Ondine

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Average Customer Rating:	3.5
Release Date:	2010-05-25
Publisher:	BBC / Opus Arte
Artist:	Henze; Yoshida; Watson; Roh; Wordsworth
Aspect ratio:	1.78:1
Audience rating:	NR (Not Rated)
Format:	Classical; Color; DVD; Widescreen; NTSC
Language:	Subtitled: English; Subtitled: French; Subtitled: German; Subtitled: Spanish; Original Language: English;

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Customer reviews

« A disappointing Ondine » Although a competent dancer, Yoshida has none of the poetry of Margot Fonteyn's interpretation in the 1959 Czinner film version of this ballet. Yoshida is particularly disappointing in the Shadow Dance in the first act. Watson's performance as Palemon is more romantic than that of Michael Soames. However, the domineering, spiteful character of Berta is much more developed in the 1959 version. The music in this new version has been rearranged to substitue timpani for bongo drums, and the overall tempo is slower than in the 1959 version. To see this ballet as Frederick Ashton intended it, you should try to get ahold of a copy of the 1959 Czinner version. Rating: (3 out of 5) @ 2010-07-30

« Nature does beautiful things with water. Ashton doesn't. » The three-act ballet clocks at 98 minutes, plus curtain calls and credits, plus an 11-minute recollection by 83-year-old Henze about his commision to write the score. In 1958 Ashton was the primary choreographer/director of the Royal Ballet. Ondine was HIS project, and I lay all the production's faults on him--even the indifferent sets by Lila De Nobili, fulfilling his wishes. A fairytale/folktale scenario was often preferred by a choreographer because it provided such latitude for dances, decor, and costumes. The story would be explained in the programme, and the dramatics would be magnified by the composer and his orchestral forces. SCENES Several centuries ago (the costumes are mixed-period), on the Italian seacoast. ACT I, Scene 1. The aristocrat Berta's manorial courtyard, surrounded by dour brown buildings with, at our left, a little rectangular portal glowing blue (indicating a water source behind it, we assume). Six brightly costumed huntsmen launch into horsey dance and are soon joined by their women and Berta in plumed hat. Black-and-silver garbed aristocrat Philemon enters and offers Berta his neck chain with jeweled heart. Amused, she pushes it away, knowing marriage has little to do with heart, and everything to do with fortune. [This mimed exchange would be better as a pas de deux, since Berta really doesn't get to dance much.] All exit except disappointed Philemon. Lo and behold! from the little blue portal steps Ondine (incongruously invading Berta's domain), as if from a shower stall. He hides, and watches her dance, enchanted by her own shadow. He startles her, she recovers. A pas de deux ensues, he finally offering her his heart chain, but she declines and runs off, he pursues her, Berta and some huntsmen give chase. [The trivial water entry is a mistake. Ondine should emerge from a beautiful waterfall. So I say, transfer Scene 1 to a forest glade where the hunt party has halted for their and the horses' refreshment.] ACT I, Scene 2. The Black Valley (to borrow a phrase from the Fouque' novel), without any beautiful water (hardly the Forest specified in the scenario). The dark set is featureless, except for an elevated hole where Tirrenio can look down, with only the floor lighted for the numerous corps: watersprites, tritons (in Roman warrior garb), fauns (in pink tights). The commanding Lord of the Mediterranean, Tirrenio, charges on, agitating his cape to a rolling boil (such will be his dance contribution throughout the ballet). Ondine and Philemon repeat themselves in another quite prolonged pas de deux. Then they are quickly married by the Hermit/Green Friar. [At this point, three child-dancers should limn the essential curse: If the spouse of an ondine proves unfaithful, he will forfeit his life. It's really unnecessary to leave this revelation to the programme.] Berta runs on, and is caught in a stampede of Water Spirits. (She will experience such again on the shipdeck, and again in Philemon's manor--rather repetitious, I say!) ACT II. The seaport, a sailing-ship deck. [Ondine should have had a costume change to street clothes. She's still in the virtually naked wispy slip, but the salty sailors do not pounce on her: Shucks, just another watersprite!) Philemon and Ondine go aboard, followed by jealous Berta. The sailors do not dance, but move rhythmically as the ship sails off. After another true-love pas de deux, Philemon gives his heart chain to Ondine, only to have it snatched by teasing Berta, only to have it snatched by Tirrenio popping up from the sea. A storm is invoked, Water Spirits create havoc on the foundering ship, take Ondine back into the waves, as Berta and Philemon cling to each other. [The painted canvas going up-and-downsy behind the ship is not an artistic treatment of water, but appropriate for Gilbert & Sullivan.] ACT III. Philemon's manorial ballroom, after his wedding to Berta. A great picture window offers a crude gauzy view of the sea. Philemon, alone, suddenly realizes he has made a terrible mistake as he has a vision of Ondine in the waves, supported by invisible arms in a tacky "special-effects" solo. All guests assemble to watch a lengthy divertissement a la commedia dell'arte, quite interruptive to the dramatic flow. The Water Spirits stampede through the premises, leaving Philemon to receive a somber Ondine, bereft of her topknot and ponytail. Not fearing the predestined, he kisses her, seizes at his heart cradle, and falls dead. A clumsy scenic necessity intrudes as the stage must be darkened and the camera switches to the orchestra conductor for a minute. Then we see a scattering of stars in the dark sky, and the light comes up behind the scrim to reveal Ondine beside her expired Philemon, the whole semicircled by swaying ondines. MIYAKO YOSHIDA She was 44 years old at this filming, but looks and dances as if she were 24. In Acts I and II, her painted smile gives the aura of "sell it, girl" as the B'dway gypsies say. She retired from the Royal Ballet in 2010, reason enough to honor her with this final video. MUSIC In writing this uncharacteristically listenable music, Henze followed Ashton's scenario broken down into specified-time segments. He eschewed old-fashioned Russian emotionalism, though I daresay this weak dramatization could profit from it. [Addendum July 9: In David Vaughan's "Frederick Ashton and His Ballets," the production stills for "Ondine" show that Fonteyn made her entrance via a water-curtained grotto just as in the present mounting. In Ashton's biography "Secret Muses," he and designer De Nobili chose the Neo-Gothic architecture, and the 19th-century stagecraft (those canvas waves!). In Henze's "Ondine: Diary of a Ballet," production stills show the Black Valley embellished with rocky outcrops, and Philemon's manorial hall is less claustrophobic, with a stage-wide backdrop showing the sea beneath the moon.] Rating: (3 out of 5) @ 2010-06-29

