Problems in ballet.

The following is reproduced from an article I wrote for the December issue of Dance Review Magazine. Please see subsequent issues for follow-up correspondence.

Now I admit, I haven’t conducted ballet for some considerable time. In fact, the last time I did so Birmingham Royal Ballet was still called Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet! And perhaps subsequent reading will explain why! However, I do still occasionally see our ballet companies as I accompany my 15 year old daughter to a performance of one of the great Tchaikovsky ballets, and I regularly discuss the wonderful world of ballet with musicians who play in the various orchestras of our national ballet companies. The standard of our dance companies has possibly never been higher, with dancers ever more able to hold positions and attitudes, all the time looking wonderfully graceful. However, this is often to the detriment of the music and brings me to the role of the conductor and the musicians who create the aural part of dancing without whom there would be no dance. It seems to me they are there to serve the art of the ballet dancer’s body in the never-ending quest for beauty of line, as the dancers get more competent in their ability to perform more complicated steps. Fairly recently I watched a performance of Swan Lake with one of our national companies and I sat there writhing in agony! Tchaikovsky never wrote the music to be performed as was being performed that evening, in most cases going so slowly as to almost bring proceedings to a halt. White Swan in particular was musically terrible as the conductor waited for the dancer to hop painfully slowly across the stage. I could hardly sit there and if it wasn’t for my daughter, I would have walked out. The tempo marking for the White Swan solo is marked as Andante Non Troppo, the Non Troppo (not too much) being the important part here. So, the literal translation is “at a walking pace, but not too much”. What we got was a crawl…on all fours! Yes, you can argue about the pulse, is it 6 or 2, but as long as the music flows and is not held up by the whim of a technically proficient dancer wishing to show everyone her technical brilliance of balancing on one leg, then I am happy. But it didn’t. After all, if as an audience member you are being told by an artist to look how wonderful she is, how technically clever she is, then in my opinion, as that audience member you do not notice the art. The greatest artists in whatever art form you care to mention, were technically wonderful (though of course there are the exceptions), but when you watched or listened to them, you forgot their technical ability and were transported to a world that the artist had created and forced you by their artistry to enter. You look at a painting by Monet and don’t think how technically wonderful it is, though it is; you watched Rudolph Kempe conduct and didn’t think wasn’t his stick technique superb, though it was the best; you listened to Artur Rubinstein and were not dazzled by his technique, but instead awed by the total mastery of his art form. And I have deliberately chosen great artists who are sadly no longer with us, as I do not wish to upset living artists by not mentioning them, some of whom may be my friends! You do not notice the artist through their technique, but through their art, and as such their technique is a by-product of that art.
I honestly think some ballet choreographers forget that ballet is an aural art as well as a visual art. There should be a meeting of the two and the one should not be exclusive of the other. It’s no good the choreographer trying to put too many steps into too small a time span, and when it subsequently proves impossible to perform, telling the conductor to slow down. I have been asked many times by various choreographers who had created too many steps to slow the music down, though the correct tempo was that much quicker. In most cases I refused, believing it wasn’t the composer’s fault his music should suffer by being played at an incorrect tempo. Interestingly enough, the one choreographer who told me to conduct the music as I felt it (and I attended all his rehearsals) was Sir Kenneth MacMillan. He trusted me and I thought he was a genius of ballet! Now I realise, that in this time-orientated world we live in, conductors always attending rehearsals, and indeed having the same conductor and soloists for consecutive performances can be impossible. But all combinations should be worked out in rehearsal and the ultimate arbiter of tempi should be the conductor, after all he is the only person (along with the orchestra) who is there for the entire evening. Others come on, do their solo, and go off. So as the only one there throughout, the conductor should be the person in control of the overall shape of that evening’s ballet: he must therefore be allowed to shape it. I always said to dancers, if you do not like my tempi, come and talk to me, but after the performance when we will discuss it. During the performance I was in charge! Our ballet companies should become more like our opera companies where the conductor makes the decision on musical matters and any differences of opinions are sorted in rehearsals. Too often in ballet, the conductor is thought of as a secondary necessity. He must not be. He is just as important as the principal dancers, though I appreciate to an audience that may not be the case! However, to the management he should be. All of the above does not preclude the conductor from helping his soloists. It is a meeting of two art forms and the one is as important as the other. From what I’ve recently seen (and heard from despairing musicians), it is heavily biased in favour of the dance, and if they want me to take my daughter back to Tchaikovsky, it’s time some Artistic Directors and choreographers balanced out their priorities. After all, Tchaikovsky was one of the great composers and wrote great music; he never wrote boring music…….unless it is being performed by a ballet company!

