Chapter 33 – The Four Stories
The entire team, minus Captain Henric, reassembled after lunch. Roger and the Ps turned their chairs to face the others. Selgey, Bart, and Townshend were intensely interested because they knew the choreography and music had to reflect Stravinsky’s stories to the audience. Roger opened the discussion, saying, “We have two paintings of landscapes, one of people in a landscape, and one of a cityscape. Act I is based on a painting by Van Gogh, done in1890, the year he died at the age of thirty-seven. So Stravinsky saw the painting in Switzerland about twenty-three years later. We did some research, and it’s clear this was one of several landscape paintings Van Gogh did in the last years of his life. It’s also clear the painting is titled Wheatfield With Crows, and now is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Here’s a photo of it.” Peter passed a paper around the circle of chairs. They saw a dramatic composition of a yellow wheat field sprinkled with a large flock of black crows, crowned by a swirling dark blue sky. “Stravinsky’s interpretation of the painting is quite weird. In his mind the crows represent people; a large, extended family of gypsies, camping out in a field, all together for some big gathering. There are young adults, old adults, and lots of kids, all hanging out together, doing different things.”
Pater took over telling the story line. “Stravinsky wants the dancers to symbolize all these family members doing things at this gathering. The kids are running around playing, some of the adults are working, some talking, some walking around, some playing musical instruments like the accordion and mandolin.”
Peter said, “The crows symbolize people in the landscape, and the dancers on stage will symbolize people, too. He wants the dancers dressed all in black, with wavy costumes representing the wings of the crows. The dancers are to flow around the stage the way the crows are flying around the field. Get it?”
Selgey jumped out of her chair and reclaimed the photo of the painting. She looked for a few seconds, then broke out into a huge smile, raising her arms above her head like wings, and said, “Oh God, of course, of course. Dancers as crows as people. Beautiful. Ok, Bart. We can do that.”
Bart got up and went to his wife. He knelt down on one knee, and extended his right arm out from his body, parallel to the floor. Selgey understood instantly. She positioned herself behind his arm, facing in the same direction he was, nodded, and fell forward, with her stomach across his arm, balancing perfectly. Bart stood up, holding her on one arm out away from his body, her parallel to the ground, light as a feather. She spread her arms like wings, and he slowly walked her around the outside of the circle of chairs. Then he increased his pace, and increased it again, and then he was running around in a circle, Selgey gracefully flapping away, not holding on to him in any way, flying. Townshend, having seen them waltzing up and down the aisles only once, and him at the time being lost in his own world of music, thought, Holy Shit! So this is ballet.
The Ps jumped up and fell into place behind them, running around the stage in a widening circle, flapping like crows, though not as gracefully as the two prima dancers. Pater started crowing loudly, Caw Caw, Caw Caw. Bart brought his wife back to her chair, where he stopped, her still perfectly balanced across his arm parallel to the floor. He looked at her, and in one smooth movement, she rolled forward into a three quarter somersault, him catching her with his other arm, and deposited her into the chair in a sitting position. Her feet never touched the floor. He sat down next to her and stared out at the theater seats, both assuming unaffected looks, as if they just had finishing sipping a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. Their breathing was normal.
Gale looked around at the others, said, “So I guess that’s a go on the choreography for Act I. No problem.”
Roger said, “Ok. Act II is based on a painting by Cezanne, another landscape. Cezanne was born before Van Gogh and died after him. From Stravinsky’s notes in the score, we think the painting is Road Before the Mountains, Sainte Victoire, done around 1900. It’s now in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, but he probably saw it in Switzerland.” He took another sheet of paper from his folder and passed around a photo of the painting. It showed a gray, angular mountain in the background, surrounded by green vegetation, and a strip of brown road in the foreground. “For much of his life, Cezanne was estranged from his wife. They had an on-again, off-again relationship. He had a cabin built in an area of southern France known for stone quarries, and this was the isolated studio where he painted many great pictures. Stravinsky saw the side of the mountain in the painting as a huge, denuded quarry; a place of hard, back-breaking work, incessant hammering of chisels on stone, men sweating and choking in dust. He called it the rape of the mountain.” He looked at Townshend. “Does that correlate with the music of Act II?”
