Seeta’s Rite
Nurymov, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Kiril Karabits
Poole Lighthouse, Wednesday 15th November 2023
WORKS:
Nurymov: The Fate of Sukhovey Suite
Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty Suite
Stravinsky (arranged McPhee): The Rite of Spring
From the BSO Live site:
Choreographer, Seeta Patel marries Indian classical dance and western classical music in her The Rite of Spring. Taking the South Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam, with its intricate rhythmic footwork, geometric and dynamic movements and expressive prowess, this is a Rite as you have never seen before. The Sleeping Beauty presents a tale of magical spells, a long-delayed romance and a royal wedding full of colourful characters; a soaring waltz, one of the most popular ever written, and the Rose Adagio are among the highlights. More eastern exoticism is on display in Nurymov’s ballet score depicting the fate of the seasonal hot, dry wind that sweeps across his native Kazakhstan.
The orchestra was compressed by having a wide front stage area added for the ballet in Rite of Spring. The timpani were squeezed in behind the violins, and the rest of the percussion was literally ’round the corner’ extreme stage left. In the first part the orchestra players were dressed in black with black shirts. There was dance only in The Rite.
The Fate of Sukhovey Suite is one I hadn’t even heard of. Kiril Karabits conducted this evocative piece, with several short segments and an overall cinematic feel. The BSO has played Nurymov twice before, so forgive my total ignorance. This one is said to be from Kazakhstan, though looking on line for the 2022 BSO performance they say Turkmenistan as do other references so Turkmenistan is the consensus. Trailing the internet also indicates he was born variously in 1938, 1940 and in 1941. Karabits has championed Central Asian music in his Voices From The East series. All the pieces tonight were ballets. I found out this much in trawling the net trying to find a recording on sale. I liked it that much. I failed.
Sleeping Beauty is one where you need the Suite. The entire ballet is over three hours long. Familiarity is a virtue here. The glorious ‘famous bit’ is like a warm bath with magnesium salts.
After the interval, the entire orchestra re-emerged in white shirts / blouses which were not tucked in. So was Kiril Karabits. This must have been a significant change. Who knows? It’s not my laundry bill.
The Rite of Spring is the one that many of those classically-inclined take to be the greatest work of the 20th century. It has all the background. It’s a ballet written for Diaghilev’s Ballets Ruse and choreographed by Nijinsky. It was first performed in 1913. The audience was restive and laughter broke out even in the introduction, which seems hard to credit nowadays. Once they got to the strident bits full scale arguments were breaking out, though it was said to be worse when it was revived in the 1920s. There is a counter argument:
It was not Stravinsky’s music that did the shocking. It was the ugly earthbound lurching and stomping devised by Vaslav Nijinsky
Richard Taruskin, 2012
Looking at the photos, it seems likely that he’s right. It has been re-choreographed many times over 110 years, nearly always more beautifully, though mainly people forget it was a ballet. The unsung hero is conductor Leopold Stokowski. He brought the score to the USA in 1922, and conducted the first staged American performance in 1930, with Martha Graham dancing the role of The Chosen One, choreographed by Leonide Massine.
For non-dance students, the Martha Graham Method is a key element in 20th Century ballet and dance. They had something in common. Stokowski later abandoned the conductor’s baton, preferring to wave his arms. Martha Graham later abandoned shoes. Her style is danced barefoot.
More importantly, Stokowski introduced it into Walt Disney’s Fantasia. He invented an early form of stereo, which required installing phone lines between Philadelphia and New Jersey for the recording on 35mm cinema film soundtrack. Speakers were set up in first run cinemas. The recording used 420,000 feet of film, of which less than 3% ws used in the final picture. The sound quality was unprecedented.
Disney abandoned the Rite of Spring storyline altogether and introduced the dinosaurs in the animation. At first they considered taking the evolutionary theme beyond volcanoes, jellyfish and dinosaurs to humans, but it was pointed out that creationism disputes would prevent it playing in the Bible Belt. Possibly they had read of ‘the ugly earthbound lurching’ of the original and thought, ‘Dinosaurs!’ We have two versions, Bernstein and Karajan. The Bernstein recording notes ‘Version of 1913.’
From The Fantasia box set:
The most modern and to many, the most disturbing piece in Fantasia, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The music full of primitive dissonance and with unusual form, has been variously described as immoral, hypnotic and provocative. Its insistent rhythms and shifting stresses give an imprssion of almost inexhaustible imagination. Originally written as a ballet depicting a virgin sacrifice to prehistoric Russian gods, its first performance in Paris in 1913 ended in a free-for-all riot. But in recent years it has come to be regarded by musicians ad critics as a significant milestone in modern music.
The thing is, I never truly ‘got’ the Rite of Spring until tonight. The choreography by Seeta Patel is barefoot Indian dance, four men, six women. So like Martha Graham, it is barefoot. Did she do that in 1930? Karen studied Martha Graham and Indian Dance but had to give up because of her bleeding feet. That wasn’t a Cockney oath, it’s literal. She waxed lyrical on their knee and ankle and hand work, and said they were at the peak of accomplishment. In fact as there were scenes with a red baby like bundle, all dancers crawling between the Chosen One’s legs and streams of red cloth being spread from her lower chakra point to each side, a bit of bleeding feet would have gone unnoticed.
The thing I had never understood is that the ‘stomping feet’ of 1913 are an essential percussive accompaniment, a major batch of ten “instruments” added to the orchestra. Also the sudden jumps and changes in the score all make sense accompanied by the dancers. Yes, it’s a ballet. The choreography by Seeta Patel was magnificent as was the performance of both dancers and orchestra. An astonishing musical event.
A lot of people took photos of the ending. Here Seeta Patel in red goes to greet Kiril Karabits. Sometimes I wish they would speak at classical concerts. The reception was rapturous.
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