodo among the bell(s) of Notre-Dame in a lighter moment that further highlights the sheer intensity and physicality of this role.  A duet for both he and Esmeralda is a fine arching reminder of a parallel meeting in Act One.  Here the tenderness and growing sympathetic relationship between the two magically transforms Quasimodo into a being of grace and beauty that is well supported by the accompanying music.  This moment also sets up the stronger undercurrent of sheer lust growing in Frollo and leads to an intense musical sequence.  Scored exclusively for percussion, what follows is one of the more impressive moments in the score filled with a visceral intensity.  Melody and lyricism has been stripped to its bare underlying rhythmic fury.  It is certainly one of the more unique moments in ballet.

    Jarre’s music is indelibly linked here to the choreography in such a way that it becomes clear why one does not always hear this music on its own.  The dancers must communicate more fully than one might expect all of the emotional intensity of the story and Jarre’s music becomes that commentary to it underlying this like a film score would.  There are some moments here worthy of excerpting such as the seductive dance sequence for Esmeralda and the Quasimodo music from Act One, as well as the duet that appears in Act Two and the percussion music.

    The production here is stunning with bright costumes allowing for stark contrast to the main characters and the minimal scenery.  Camera work sometimes pulls the viewer up and over the stage for a bird’s eye view of what is going on.  This is a bit disconcerting the first time but handled well enough that it becomes less distracting as it moves along.  As a ballet, Petit’s adaptation focuses on the dancers and Roberto Bolle’s interpretation of Quasimodo is an amazing thing to watch.  He, like Petit and others before him, must communicate all of the deformity of the character with his movements and positioning of his body into often twisted and painful-looking postures.  It works quite  well especially when cast against the fluid movements of Esmeralda, performed very well here by Osipova.

    The BluRay features very little supportive video information other than some edited together interview bits with Bolle, Connelly, Osipova, Vaziev, and Bonino.  It is only partially informative focusing mostly on the dancer interpretations and mostly not interesting.  Instead one will have to read William Richmond’s minutely printed essay in the accompanying booklet.  A synopsis of the ballet also is included.  It is rather unfortunate that at least some footage of Petit’s production and other historical documentation could not also be featured in a brief video as well.  Other than that minor complaint, this is an interesting work in excellent surround stereo that is a worthy addition to 20th Century ballet fans and an interesting curiosity for those interested in the music of Maurice Jarre.