Ballare Con Puccini – The Australian Ballet Dances Madame Butterfly by Andrew MIller

Julie-de-costa-and-rachel-rawl
When Stanton Welch adapted Puccini's opera to the ballet 16 years ago it was his first full length work. He is now head of the Houston Ballet, and meanwhile Butterfly has played around the globe and of course has stuck in the Australian Ballet's repertoire. The ballet is neoclassical, or more accurately neo-romantic: it uses the classical ballet forms and also visions and fantastic ethereal imagery, at times within worldly and concrete settings, something ballet in particular does so well, and really is its major strength as an art form, contributing to its appealing free and unique method of story-telling. It doesn't really make sense to compare ballet to opera, I think Madame Butterfly shows why this comparison is false as it is very different from the opera, but it does seem to gain something in being a ballet — it at least becomes more refined and concentrated and, for me, Mr Welch's lyrical flowing dances add a je ne sais quoi missing from the music, but moreover it opens up possibilities in the depths of the very difficult characters. For example, Mr Welch's choreography quite masterfully uses point-of-view, especially when Cio Cio San's visions and dreams precipitate before our eyes and we sense more wholly her psyche. At other times, she turns her back on the audience or disappears in the corner of the stage and other characters' experiences and feelings take over our attention, most notably in Pinkerton's Act I solo. The ballet is also paced perfectly, flowing continuously from scene to scene and dance to dance even over a scene change in Act II, it loses nothing of the plot despite cuts in the original opera's score, but is very economical, never wasting a single step. Stylistically, the 'niponerie' lends itself well to ballet: there are many pas de chatcouru en pointe, and much character dancing, mainly for the smaller roles.
Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts!

Alan Miller