The last time I heard a live performance of the song cycle Winterreise (Winter Journey) by Franz Schubert was in the Arts Hall on campus in Swansea University some 40 years ago as one of the free Sunday afternoon artistic events the University offered.
I remember that we were given a little print out of the names of the individual songs and towards the middle of the recital I began counting the number of items of musical torture that I had to endure before I could make my escape. I was then much more open to the bombast of full-blooded Bruckner rather than being a lukewarm lieder liker.
The performance in the Liceu a couple of days ago was altogether a different experience, and the magisterial rendition of the songs by the baritone Thomas Tatzi with the graceful and sympathetic piano accompaniment by James Vaughan resulted in the warmest ovation at the end of the evening.
The choice of Winterreise for a ballet (choreography by Anglelin Preljocaj) was an interesting one. The number of the songs gave opportunities for a series of linked dances, though the general tenor of the songs was almost unrelievedly downbeat. The winter journey is a bleak one for the singer/narrator and the questioning ambiguity of the last line of the cycle is emphatically answered in this production with the female dancers slowly sprinkling snow or earth on the prone bodies of the men in a clear indication of death.
The production is set on a generally empty stage with the ground being covered by snow or dust or dead leaves in a manner reminiscent of the stage of Pina Bausch in her production of The Rite of Spring where the dancers danced and stamped their way through earth. In Winterreise the substance on the stage is much more ethereal, and it drops onto the stage at periods throughout. It is used by the dancers as celebration, commemoration and mood change and was effective and pervasive.
Considering the sombre nature of the song
cycle, Ballet Preljocaj did manage to inject moments of humour into the occasion,
though the humour was sometimes grim as with the mutual miming of suicide by
poison, but there were more light-hearted touches with the power of a pointed
finger being made good use of at one point and a rather distracting episode where a central dancer seemed to be wielding illuminated batons more useful for guiding aircraft into their standings than being a focus for dance!
The dancers were an enthusiastic ensemble, though sometimes their coordination was a little off, but some of the intertwined body pictures that they created on stage were startling and very effective.
I always say that for me, Ballet is like banana yogurt: it’s not something you would choose, but when you are given it, it’s quite enjoyable.
Ballet Preljocaj was a very superior banana yogurt!
