ballet: Carmen

[cellio]

My parents have season tickets to the ballet and the promoters gave them an extra pair of tickets to today's show, so they invited us to join them. I'd only seen live ballet once before, so I figured it was worth checking out at that price.

We saw Carmen, which was derived from the opera of the same name. The plot synopsis in the program was sparse -- also not entirely accurate, which surprised me given that they controlled the program. I'm glad I had applied the power of Google before going.

To my uneducated eye, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre did a good job with the material they had to work with. The dancers executed the large moves crisply and the delicate moves smoothly and gracefully. There were a few times during full-company dances where some dancers who were probably supposed to be in sync were slightly off of each other, but it was not jarring.

The combination of lighting and costuming made it easy to tell who was who; in some ballets, my father said, he has not been able to tell who the key dancers are because there is insufficient variation in the costumes. This is important: when you're producing for the stage, you have to think large; in a movie you've got the luxury of more subtlety because you control the cameras and can offer close-ups, but in a theatre, there will always be people who really can't see the actors' or dancers' faces clearly. So don't plan to do it with makeup or even facial expressions, though those will of course enhance the experience for those who can see. You need broad strokes.

The pacing seemed a bit off. They spent a large amount of time on the opening conceit, and we were probably 15 minutes in before the actual plot of Carmen started. I found myself thinking "at this pace we're going to be here for four hours", but other parts of the plot got glossed over rather quickly. I would have divided it up differently. This is a complaint against the choreographer, of course, not the performers, though the producers could have mitigated by writing the synopsis to better match the show.

There were things in the synopsis that I did not see on the stage. Maybe they were implied and I just don't know what to look for, or maybe ballet has a "you know the story anyway so we can do that" convention. I don't know enough about ballet to judge. There were a couple times when I found myself wondering "wait, where are we now?", because I just couldn't tell.

There was a major issue related to the music, but I'm going to talk about that later.

While I'm glad I went, I fear I might be insufficiently sophisticated to appreciate ballet. I found parts of the show -- mainly the ensemble dances -- tedious; I felt they were doing the same moves over and over and none of it was advancing the plot. In general I am fairly plot-driven; I can appreciate performance art that isn't supposed to have a plot, like some forms of dance and acrobatics, but if there is a plot, I expect it to be relevant. In this regard ballet is even harder than opera; at least with opera there's dialogue, albeit dialogue that I have to read for myself. You don't get that with ballet, though; the story is told mainly through movement and secondarily through music, and this might not be enough to hold my attention in a visual medium. (I can, of course, appreciate the music on its own merits, but it seems a waste of the stage and dancers.) If I set plot concerns aside and try to appreciate it as just dance in the abstract, I find that the dance doesn't hold my attention the way, say, the movement from Cirque de Soleyl did.

The reason my parents had extra tickets is that the ballet company made a controversial decision this year, and they lost subscribers over it. (So I see this as a "bring your friends who might then subscribe" ploy.) They've been having financial problems for some years, and when the musicians' contract expired, they didn't renew it. They are doing this season to recorded music. This highlights a difference between those who think ballet is about dance and those who think it is about dance+music. I thought the show would have been more enjoyable with live music, but the recorded music was of high quality and it didn't bother me.

The musicians, naturally, objected to the canned music, and they were picketing the show. (We didn't know they'd be picketing. I think Dani was uncomfortable crossing the picket line.) They did one clever thing: they brought their instruments and played on the sidewalk, behind signs that said "the only live music you'll hear at the Benedum today". It sure beats chanting slogans.

But their signs (and published opinions) referred to a "lock-out", and that's both wrong and misleading. I'm not on either side in this dispute, but I am on the side of truth in advertising. :-) A lock-out is when you show up to work per the agreements you have in place and you get told "nope, go home". But that's not what happened. They had a contract and it expired; that meant PBT's obligations to them were over. (This was known well in advance of the season; it wasn't a last-minute move.) Now it may have been bad judgement to not renew (I haven't seen their budget so I can't say), but it was neither legally nor ethically wrong. When I hire a contractor to paint the outside of my house, I don't then have an obligation to have him do the interior, or to do the exterior again in five years. The contract was for a specific job; there might or might not be future work available.

