Watch the Royal Ballet at their most luminous in a magnificent evening of three short ballets on screen at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Sunday, June 25 at 4 p.m. The three works, “The Dream”, “Symphonic Variations” and “Marguerite and Armand” are three of the Royal Ballet’s best-love legacy pieces. The Sedona International Film Festival presents this special production.
“The Dream” is a delightful interpretation of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. The piece captures the comic confusions of Shakespeare’s play with the high-spirited misadventures of the two pairs of mortal lovers combined with the humorous cavorting of Bottom, played by a male dancer who dances en pointe. Felix Mendelssohn’s witty, and famous score, is the perfect partner for the charming choreography.
“Symphonic Variations” is a seminal piece of Ashton’s repertoire. A masterpiece on the beauty of pure movement, it was the first work Ashton created for the Company when they moved to the Covent Garden stage after WWII. Created for just six dancers, the choreography quickens and slows, whilst retaining a sense of serenity and spaciousness.
Ashton created “Marguerite and Armand” for the celebrated partnership of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. A passionate ballet, it tells the story of Marguerite, a Parisian courtesan, who lies on her deathbed. She recalls her tragic love affair with Armand in a series of feverish flashbacks. The powerful pas des deux and the score set to Franz Liszt’s famous Piano Sonata in B Minor, will ensure there is not a dry eye in the cinema.
The mixed program of works by founding choreographer of The Royal Ballet, Frederick Ashton, is characterized by precise, fleet footwork and sensuous upper-body movements making a gorgeous line of delicate simplicity.