« A treat for those with eyes and ears to appreciate it » I've known the score to Ondine (or Undine if you prefer Henze's title) since the great recording of it that came out on Deutsche Grammophon in 1997. It was conducted by a great friend and admirer of Henze's, Oliver Knussen, and has been a recording I have enjoyed coming back to on many occasions. It seems to be out of print at the moment, but this DVD is a fine, indeed, a better way to experience it. Yes, the ballet was a commission from Frederick Ashton for Henze to write a ballet that would star Margot Fonteyn and The Sadler's Wells Ballet, which became the Royal Ballet. The men worked on it in collaboration (with some input from Fonteyn)and the result was quite a success. Fonteyn always said it was her favorite ballet. She danced it frequently. It has been revived several times and been presented by other companies and this DVD is a recording of a revival by The Royal Ballet. First, the music is dramatic, evocative, lyrical, violent in spots, graceful in others, descriptive, emotional, beautiful. It neither seems padded nor "empty" nor "correct" (and dull.) Its forefathers could be Stravinsky and Prokofiev. It is tonally "directed" if not always created in a tonal way. It is no more difficult nor "unmelodious" than The Rite of Spring or Daphnis et Cloe. The three acts seem to be just right in length and event, Henze giving credit for this to Ashton who worked out the story to the very minute of each part. It is lends itself to dance quite easily. Nothing need be forced. I was never bored or impatient or distracted by something else. Music and story and dance fit wonderfully together. It is not a pastiche of 19th Century ideas, but a valid 20th Century work that seems as fresh today as it must have then. The recorded sound is glorious, even in "plain" stereo. The performance by the Royal Opera Orchestra under Barry Wordsworth is dramatic and vivid and lovely. For the unadventurous who insist music died in 1900, it's true, this is not Tchaikovsky. He wrote his own ballets. He didn't need to have someone else write one for him. You can always listen to those if that is all you crave. You know if I'm talking to you. The choreography is marvelously inventive, old-fashioned in some ways (female centered in duets, for example), showcasing with marvelous invention the title character and any dancer who can bring her to life, but also giving fine work to everyone, including quite imaginative uses for the corps. The three acts are unpredictable in many ways and filled with powerful, beautiful examples of how effective a pas de deux can be. The one slight "flaw" in my mind is that the main male character, Palemon, who falls in love with the water creature Ondine, does not have a meaningful solo of his own. And the "villain" of the piece, Berta, a woman who fights for Palemon's love and brings on the final tragedy, is more mime than dance, a bit too noticeably so. These are just my own opinions and they are minor distractions. The ballet is a masterwork and worth owning and knowing. Miyako Yoshida is a wonderful Ondine. She is the child-like, innocent, emotionally volatile, and finally, broken and tragic creature to the life. She also is very beautiful, a plus on a video with close-ups. She has every move, every emotion. No she is not Fonteyn, who from the seriously cut movie of her dancing Ondine was obviously magnificent, but no one is. Fonteyn was a one-of-a-kind dancer. She is gone. Time to put history away and appreciate what is good about today. Her Palemon is a wonderfully expressive Edward Watson, who makes the most of their duets, a partner not just a "lifter." The male with the flashiest role is Ricardo Cervera who plays Tirrenio, Lord of the Mediterranean Sea. His every entrance is used by Ashton for maximum effect and the dancer does the role proud. The Berta, Genesia Rosato, is less good but certainly not bad. Perhaps if her choreography were a little more "worthy". One or two places finds the corps de ballet out of synch with one another and a few places they seem under-rehearsed, but only a few--most of their work is exemplary. So much pleasurable art here that quibbles seem meaningless. A must for ballet lovers and music lovers who can appreciate more than the "classics." Rating: (5 out of 5) @ 2010-06-07