The musicians were protesting that it was "unfair" for PBT to take their jobs away. Guess what: very few of us have any employment guarantees. A contract gives you more guarantees than most people get, with a catch: it has an end date. If you want the guarantee of work for some period of time, you have to accept the risk of it going away after that time. It's wrong to expect the one without the other. This, of course, is not the only union to exhibit this fallacy; it's just the most recent.

All that said, the protesters at the theatre were polite, and the absence of live music did make a difference to the show. So I hope PBT can get their financial house in order and return to having live music. It would be a win for everyone. But the protesters need to focus less on perceived (but not actual) "rights" and focus instead on the financial and artistic issues, in my opinion.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Ballet is one of those art forms that has a language. My sister knows the language, and appriciates ballet: she and my mother used to have a subscription to the Boston Ballet, and would go to nearly every show (my sister could recognize specific dancers by their dance styles, and had favorite dancers, even among the ensemble.) Because of that, they could follow the plotlines more clearly than I could.

All of us enjoy modern dance about equally: modern and jazz dance have less of an established language and formality, so there's a lower "entry cost", as it were, to be able to understand and enjoy it.

And I don't think I could really enjoy professional-level ballet with recorded music. I mean, I've seen summer camp recitals done with recorded music, and it was okay, but the summer camp recitals with live music were better.

A musing on language and markets

[siderea]

While I completely agree with you about the nature of contracts (having been a contractor, and a happy one, for a decade) I've observe that there is (perhaps unfortunately) in circulation a use of "unfair" to mean "massively inconsiderate". It seems to stem from the lack in our language for a value word which means a very strong form of "inconsiderate". "Betrayal" comes close, but means something different, and suggests a specific commitment as opposed to a violation of default decency.

Even if there were such a word at our disposal, I'm not sure I would agree with the protesting musicians that it applies here! But I think it would be closer to the heart of their complaint.

I retain contractors now, and I know that, though I have every right to dismiss them temporarily or set terms unilaterally, that if I make it economically unfeasible for them to work for me, they won't. While it is perfectly fair for me to do what I like with our schedule, I am aware that a workforce needs to be cultivated like a garden: I have to look after it even when it's not producing for me.

My heart goes out to PBT; letting go of staff for financial reasons is never a happy thing. I hope they know what they're doing. When a major source of musicians' jobs goes away, a region risks losing the musicians. Some may find other gigs, some may tide themselves over as Waiters(tm)... but some will leave. It is not impossible that should PBT manage to get its finances in order that there not be any competant musicians around to re-hire. Depends on how brittle the musician labor market is there.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Carmen, famous as the Bizet opera and as an orchestral suite featuring the hit tunes from same (which even non-opera buffs can hum, half the time), made into a ballet and they used *canned music*. Oh boy. Wonder which bright spark decided that was a good plan? I like modern ballet but its the music *and* the dance and the whole live feeling that makes it work, otherwise its just watching a full-costume practice session, might as well be at the dance studio rather than in a theatre.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, sounds like they didn't make the best adaptation; experience has taught me I don't really have the stamina for long ballets but they need to leave the most salient plot points in! I think the musical cues are often the best way to move the story along, I hope they managed to edit the tape correctly at least...

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

I greatly prefer live music as well. However, labor law being what it is, I will almost always stand against any union in any dispute. Otherwise, I'm in full agreement with your analysis. I hope they get their act together, too.

[anisodragnfly.livejournal.com]

i went to see this last Thursday with people from my French class (we'll be reading Carmen later this semester). i had a hard time staying awake, but then i'm a cultureless imbecile (and have used a CD i bought from a "street orchestra" in the Paris metro with selections from Carmen (among other things) as sleep music on more than one occasion).

i actually had a hard time telling people apart at times, even with the costumes. i found the synopsis beyond awful. (Act II: paragraph 1 - Don Jose declares his undying love for Carmen; paragraph 2 - he stabs her. i'm thinking there should be some motivation in there or something.)

my professor said he didn't see a good reason for wrapping the story in another story (maybe to have two more leads?). he said he thought the correct order to experience Carmen was the book, the movie (film of the opera, maybe?), a flamenco version he has, and then this one.

another friend of mine with dance experience who is a fan of one of the women who played Carmen went to see it on Friday. she thought it was terrible and uninspired.