Auditorium Theatre Brings Les Ballets de Monte Carlo to Chicago
Jean-Christophe Maillot’s La Belle is a visually sumptuous ballet, and, a new, very different interpretation of the Sleeping Beauty story. Maillot offers a more ambiguous Beauty opening opportunities for the audience to interpret the story from multiple viewpoints and challenging the typical “happily ever after” fairytale ending.
The ballet begins in the Prince’s world—black, white and gray—with only the half of the grand stage of the Auditorium Theatre visible. Seated on a chaise lounge we first encounter not a live dancer, but a projection on a white scalloped screen. He reads a book and gazes into a crystal ball seeming at once to be dreamy, questioning, and nervous. The entrance of his mother, or an ogre—perhaps Carabosse—breaks his reveries, and the projection. Strong and menacing and manipulating, this mother, dressed in black, with fingernails like knives and a dual pointed headdress dominates her son. As they dance together he must constantly negotiate and avoid those long nails lest they gash and wound him. Finally, she leaves him once again to his dreams. As she leaves the Lilac Fairy enters and opens a world of color and gaiety.
As the scalloped projection screen flies from the space to expose the entire stage the lights change and the world is full of color. Dancers in bright candy-colored colored costumes of pink, yellow, and green create a joyous, raucous atmosphere. The three fairies in cerulean blue with mounds of curled hair descend a long ramp that will also become a dramatic device for long processions, exciting battles, entrances, exits, and video projections of ice and water. The company takes over the vast stage filling it with joyful dancing making the contrast between the world of the Prince and the world of Beauty all the more stark.
Maillot takes liberties with the traditional Tchaikovsky score and the second act combines both his Sleeping Beauty and Romeo and Juliet compositions. Set to the iconic Rose Adagio, Belle enters descending the ramp encased in a giant clear bubble. As she effortlessly moves about the stage her suitors woo her. She glides safely in her bubble as the men leap and jump and fly past her becoming more and more aggressive in their movement. As they encircle her their persistence proves too much and they puncture her bubble leaving Belle exposed. Clearly frightened she curls into a ball on top of the deflated bubble as the King and Queen enter to try and calm their daughter and rid the stage of all Belle’s male suitors.
The Prince finds Belle and their pas de deux, set to Romeo and Juliet, begins and continues with one, long, passionate kiss. Never breaking the kiss the couple gracefully move about the stage in multiple variations of a lover’s embrace for so long it puts the viewer in the role of voyeur. The audience is suddenly and unexpectedly in a place so intimate and personal it seems to be an invasion of privacy. However, the kiss, and the entire pas de deux, reveal the couple’s deep love. It seems as if nothing can tear them apart as the story continues and they face evil and death.
As the ballet draws to a close the scalloped projection screen is dropped again cutting the stage in half and turning the world of color back into a black and white dream. The prince is once again gazing into his crystal.
Was this real?
Was it a dream?
Is he a prisoner of his own imagination?
And then Belle enters, takes him by the hand, and leads him through that scalloped screen. And we, the audience are left to draw our own conclusions about love and happily ever after.
Maillot’s La Belle offers an innovative interpretation of the traditional Sleeping Beauty ballet. It is a wonderful showcase of high energy dancing, color, and theatricality, perfect for both the seasoned dance viewer and those that may be new to story ballets.
Auditorium Theatre hosts a variety of performances, including many world class dance troupes like Ballet de Monte Carlo throughout the year. For information on upcoming performances visit the Auditorium Theatre website.
Slider photos by Alice Blangero
