Arts

Well-cloaked

Jann Parry

The Tempest (The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden)

V ou certainly have to know your Shake- '. speare in order to go to the ballet these days. It is no use turning up for Nureyev's Tempest or Helpmann's Hamlet and hop- ing that the ballet will remind you of the plot. Like Tchaikovsky, whose fantasy overtures to the plays are used by both choreographers, they assume that you know the themes and even the poetic images already. Helpmann's Hamlet, made in 1942 and revived last year by The Royal Ballet, packs the entire play into only 18 min- utes. Nureyev's new ballet amplifies Tchai- kovsky's 23-minute overture for The Tempest with movements from two of his Suites to make a work that lasts some 50 minutes.

Nureyev is an intensely theatrical choreographer. He wants audiences to know why his characters act and dance in the way they do. He is not content with simply making dance metaphors for them, as Glen Tetley does in his Tempest ballet. Shakespeare himself had problems with the exegesis in The Tempest: he resolved them by having Prospero tell his daughter, Miranda, the story of his banishment in the Elizabethan equivalent of a flash-back: blank verse. Nureyev shows the actual banishment in the language of neo-classical dance. The ballet opens in the dukedom of Milan, with Prospero still in his prime as a Renaissance ruler, surrounded by courtiers and conspirators. It is an appropriate set- ting for a ballet, since there are echoes of the magnificent court scenes in Tchaikov- sky's Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. The polonaise to which the court dances is true Tchaikovsky ballet music, even though it comes from the last movement of his Suite No 3 in G major. Nicholas Georgiadis's black and gold costumes are reminiscent of his sombre finery for Nureyev's production of The Sleeping Beauty. The Tempest, how- ever, has virtually no set. The glittering swathes of black material that frame the court fall away once the prologue is over, leaving the stage bare for most of the island scenes.

The action starts with Prospero standing alone in his splendid cloak and ducal crown. (The role was made for Anthony Dowell but was danced by Nureyev on the night I saw it.) He is joined by his brother Antonio (Derek Deane) who twines around him like the ivy in Shakespeare's metaphor for his treachery. The courtiers pay homage to Prospero while a conspiracy foments downstage. The plotters are hard to identify at this stage: two of them are heavily beard- ed and bewigged (Trinculo and Stephano, the clownish drunks in the play) while the other two wear commedia dell'arte half- masks. One has a cloak and crown, so he must be Alonso, King of Naples, and the other, his treacherous brother, Sebastian. Why the masks, which are worn throughout the ballet? Two theories: one, so that we know they are Neapolitans (simpler than having them bang tambourines and dance the tarantella); two, so that we do not con- fuse them with Prospero and his false brother. The theme of usurpation recurs throughout the ballet (as it does in the play) and people are constantly trying on each other's cloaks and crowns — all potentially very confusing. Prospero is soon divested of his ducal gear by Alonso and Antonio (remember them?) and the fickle court pays them homage in turn, to the same music as before.

After the hectic action of the prologue, Prospero's first solo in his banishment

'I conquered my fear of success just a little too late.'

seems almost slow motion. He tries to order his despair through a series of arabescIlAt° the woodwinds of Tchaikovsky's Suite. Then, wrapping himself in his Mae.," cloak (Nureyev is justly famous for cloak work) he gives birth to Caliban, tithe, lower man, and Ariel, who climbs int° light over his shoulders. Their interlockin; trio to tormented strings and drum et.)I„ drives home the unsurprising inforrna°°" that they are all aspects of the same Pers°.11,; So, very probably, are the cohorts of spi; who materialise out of the darkness. at first, neatly following each other's stfieP; they become increasingly rebellious, re'. ting Prospero's own rage and resentalent' He quells them eventually with his Lir: commanding gesture, raised high a' them on stilts. Enter Miranda, the only female role lig° the ballet. Lesley Collier has a darting s°,A particularly suited to her qualities of sPre and joyousness. The Divertimento from t'It the First Suite serves admirably for the dues' with her father and for their initial garli.„1 with Caliban. They treat him as a VII animal: 'When thou earnest first, strokedst me and madest much of illetti Prospero, 'for all the liberal arts with:h°0 a parallel', instructs Miranda and CalL,' to in the language of dance. Caliban Preiv';hat be a slow learner. He fails to realisell dancers do it standing up. Seeing him nre010 ing on the ground with Miranda, l'Ilasvy-of forgets his liberal studies in a frealc0r1 spins and double tours en rail. -d dispossesses Caliban both of Miranda his birthright, the island.

Prospero starts to come to terrns

himself in a long solo to The Tempest ture proper. He acquires his magic stl of which can move the golden spheres„nd Georgiadis's minimal set. Using the vi'r0 to measure and support his steps, Pr°sPe a learns a new language of power.it„lysev strange solo, not least because 1`111'"he looks as though he is making it ill) ashen goes along; perhaps he was — but„! a Nureyev's choreography often somewhat arbitrary feel to it. The stilt magic gets under way as Arid l flies .0 (courtesy of Kirby's Flying

Ballets)

receive his commands. All credit to Ware Eagling for managing to look like a 5,Pfter and not a sack of potatoes on a suing' sal what must have been a very short rehearot period. Provided that your eyes arcl' ed drawn irresistibly to the wires, the e „ really is magic. Another quaint devicev,e: model ship manipulated over silken `"`a ic

fails lighting fopossribolnycebecinaeupset. Joh R n;

AlWoneso,ms son AansdhlehyeirPtao Naples aapslesFewrditihnah.ra)r up-staring, (then like reeds, not 0_9. Page, a rising star in the Royal Ballet Willi_ ment, has a solo that accentuates his s. pleness and a duet with Miranda that tiro lovely images of playfulness and wonder ,_1.;c. some of Tchaikovsky's most ecstatic ri:esstn:4, Suddenly we come to the banquet which is the ballet's most eonge.,,e,

,.. episode. Simultaneously, there is feastt

Dlot •

ste ta18, sub-plotting, and Trinculo and nhano's drunken games with Caliban. rhese last could provide an ideal oppor- erunity for David Wall to develop his stinatacterisation of Caliban — except that, I Peet, there is not enough music to go round. s:he plot goes into overdrive, leaving reelY time for Prospero to renounce his islic and acknowledge Caliban and Ariel 3„ins, in a spool-back of their creation Zile. Prospero is finally recognised by the 7ers ,„ , who start dragging him off into the fgs (en route for Milan?) as the curtain to"s. This Prospero is even more reluctant p„ILeave his domain than Shakespeare's. 10t h5 Nureyev sees the island as an image hii"is own powers as a dancer — a magic H's not yet ready to renounce. esi,e, is an excellent metteur en scene, goZallY with the aid of Georgiadis. He is ab.14 at making the most of dancers' ha;iities, and he can certainly get a corps de pe et Moving. I think, though, that in The he rep" as in his Byron ballet, Manfred, 4,:elies too heavily on literary associations. helt.people do not remember the play and thr alls to reveal the central characters fully d,,?ligh dance. Prospero's most important sh'a"ns come at the end of the play, when tqusPeare gives him his best poetry. ex,reYev develops the early scenes at the n'e of the later ones. He cannot pull 4211 the choreographic stops to equal s'esPeare's words. But that is a tall ntder.