Clara, a new ballet by Cathy Marston for Ballett Zürich

Opera House, Zurich
October 30, 2024

Ballet Zürich opened its season on October 11 with a new ballet, Clara, by choreographer and director Cathy Marston. Based on the life of the legendary pianist Clara Schumann, Marston again takes up the theme of the female musician, having previously introduced herself to the Zürich audience towards the end of last season with The Cellist, a piece she created for the Royal Ballet in 2020, inspired by the life of famous cellist Jaqueline du Pré.

Clara Schumann (1819-1896) was an exceptional woman in her time. A child prodigy, she played her first concert when she was nine-years-old, composed her first piece when aged 10, married the composer Robert Schumann at age 20. She bore eight children before she turned 35, while keeping up her concert playing. At that time, she was more famous and earned more money than her husband. After Robert died when Clara was aged 37, her career soared. She toured around eight months a year leaving her children in the care of others and became one of the most famous pianists in Europe.

Marston centres her ballet around the numbers three and seven. Three because Clara often was in a relationship of three. She was torn between her father and mother, who divorced when she was four. She was also torn between Robert Schumann and her father, who opposed their marriage. Additionally, she allegedly had an affair with the much younger composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) during the years before and after her husband’s death.

Seven because of the seven white notes on a piano, and the seven roles Marston attributes to Clara: prodigy, artist, wife, mother, nurse, manager and muse, each embodied by a different dancer. They weave in and out of the action sometimes alone, sometimes together, danced by Giorgia Giani, Ruka Nakagawa, Nancy Osbaldeston, Sujung Lim, Inna Bilash, McKhayla Pettingill and Max Richter.

Marston believes that Clara’s, Robert’s and Johannes’ compositions, which they often dedicated to each other, functioned as a secret code between them, expressing things that could not be put into words. Her long-time collaborator, composer Philip Feeney, has put together piano and orchestral pieces by the three, thereby adding an extra layer to their personalities and relationships. The piano pieces were performed with extraordinary clarity by the renowned Clara Schumann interpreter, Ragna Schirmer, while the orchestral pieces were given full emotion by the Philharmonia Zürich.

In three acts, Marston tells a condensed version of Clara’s life up to Robert’s death. In Act I, we are introduced to Clara’s father (Esteban Berlanga), whose movements are determined and unforgiving, and mother (Shelby Williams). They dance a tug-of-war with Clara in between them, referencing their divorce when Clara was just four-years-old. Her father wins.

Then follows a harmonious dance with father and daughter, her intensive piano practice indicated by him guiding her arms and hands over an imaginary keyboard. Another tug-of-war then follows with Clara caught between her father and Robert Schumann (Karen Azatyan), who wins.

Act II concentrates on Clara’s and Robert’s domestic life. Marston has chosen to give the couple five, instead of seven, children, all the same height and age. While Robert composes, Clara teaches them to play various instruments as they sit on what looks like the lid of a grand piano.

Indeed, the sets by Hildegard Bechtler all bring associations to pianos. The openings in the walls through which the characters enter and leave appearing like the black keys on a keyboard, long, dark and narrow.

Robert increasingly succumbs to hallucinations induced by syphilis, contracted in his youth. His body contracts and he presses his hands to his ears. Then enters Brahms (Chandler Dalton), whose musical talent greatly inspires the couple. Dalton creates a wonderful contrast to Azatyan’s Robert. He moves with self-confidence and is sprightly, his youth expressed through high jumps and his frolicking with the children.

In Act III Robert is locked up in an asylum. Azatyan, who joined Ballett Zurich this season after ten years with John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet, brilliantly mastered the transition from being a loving husband and caring father, turning increasingly insane, writhing out his agony. After he dies, Brahms lingers on a while before leaving Clara. Here Marston ends her story, leaving out the 40 years Clara survived her husband. Because, as Marston explains and as Clara wrote in her diary, Robert’s death was the beginning of a new life.

You do not have to know Clara and Robert Schumann’s story in order to enjoy the ballet. Marston is a fabulous story-teller. She presents her version of the Schumann’s life, which is open to ample interpretation. With the seven Claras, she depicts a flurrying presence of a woman with a father pushing her into virtuosity; a husband, wanting her to be a housewife; and a lover, who sets new energies free. Marston managed to suck me into the story. So much so that, at the end, I wished it would continue.