Strictly don’t try this at home: a breathtaking Daphnis et Chloé opens Multitudes festival

“What’s certain is that you can’t experience Multitudes at home,” writes Artistic Director Mark Ball of the Southbank’s new multi-arts festival aimed at luring Gen Z away from their sensible evenings in of screens and batch-cooking. Who can blame them? Overwhelmed by being exposed to everything all at once for as long as they can remember, they might be forgiven for feeling the concert hall does not reflect their experience. Well it does now.

Multitudes opened with a hands-down all-time ravishing best performance of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé and La Valse from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, accompanied by an astonishing display of breathtaking acrobatics by Australian contemporary circus artists, Circa. Not so much ‘Not Going Out’ as ‘Strictly Don’t Try This At Home’. 

The Royal Festival Hall lurked in dark purple light complete with smoke to give the auditorium a luxe club look. Five pairs of acrobats took their places under as Ravel’s opening chords grew and began a series of pas de deux beginning with a series of simple lifts which quickly escalated into some of the most astonishing acts of physical daring I have ever seen.

Even in Ravel’s big anniversary year, it’s a bold move to begin a festival of orchestral music with an hour of impressionistic pastorale that has always – famously – been problematic to stage. This inspired pairing not only transfixed, but allowed an audience to hear the music anew. Instead of attempting to tell the story – the lovers represented only in a collective abstract by five pairs of dancers – the choreography tunes in to Ravel’s vibe: sensuality, muscularity, audacity. As the score remains in motion, so the movement on-stage – and sometimes high above it – unspools in a fluid continuum of incredible (and I do mean incredible) strength, agility and expressive beauty. Ravel is the Daddy of sensuous impressionism and Ed Gardner certainly made the most of all the delicious swoopiness that later found its way into the golden age of Hollywood romance. But under his baton the LPO proved every bit as lithe and nimble as the acrobats, whose antics even pointed out a moment of comedy that might have otherwise gone by in the general headrush.

Just occasionally the acrobatics felt a little too much: some of the lifts looked complex, busy and effortful, as I am sure they were, a reminder that this performance was as much a trust exercise for the outside players of the orchestra who had to keep their nerve as Brisbane’s bravest hurled themselves towards them. Well might the unflappable BBC Singers, safely perched above the stage, sing “Ah!” 

La Valse saw the orchestra bathed in the colour of a really good negroni. Gardner did no more really than an insouciant gallic shrug building to a “oh-go-on-do-it-again” as the contrabassoon slunk in with an invitation to the dance. The acrobats’ choreography in the opening section was wisely low-key too, given the intricacy of Ravel’s orchestration, and with the LPO on such goosebumpingly magnificent form. But there was plenty more to come as they tumbled, leapt, lifted and built themselves into a three-storey human tower that toppled itself with an audacious recklessness that had the audience holding its breath, if not gripping hold of whoever was in the neighbouring seat.

While Stravinsky might have got a riot at the opening of The Rite of Spring, a year after Daphnis et Chloé, there’s no doubt that Ravel is where the party is. When Circa director Aaron Lifschitz, in leather bomber jacket and jeans, joined Gardner on stage to acknowledge an ecstatic standing ovation, a voice behind me said “Wow! Is that the guy who did the music?” No. But I’m sure the guy who did would be delighted to know he has a new fan.