© Anthony Inglis

Superman in Melbourne

I have been asked to describe the legendary Full Monty I did in the Hamer Hall Melbourne with the Melbourne Symphony during the summer. I should first of all state it was not the full monty, nor did the orchestra join in, except with the laughing! On a previous occasion with the MSO, at the climax of the fanfare theme of the Superman March, I had stripped off my shirt to reveal a T-shirt with a Superman logo emblazoned across the front. This was after I had tried to get the audience to show me how it should be done: shirts pretended to be ripped open ("you Madam can do it for real"), underpants on over trousers ("on dear, you have to put them on!") etc etc. So when I went back and did the same piece, I had to go further. There was only way of going further, at the same climax the whole of my tail suit, including trousers, had to ripped off! A tail suit had been made for me (by the Royal Opera House) that was velcroed together and at the given moment, I would grab it in a certain way, rip it off and reveal the whole Superman outfit in all its glory. Unfortunately, I had bought a Superman outfit several sizes too small and when the moment came, it left little to the imagination! One of the 2 very nice boys sitting in the front row at the moment of reveal, stood up clutching his forehead and shouted Oh My God and fainted clean away! That may be a slight exaggeration, but I did detect one friend turning to the other and fanning him with the programme! He must have had a touch of the vapours! I hadn't realised quite what the problem was until this moment, and spent the rest of the Superman March holding the score either in front of me or behind me, which rather unfairly in my opinion attracted a lot of ribald laughing. Despite the size of the score being A3, it didn't hide my enormous problem! At this point the orchestra rather lost the will to continue playing and according to the management, some extraordinary noises came out of the orchestra while they manfully continued to try and play. Having heard the radio broadcast, I must say they did very well: it's not easy to play the horn (for example) and laugh at the same time. If only this was the only interesting moment in the concert! I had put the velcro suit on for the 2nd half and rather stupidly, I had put the battery pack of the clip-on radio mike I was using into my trouser pocket. Half way through Harry Potter which came shortly after the beginning of the 2nd half, I felt this battery pack slipping down my thigh. Knowing there was no interesting girl rubbing her hand on my leg, I assumed there was a hole in my trouser pocket, until I realised with alarm as it banged against my knee that the weight of the pack had pulled the velcro apart and my trousers were actually falling down. There was only one thing to do and that was abandon the podium, orchestra and audience in the middle of the piece and flee! This should have been OK as the concert platform was dimly lit (atmosphere!) and I reasoned I might not be missed too much. Providing I corrected the problem and reappeared before the change of tempo at the end, people might not even notice I'd gone; for heaven's sake the orchestra might not even notice! However, the follow spot operators possibly thinking this was an invisibility cloak gag, followed me to the platform exits and towards the double doors leading off; where I met a problem! I couldn't open them! There is obviously a trick to opening these doors, and as I was panicking by now, I could not work out the trick! So holding up my trousers at the back with one hand and hammering on the doors with the other, I bellowed to be let out! Apparently It looked for all the world as though I had enjoyed a particularly good curry along the Yarra prior to the performance and now needed somewhere very quickly! A quick zig here and an adroit zag there, the wardrobe malfunction was corrected by a very smart lady who had opened the doors and I was back by the change of tempo. The orchestra were fantastic and had played most of the piece without a conductor, thereby proving how much us conductors are needed! I have no idea what the radio audience made of the shenanigans that evening, but all I know is that my conducting career in Australia may well be over, but a whole new one is opening up in the Kings Cross area of Sydney!

