United Kingdom Britten, Barbican Britten: Phaedra: Richard Alston Dance Company, Britten Sinfonia / Pekka Kuusisto (director), Barbican, London, 9.11.2013 (J’OD)
Lachrymae
Cast:
Nancy Nerantzi and Nathan Goodman, Elly Braund and Liam Riddick, Oihana Vesga Bujan and James Muller
Production:
Choreography: Richard Alston
Restaged: Martin Lawrence
Original lighting: Peter Mumford
Relit: Charles Balfour
Costumes: Belinda Ackermann
Hölderlin Fragments
Cast:
The Acclaim of Men: Nancy Nerantzi, Nathan Goodman, Nicholas Bodych
Home: Oihana Vesga Bujan, Liam Riddick
Socrates and Alcibades: James Muller, Liam Riddick
Youth: Nathan Goodman
Midlife: Oihana Vesga Bujan
Lines of Life: The Cast
Production:
Choreography: Richard Alston
Tenor: Robin Tritschler
Piano: Christopher Glynn
Lighting: Charles Balfour
Costumes: Fotini Dimou
Phaedra
Cast:
Phaedra: Allison Cook (mezzo soprano)
Hippolytus: Ihsaan de Banya
Theseus: James Muller
Oenone: Nancy Nerantzi
Chorus: Elly Braund, Oihana Vesga Bujan, Jennifer Hayes, Maranna Krempeniou, Nicholas Bodych, Nathan Goodman, Liam Riddick
Production:
Choreography: Richard Alston
Violin/director: Pekka Kuusisto
Libretto: Robert Lowell after Racine’s Phèdre
Lighting: Charles Balfour
Costumes: Fotini Dimou
Illuminations
Cast:
Rimbaud: Liam Riddick
Verlaine: Nathan Goodman
Being Beautous: Elly Braund
Royauté Couple: Nancy Nerantzi, Nicholas Bodych, Oihana Vesga Bujan, Maranna Krempeniou, Jennifer Hayes
Production:
Choreography: Richard Alston
Tenor: Robin Tritschler
Violin/director: Pekka Kuusisto
Restaged: Martin Lawrence
Original Lighting: Peter Mumford
Relit: Charles Balfour
Costumes: Fotini Dimou
It is clear from the start that Barbican Britten: Phaedra is going to be about music and dance in equal measure. Only after the audience is seated and the house lights are down do members of the Britten Sinfonia walk out onto to the stage (to applause) and take their places at the back. Rather than accompanying the dance, or being interpreted by it, Britten’s music (especially in the first two, ‘chamber’ pieces of this four-part programme) is the medium in which the dancers of the Richard Alston Dance Company perform.
When these dancers have the musicality of Nancy Nerantzi and Nathan Goodman (the first of the three couples to appear Lachrymae, the opening work) they could be the notes themselves, floating off the score. The music seems to go through Nerantzi’s body, definitely, as she executes slow, balanced extensions of her legs which point to infinity and which she sustains, unwaveringly, when lifted through the air by her partner. As ‘Youth’ in Hölderlin Fragments (one of two pieces in the programme commissioned by the Barbican as part of its two-week celebration of Britten’s centenary, ‘Barbican Britten’), Goodman takes short, quick steps that are timed to match every syllable of the words sung by tenor, Robin Tritschler, before comically fleeing the stage when the figure of ‘Midlife’ (Oihana Vesga Bujan) appears.
Phaedra (the second Barbican commission) brings music and dance together in a physical way as mezzo soprano Allison Cook moves among the dancers in the role of the tragic heroine. Her isolation from them as a singer underscores the isolation she experiences in her illicit and unrequited desire for her stepson, Hippolytus. As the object of her passion, Ihsaan de Banya demonstrates youth, and strength, and an appalled rejection of his stepmother’s advances. A greater effort of the imagination is needed to see James Muller as his father, Theseus. Not because of any failing on that dancer’s part, but because he looks (and may possibly be) as young as the dancer who is supposed to be his son. The piece works best in its non-narrative passages: Phaedra singing of her tormented passion in the company of her nurse, Oenone (Nerantzi), whose circling movements reflect it; the male dancers as dancer-warriors, jumping and turning in the air with outstretched arms.
Illuminations returns the human voice to a commanding position at the back of the stage. Surrounded by the musicians (with the violinists and viola players now standing up making their presence the more forceful), Robin Tritschler sings ‘Les Illuminations’, his voice providing almost tangible support for the dancers’ slow bends from the waist and gradually developed, Martha Graham balances that end with their bodies, supported on one leg, parallel to the floor. The piece portrays the relationship, also tormented, between Rimbaud (Liam Riddick) and Verlaine (Goodman). Riddick attracts the sympathy of the audience as he fights with a ‘Being Beauteous’ of his own imagination (a suitably vengeful and determined Elly Braund) for Verlaine’s love. The costumes are cut to resemble mid-nineteenth century déshabillé, their unhemmed edges in perfect keeping with the fluid, unbounded movement of the dancers themselves.
John O’Dwyer