Townshend said, “It does. The percussion is very heavy, and the tone of the entire act is heavy, bashing, almost bruising. The rhythms are slow, and dominate the melodies, which are very simple, almost in the background. There is a lot of dissonance, and I can see him using that to express the suffering of the workers, the pain of long hours performing this hard manual labor. I sense the presence of no women in the music of this act.”
Pater smiled and said, “That’s exactly right. Amazing. In the notes on the score he states explicitly there are to be only male dancers in this act.”
Peter looked at the woman and said, “If you can’t find enough guys for this, maybe Pater and I can fill in.”
The woman knew the Ps hadn’t danced formally in seven years, and were in no condition for a mojor production. And one of them had six inches of scar lancing across one knee. She said, “Ok, Peter, if we can’t find enough guys.”
Gwen knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Roger moved on to the third painting, by Matisse, titled Le Bonheur de Vivre (the joy of living). “This was done around 1906, and now is at the Barnes Foundation, outside Philadelphia. It’s a riot of bright colors, showing six or seven naked people lying around a wooded glen.” He passed around a photo.
Pater said, “The score notes say Stravinsky never had seen a painting in which the painter had not tried to match the colors of an object to the colors in real life. The grass in this painting is yellow. The sky is brown, rust, and green. He thought this was weird, but on an emotional level, he liked it. The notes say he wants certain instruments to sound like something they’re not. What’s that mean, Pete?”
Townshend said, “I have no idea, but give me a little time. I’ll figure it out.”
Peter of the Ps said, “The costumes for Act III should be easy. He wants all the dancers naked, flowing around the stage like ethereal nymphs.”
Gale said to Helstof, “Great, we can go to lunch the day we were going to work on costumes for Act III. Drink two bottles of wine.”
Bart said to Selgey, “We can do nymphs, right?”
She nodded.
Roger said, “The story of Act III is the most abstract of the ballet. There isn’t a lot of real life in it; it’s a fantasy, which provides a lot of room for interpreting both the music and the choreography. Ok?”
Everyone who had an opinion on the matter, nodded.
“Now, for the last act. The artist is Picasso, and the painting is cubist. Does everyone know what cubism is?” Everyone nodded, so Roger handed around the last photo. “From the description in the notes, we think the painting was Factory, Horta de Ebro, done in 1909. It shows a factory with a smokestack, some smaller buildings, and a few palm trees. Stravinsky thought this painting was weird too, the whole thing made up of planes, including the sky behind the smokestack. But he liked it.”
Pater said, “He probably decided to write music about this painting, as Act IV, because it is similar to the quarry painting of Cezanne’s, Act II. Both are about people doing manual labor at a site. And Cezanne was a precursor to cubism, so the flavor of the two paintings is the same, and they were done about nine years apart
. Stravinsky could see that the music of Acts II and IV could be similar in tone. He wanted to express his feelings about workers, those at a country site, and those at a city site.”
Peter of the Ps said, “Pete, there’s a specific challenge for you in Act IV: Stravinsky tried to write music that would emulate smoke billowing from the stack. Can you do that?”
Townshend said, “If he did it in the score with a small, traditional orchestra, I can do it on the synthe. I’ll watch for that part.”
“As for the choreography for this act,” said Pater, “the notes say ‘the dancers should convey the drudgery of workers entering the factory’, and ‘movement should be mechanical’.” He looked at Selgey.
Selgey looked at Bart, said, “Can we do mechanical? I’ve never danced mechanical before, have you?” He shook his head, no. She looked around at the group, all of whom detected bewilderment on her face. Hmmm.
Gwen, seeing this, stood up and said, “They will do the choreography for this act, and it will be great. The Ps will assist, and we all can brainstorm about it. We’re a team, and the different dances of the four stories will be in sync with each other. Now we all know the stories, and we have our tasks to perform. Let’s get to it, tomorrow morning, early. See you all here.”
The Lost Ballet Page 33