Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, London
June 5, 2024
In 2006, Sarasota Ballet, a small company with big ambitions, were looking for a director. They offered Iain Webb a three-year contract. Both made the right choice; the fit was perfect. Today Sarasota Ballet is a vibrant company with over 154 ballets in the repertoire. Most importantly for the UK, it has a treasury of Frederick Ashton ballets which boosted the vote for Webb to win the prestigious De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement at the recent 2023 National Dance Awards.
The award couldn’t have been better timed as his company made their London debut with an all-Ashton programme. The first programme of three short works: Valses nobles et sentimentales, Dante Sonata and Sinfonietta, all in original costumes and sets, was a historic moment. If the stage was a little too small, the dancers didn’t let it hold them back and gave generously, obviously enjoying their first time at the Royal Opera House.
Dante Sonata, premiered in January 1940, is a gripping piece of dance theatre with moments of wild melodrama and others of neo-classical beauty. Without acknowledging the context, it would be easy to dismiss the black and white simplicity of good versus evil but in the overwrought gestures, especially in the second female solo, powerfully expressed by Marijana Dominis, one senses the overwhelming fear of imminent war. Ashton struggles to express the depth of his feelings in atypical movement, most success coming in the lyrical duets danced with deep sincerity by Jennifer Hackbarth and Daniel Pratt.
Photo Foteini Christofilopoulou
The ballet is unusual in many ways. For the Children of Light, the women wear Grecian styled chitons, their feet bare and their hair flowing loose while the men are more formally dressed in white tights, ballet shoes with a soft shirt. If the movement of these dancers pys homage to Isadora Duncan, the Children of Darkness are nearer to Mary Wigman’s Hexentanz. Led by fearsome Lauren Ostrander and Ricardo Graziano they seem, in movement and presence, to be the more powerful side. There are Biblical allusions and references to Dante’s Inferno and the illustrations of Gustave Doré. It is an interesting work in so many ways but seen in light of current warfare it seemed somewhat too innocent.
Valse Nobles et Sentimentales (1947) is a well-mannered ballet of its time. The ladies look gorgeous in beribboned pink ballet dresses and white satin gloves, in neat lines and smiling sweetly. Jessica Assef, leading from the front with a fine classical line and sharply defined footwork, was partnered by elegant Ricardo Rhodes. It’s a work of mild flirtations played out against a backdrop of transparent screens in well-structured choreography without getting too excited by the power of Ravel’s music.
Photo Fonteini Christofilopoulou
Sinfonietta (1967), chirpy and cheerful, made a light-hearted finale. The Elegy an obvious foretaste to Monotones, both in costuming and choreography, again saw Hackbarth in the lead. Carried aloft and partnered in many and varied ways by five men she rarely touches earth. The Toccata opening and Tarantella finale contrast with effervescent dance led by Sierra Abelardo and Dominis, and partners Evan Gorbell and Samuel Gest. Filled with fast complex allegro it was well danced and brought to a fun ending led by Rhodes.