RLPO

I have been asked to describe the concert the Liverpool Phil that I did on board the QM2. It was different, in that we portrayed in words and music the history of the QM2and intertwined it with Cunard: we were after all moored opposite the last Liverpool headquarters of Cunard, the middle of the Three Graces. The concert was devised by Eric Flounders, Michael Gallagher and myself, the first two, two of the brilliant PR execs at Cunard. Cut either one of them in half and they would have Cunard written through their bodies; rather like a stick of Blackpool rock! They know more about Cunard and the shipping industry than is possible. They are just two of the passionate people that make up Cunard. Remind me to tell you the story of how I became involved with the company. It is indicative of the caring and human side of Cunard. Anyway, we opened the concert with The Queen (of course). Then a brief paragraph on the shipbuilding industry on the River Clyde where the majority of Cunard's ships (even now) have been built. The music that went with it was The Song of The Clyde in an arrangement I had done and brilliantly sung by Jon Christos. Jon really can sing everything! We then followed it with Offenbach's Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld (or as Michael called it Orpheus on the Underground) as of course QM2 was built in St. Nazaire a French shipyard. Then, music associated with the spiritual home of Cunard, Liverpool and You'll Never Walk Alone (close your ears all Everton supporters) wonderfully sung by one of my favourite sopranos Helen Williams. On to a song I suggested as I had remembered it from the QM2 Naming Ceremony: written by Horatio Nicholls it was called Queen of The Sea (Queen Mary) and was performed for the first Atlantic crossing of The original Queen Mary in 1934. I had trawled the Internet looking for a copy and eventually found the one and only one left in existence! Then it was a matter of doing another arrangement and getting Jon to sing it. It brought back a few memories for some people who knew the song but had not heard it for decades! We stuck with the words "I'm happy and gay 'cos I'm sailing away"!! Another era! On to the American connection and The Battle Hymn of The Republic followed by Happy Birthday QM2, finishing with some fun and Rule Britannia, Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory. The whole concert lasted some 50 minutes and the passengers gave us a feedback rating of 98.5% the highest ever for any entertainment on any ship.

Gianni Schicchi

I got back in time from my voyage round Britain on the QM2 to watch my 11 year old son singing the role of Giardorino in Gianni Schicchi at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Small part but huge for an 11 year old; singing alongside Sir Thomas Allen, Maria Berengtsson, Marie McLoughlin et al and conducted by Pappano. I sat there (in the expensive seats!) with my mother as he sang, acted and came on for a bow at the end with tears pouring down my cheeks. He was wonderful and so assured. His voice resonated all round The House and bang in tune. Saw Vasko (legendary concert master of the ROH orchestra) and had a quick chat with him in the interval. I reminded him that the last time I saw him was when we did the Sibelius together. He was stunning then and he's stunning now. Am going to e-mail him for lunch. We met when he used to mentor Vanessa Mae and I used to conduct her. I informed him that Vanessa and I had just worked together in the summer: she was doing her boogeying on down music (as readers of this blog will know, so can I...boogey on down I mean! I should just mention my rendition of Great Balls of Fire). The last time Vanessa and I had met prior to the summer was when she was 12 and we were recording some Mozart. Very different!

QM2 Round Britain

I'm back now from the voyage of the liner Queen Mary 2 around Great Britain, where we celebrated her 5 years of existence. Was it really January 2004 when the Royal Philharmonic, Royal Choral Society, Band of the Royal Marines, Heather Small, Lesley Garret and I gathered to give 2000 people in a specially created tent beside the Queen Elizabeth terminal in Southampton a concert while HM The Queen named the ship Queen Mary 2? Incredible! This time, we had the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, coincidently formed within a couple of months of Cunard, on the ship in Liverpool Docks and we gave a hugely appreciative audience a concert lasting about an hour od music associated with Cunard and specifically the Queen Mary 2. We had an audience approval rating of 98.5% so I think you can say we were a success. Yes I know, where did we lose the 1.5%? I supposes we can console ourselves with the fact it now has the record for the highest approval rating of any artist, and when you think of some of the artists they've had on board, that is some success! The RLPO were superb! What a sensational orchestra; reading new music I had arranged and playing some old favourites with nary a fault. The Offenbach overture in particular was played to perfection and with great style, which is more than can be said of my karaoke singing! About once every 20 years, my Great Balls of Fire rendition is dragged out of me! This time I regret to say, I did a dance routine in the middle! Reminds me of the time I was brave enough to do the full monty in a concert in the Hamer Hall Melbourne, with the Melbourne Symphony. Alright, perhaps not the full monty, but my costume when I stripped off left little to the imagination! I had bought a Superman outfit several sizes too small. Ugh! Not pretty!