« Fonteyn's shadow » After several years of research on Perrot's Ondine ( Cesare Pugni's music ) and on Giraudoux's play, F.Ashton set to work on a new ballet far from 19th century romanticism.And he chose a german composer to provide the score. Henze's intention,I'm sure,was to compose music that would sound like(or suggest) water but the result is a most boring,uninteresting,melodiousless flow of notes.Nevertheless, Margot Fonteyn (for whom Ashton created this Ondine)gave life to the nereid Ondine and danced the role with infinite grace,musicality,and elegance,'naive and loving'(as she described Ondine's character) displaying her immense genius as one can watch in Czinner's film (1959)"The Royal Ballet" dancing with Soames.This, unfortunately, is not the case of Miyako Yoshida on this DVD,a down-to-earth Ondine,much absorbed in her choreography to consider dancing her role more like a water spirit she supposedly is.I wish Tamara Rojo would dance on this DVD for I am sure she gave the role, intelligent and sensitive as she is, another colour.Watson dances beautifully but somehow emotionally distant from his partner.José Martin in Act 3 'divertissement' dances skillfully, once more showing his versatility.Costumes are the original ones designed by Lila de Nobili,top note for John Read's lighting design and the The Royal Ballet Corps.Filmed in High Definition. Rating: (3 out of 5) @ 2010-05-07

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