By Mike Smith
CHRISTMAS is on its way so it’s time for families make their annual pilgrimage to the theatre to escape into fairy tale worlds where grown men and women take to the stage in daft costumes and even dafter stories.
Okay, so it’s panto time, but I refer to that other festive feast of theatricality - the ballet.
This year’s seasonal offering to the capital city is the Latvian National Ballet with Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Coppelia at St David’s Hall. Surely enough classical greats to keep lovers of the pas de deux as sweet as a sugar plum fairy until the Kirov’s arrival in the spring.
And with probably the world’s greatest classical ballet ensemble on its way to the iconic new Wales Millennium Centre the most widely derided of the art forms has, like Swan Lake’s Prince Seigfried, finally come of age.
But what is it that makes ballet aficionados swoop into our theatres and concert halls to watch men and women prance around at any time of the year let alone at Noel?
And will this urge compel audiences to flock to the 1,900 seats of Wales Millennium Centre night after night with its offer of top class ballet – and top class ticket prices?
While undoubtedly opera’s poor cousin in Wales – would a multi-million pound home have been built to house a classical ballet company? – the audience is there.
Regular visiting companies such as Northern Ballet Theatre, with their imaginative takes on the classics and the wealth of talent from Russia and Eastern Europe to theatres around Wales do get bums on seats.
Neither does ballet share the nightmare faced by classical orchestras of an increasingly greying audience.
The work of trendy directors such as Matthew Bourne with his all-male Swan Lake and visually stunning Nutcracker are encouraging younger audiences to dip a pointed toe into the water.
Ballet does not have to be hugely expensive. While decent stalls tickets to the Kirov at WMC will set you back around £55 a good stalls ticket for Swan Lake performed by the Latvian Ballet at St David’s Hall is closer to £35. The Australian Ballet’s Swan Lake at WMC next July, on the other hand, is only marginally more expensive than the Latvian’s feathered feast.
More difficult to leap over is the major obstacle of fear of ballet and the stigma of elitism. According to one of Europe’s leading ballet impresarios, Paul Godfrey, that “black tie and plush frocks” snobbery is actually cultivated by some companies.
But the man behind the company bringing the Latvians to Cardiff this Christmas says it doesn’t have to be that way. The successful ballet impresario - who went to study Russian in the Soviet Union but ended up managing rock bands and dodging the KGB because “it was much more exciting”- describes ballet as “an amazing suspension of belief through the beauty of the physical act”.
Once known as the Riga Ballet, the Latvian National has included many of Russia’s legendary dancers including Anna Pavlova, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Marius Petipa, creator of Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and the most quintessential of all Christmas ballets, The Nutcracker.
It was at St Petersburg’s Marinsky Theatre – the Kirov’s home - that the Nutcracker was first performed in 1892 and where I saw my first ballet a century later and was hooked.
Whether the Kirov and Australian Ballet will play to full houses night after night is an unknown. Despite supporting visiting companies and Swansea boasting its own Ballet Russe, classical ballet remains less on the arts radar than opera.
Yet in terms of that physical beauty, freedom of interpretation and emotional involvement ballet can outshine opera.
Paul’s company Artsworld Productions also manages tours by opera companies, such as the Russian State Opera of Rostov and the Polish State Opera of Wroclaw that tours Wales. But Paul argues that as ballet does not have words and a written text, rather “you are invited on to the stage to understand what is happening.”
That does not, however, mean ballet is an instantly accessible art form that an audience will find utterly compelling. “Take Swan Lake," says Paul. “A bunch of people dressed as swans. What is that about? If it is not convincing then its nonsense. “But the moment it becomes convincing it becomes an amazing suspense of belief through the beauty of the physical act.”
While there are dance conventions, steps, gestures with well-established meaning and significance, Paul believes being a trip to the ballet can be even more enjoyable for a newcomer than the aficionado. “If you are open to new experiences you will be completely stunned. Many people are still hooked by their first experience.”
It is possibly the Nutcracker, with its Christmas Eve setting, that firmly placed ballet at the heart of the festive season. But a more likely reason for the association with Christmas is the fact that the classic repertoire is a family-friendly experience that can be enjoyed on different levels by different ages.
With Swan Lake, for example, children can enjoy the beauty of the dancers while adults experience the work on another level, appreciating the darkness of the piece.
This combination makes ballet a refreshing alternative to panto and could start a lifelong passion. Swans are one of the few animals that once the have chosen a partner stick together for life. So take the leap. But be warned - once you have chosen ballet it could be the start of a very long affair.
