On Nov. 22 — the 100th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s birth as well as St Cecilia’s Day — the National Ballet of Canada unveils a new programme of modern shorts that includes one of Britten’s iconic works.
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Montreal dancer-choreographer José Navas, founder of the Compagnie Flak, has created a new piece on Britten’s Four Sea Interludes — an orchestral suite made up of the entracte music from the opera Peter Grimes.
For all the people who were deeply moved by the Canadian Opera Company’s fall production of Grimes on the same Four Seasons Centre stage, it is a chance to revisit the emotional power behind Britten’s spare composerly craft, but in a completely different medium.
To set the mood, here are the Sea Interludes from Leonard Bernstein’s last recorded concert (with the Boston Symphony in Aug., 1990). Listen as you read on:
The way a good conductor — like Bernstein or the Canadian Opera Company’s Johannes Debus — shapes the sound, you can almost reach out and touch its curves and angles.
Navas fell under Britten’s spell a few years ago when he created a solo piece for himself on the composer’s unaccompanied Cello Suites. He discovered a score laden with emotion expressed in formal ways — a musical geometry that translates surprisingly easily into a visual geometry on stage.
When asked by the National Ballet to create something for this month’s programme, Britten’s Sea Interludes gave Navas a chance to challenge himself with “a fusion of interpretation with music and being inspired by music,” he says.
Another challenge is the nature of the project. This is only the second time in his career that Navas has worked with a ballet troupe instead of a modern dance company.
Navas has 31 dancers involved in Watershed, set on the 20 minutes of Britten’s Sea Interludes. Describing the intersection between sound and movement in this music, he says, “It is not about showing the emotion overtly but taking people on a certain journey.”
His first contact with the Toronto dancers proved the ease with which Britten makes immediate connections. Most of the people in the corps hadn’t heard of Britten, much less the Sea Interludes, “But when I played the music for The Storm [the final movement], they were fascinated by it,” Neves recalls.
The fact that the show opens on Britten’s birthday is just “serendipity,” he adds.
The rest of the Innovation programme is equally promising:
National Ballet principal dancer and choreographic associate Guillaume Côté offers up Being and Nothingness, set on Philip Glass’s Metamorphosis No. 4; young choreographic associate Robert Binet’s Unearth features a new score by Toronto violinist Owen Pallett; and former artistic director James Kudelka unveils … black night’s bright day … set on Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s immortal Stabat Mater — which also features soprano Emma Kirkby and countertenor Daniel Taylor (David Trudgen on Nov, 27).
Performances are on Nov. 22, 23, 24, 27 & 28 at the Four Seasons Centre. Details here.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
