“It was very professional but I didn’t like it!” Two Russian women commented cheerfully in Turgenev’s language as they left their dressing room, discussing the performances of the Nice Opera Ballet which danced to melodies by Debussy and Ravel. Is it a difference between fundamentally classical school and a more contemporary concept of bodily expression? “Too athletic, too gymnastic,” agrees her slightly older friend.
The choice of musical program did suggest a search for movements aimed more at the depths of introspection rather than a demonstration of strength. Choreographed by Ballet Master Eleonora Gori, the show – which has undeniable artistic quality – sometimes seemed to prioritize investment in the power of physical work over the affective, more impressionist suggestion of feelings. As a result, the audience was literally more seized than touched by the scenic evolutions.
In the first part, Debussy’s “Nocturnes” thus revealed the female corps de ballet as true creeping creatures in wide black clothing that floated like the wings of a strange and unsettling night creature. Better synchronized in their ensemble evolutions than their male colleagues, these sirens, who seem to prefer shadow to light – the lighting was designed by Jean-Philippe Corrigou – added to the singular contrast with the more acrobatic, somewhat disordered performances of the dancers. The latter sought and multiplied virile postures, a symbolism that the final muscle bulging of the arm, which the fluttering, lost butterflies desperately cling to, could not deny.
One of the highlights of the evening was undoubtedly the stage adaptation of “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” with the dance pair Paola de Castro and Andrés Heras Frutos. Not only because of the musical theme which, like a symphonic poem, provides the audience a projective support to the unfolding of the score. But as a pair of felines awakening to life, the two dancers admirably fed the imagination solely by the expressiveness of their bodies stretching, shaking, and lingering a bit at the zenith before discovering each other. With a face as radiant as her body showed flexibility, Paola de Castro plays – she experiences and undoubtedly shares with the public the joy of what she dances – and even outplays the machinations of her partner’s muscular power, whose rhythm, even considering his “sporty” performance, sometimes tends to get carried away, exceeding the music and indulging in almost primitive bodybuilding displays, already glimpsed in “Quest for Fire.”
During the interlude, the Nice Opera offered a magnificent – albeit too short – piano recital by Julian Evans and David Levy, two interpreters of Debussy with great delicacy and pure emotion.
More nuanced, the second part also offers more symbiosis in the ballet corps’ evolutions on stage. While Hervé Ilari seems more convincing when he dances alone, allowing more real sensitivity to be expressed than when accompanying his partner, the “pas de deux” in the first movement of “La Mer” nevertheless creates a graceful atmosphere of a waking dream to which César Rubio Sancho and José Ramirez Del Toro also contribute.
The choreography of Ravel’s “La valse” intensifies the frenzy of an ending where “the lady in red,” a red as bright as the color of her couch, played by a sometimes too physical Julia Bailet, gave the entire ballet corps the opportunity to showcase not only its expertise but also the fruits of intense rehearsal work. Thoroughly won over, the audience was generous with applause, which, far beyond an immediate expression of satisfaction, also indicates the legitimate place of dance within an Opera.
