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Ballet du Capitole’s double bill: a glorious musical feast

Von , 27 Oktober 2024

To open Ballet du Capitole’s 2024/2025 season, the first to be programmed by its new director, Beate Vollack, the company presented an enticing double bill of works composed by the great musical reformer of 18th century opera and ballet, Christoph Willibald Gluck. Conducted by Jordi Savall, no less, and with music played by his Le Concert des Nations, the programme consisted of two of Gluck’s rarely-performed ballets, Sémiramis and Don Juan, and promised, if nothing else, to be a glorious musical feast.

Ballet du Capitole in Ángel Rodríguez' Sémiramis
© David Herrero

And so it proved. In the intimate auditorium of Toulouse’s attractive Théâtre du Capitole, Gluck’s music sounded wonderfully alive and elegant, with Savall drawing out the pace and drama of both scores with panache, as well as a clear sense of their dance rhythms. Ravishing the ear with Gluck’s beautiful music, the conductor must have been an inspiration to the musicians and choreographers working with him.

The ballets shown in this programme were originally composed in Vienna during the 1760s in collaboration with the choreographer Gasparo Angiolini and librettist Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, and they attempted to express dramatic situations in ballet more freely by better integrating dance episodes and mime scenes. The music is touchingly direct and sincere, and the stories of Sémiramis and Don Juan, with their moral dilemmas, would have been well known to audiences of the day. These tales were also familiar to those who came a bit later (just think of Mozart’s Don Giovanni or Rossini’s Semiramide), but I wondered if these ballets would strike the same kind of accord with the public of today, or might they seem old-fashioned. Perhaps.

Ballet du Capitole in Ángel Rodríguez' Sémiramis
© David Herrero

For Sémiramis, in fact, choreographer Ángel Rodríguez dispensed with the story of the fabled Babylonian queen of ancient times altogether, offering instead a suite of dances without any connection to Gluck’s original plot. Dressed in simple burgundy costumes designed by Rosa Ana Chanza Hernández, the ensemble of dancers grouped together, lined-up, occasionally formed Nijinska-like tableaux, ran, jumped and turned in classically-based choreography with a contemporary twist. Periodically, lone dancers walked slowly across the back of the stage whilst others performed in front, and at other times the stage cleared for a duet, a trio or a solo. The choreography was musical and pleasant, but rarely surprising.

The dancers had poise and vigour, and performed beautifully – especially Natalia de Froberville, Kayo Nakazato, Jérémy Leydier and Philippe Solano – but I didn’t feel I discovered their true abilities as performing artists in Sémiramis. As the ballet was only 20-minutes long, Les Concert des Nations played the orchestral suite from Gluck’s opera Iphigénie en Aulide as a welcome prelude.

Alexandre De Oliveira Ferreira and Ballet du Capitole in Edward Clug's Don Juan
© David Herrero

Edward Clug gave a semblance of a plot in his version of Don Juan, although his view of the great seducer seemed pretty mild in comparison to what Mozart envisioned. In a one-act work that deployed the entire company, Clug showed the figure of Don Juan, accompanied by his servant Sganarelle, as he attempted to seduce Donna Elvira. However, rather than portray an entitled philanderer, Clug had the handsome Alexandre De Oliveira Ferreira – bare-chested throughout – play the Don with a sunny disposition and a sexy, insouciant smile. There was no sense of a dangerous sexual predator at play here, especially as Elvira, danced by Marlen Fuerte Castro, seemed so remote and unobtainable, nor that the Don faced damnation for his immorality. Elvira, in fact, became his avenging angel as she led him towards his ultimate end, where the music shared similar qualities to Gluck’s “Dance of the Furies” from his opera Orfeo ed Euridice. Quite what Don Juan had done to deserve damnation was another matter.

Ballet du Capitole in Edward Clug's Don Juan
© David Herrero

Designed with simple elegance by Marko Japelj and Leo Kulas, with Spanish-style screens that could be moved to suggest different locations, the stage picture was highly attractive. Clug offered similarly simple and attractive choreography, although it might gain in power with a greater sense of moral condemnation, as surely Gluck intended. Nevertheless, the Ballet du Capitole performed magnificently, and Oliveira Ferreira stole everybody’s heart. The dancer, as well as Savall, was warmly applauded at the ballet’s conclusion.

This double bill continues at the Théâtre du Capitole until 30 October, and can then be seen on tour next year at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu and at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. Anyone who loves the music of Gluck will not want to miss it.

Jonathan Gray's trip was funded by the Ballet de l'Opéra national du Capitole

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