Initials R.B.M.E.

Last updated

Initials R.B.M.E.
Native titleInitialen R.B.M.E.
Choreographer John Cranko
Music Johannes Brahms
Premiere18 January 1972 (1972-01-18)
Staatsoper Stuttgart
Original ballet company Stuttgart Ballet
DesignJürgen Rose
Created for Richard Cragun
Birgit Keil
Marcia Haydée
Egon Madsen
Genre neoclassical ballet

Initials R.B.M.E. (German : Initialen R.B.M.E.) is a ballet choreographed by John Cranko to Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2. The ballet is plotless, and features four movements, each with a lead dancer. The ballet was created for the Stuttgart Ballet, and the title was named after the dancers that originated the four lead roles, Richard Cragun, Birgit Keil, Marcia Haydée and Egon Madsen. Initials R.B.M.E. premiered on 18 January 1972, at the Staatsoper Stuttgart. It was one of Cranko's most successful ballets, and one of his final works before his sudden death in 1973.

Contents

Production

Cranko set Initials R.B.M.E. to Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2. [1] Cranko choreographed the ballet for the dancers Richard Cragun, Birgit Keil, Marcia Haydée and Egon Madsen. [2] The four had been Cranko's close friends and muses since their early days at Stuttgart Ballet, and their dancing styles were instrumental in shaping Cranko's works there. [2] [3] [4] The title was named after the four, [4] in the order of their appearances in the ballet. [5] The ballet's costumes and sets were designed by Jürgen Rose. [1]

Initials R.B.M.E. premiered on 18 January 1972, at the Staatsoper Stuttgart. [1] In his biography on Cranko, dance critic John Percival described the ballet as one of his most successful works. [2] It is also one of Cranko's final ballets before his sudden death in 1973. [3]

Choreography

Initials R.B.M.E. is a plotless neoclassical ballet. [2] [3] It features four movements, each with a principal dancer and supporting dancers. The four lead dancers appear in others' movements, but these appearances, according to Percival, are "not necessarily to play any very active part, but just to be there, evoking the real-life situation where each was a strongly defined individual with a life or his or her own, but all helped and sustained by their friendship." [2] He added that despite the technically demanding choreography, "the underlying idea helped the performers to give it a sense of being more than just display." [2]

For The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet, E. Hollister Mathis-Masury wrote, "Cranko’s ballet was a complex mixture of boldness and hauntingly longing lyricism, interlaced with bursts of brio. This piece has the most complex relationship of group to solo Cranko ever produced," while the first and third movements, made for Cragun and Haydée respectively, "are Cranko's strongest interpretation of this music in movement." She added that the ballet is "a vehicle for the individual dancing style of each of his four main muses." [3] New York Times critic Clive Barnes noted the ballet was stylistically similar to Léonide Massine's symphonic ballets, though he believed Cranko had never seen them. [6]

Related Research Articles

Erik Bruhn Danish ballet dancer

Erik Belton Evers Bruhn was a Danish danseur, choreographer, artistic director, actor, and author.

John Cranko South African choreographer

John Cyril Cranko was a South African ballet dancer and choreographer with the Royal Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet.

Stuttgart Ballet German ballet company

Stuttgart Ballet is a leading German ballet company. Dating back to 1609, then the court ballet of the dukes of Württemberg, the modern company was founded by John Cranko and is known for full-length narrative ballets. The company received the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance in 1981.

Kenneth MacMillan British ballet dancer and choreographer (1929–1992)

Sir Kenneth MacMillan was a British ballet dancer and choreographer who was artistic director of the Royal Ballet in London between 1970 and 1977, and its principal choreographer from 1977 until his death. Earlier he had served as director of ballet for the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. He was also associate director of the American Ballet Theatre from 1984 to 1989, and artistic associate of the Houston Ballet from 1989 to 1992.

John Neumeier is an American ballet dancer, choreographer, and director. He has been the director and chief choreographer of Hamburg Ballet since 1973. Five years later he founded the Hamburg Ballet School, which also includes a boarding school for students. In 1996, Neumeier was made ballet director of Hamburg State Opera.

Brahms–Schoenberg Quartet is a one-act ballet by George Balanchine, to Johannes Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 1, orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg. The ballet premiered on April 21, 1966 at the New York State Theater, performed by the New York City Ballet.

Alfonso Catá was a Cuban ballet dancer, choreographer, teacher, and company director, active in the United States, Switzerland, Germany, and France.

Renato Zanella is an Italian-born ballet dancer, choreographer and director. He studied classical ballet for several years before becoming a choreographer for various professional companies. Due to his success, he has won many awards and honorary titles within the ballet community.

Barış Dilaver is a Turkish ballet dancer.

Richard Cragun American ballet dancer

Richard Cragun was an American ballet dancer, teacher and ballet director who performed with the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany from 1965 to 1996.

Marcia Haydée Brazilian ballet dancer, choreographer and ballet director

Marcia Haydée Salaverry Pereira da Silva is a Brazilian ballet dancer, choreographer and ballet director. She was prima ballerina of the Stuttgart Ballet under John Cranko and succeeded him as the company's director, serving from 1976 to 1995. She has been director of the Santiago Ballet since 1992.

Birgit Keil is a German ballet dancer. She was prima ballerina of the Stuttgart Ballet and was internationally known as The German Ballerina, She has been teaching at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim and directing the ballet ensemble of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe.

Requiem is a one-act ballet created by Kenneth MacMillan in 1976 for the Stuttgart Ballet. The music is Gabriel Fauré's Requiem (1890). The designer was Yolanda Sonnabend, who had first collaborated with him on 1963's Symphony.

<i>Song of the Earth</i> (ballet)

Das Lied von der Erde is a symphonic work written by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler in 1908–1909. It is scored for two voices and orchestra, and has been used for ballets by several well-known choreographers, including Antony Tudor (1908–1987), Kenneth MacMillan (1929–1992), Heinz Spoerli, and John Neumeier.

Egon Madsen is a Danish ballet dancer, teacher, ballet master and company director. In 1961, he joined the Stuttgart Ballet, where John Cranko had become the director. Madsen was hired as a soloist but was soon promoted to principal dancer, and created numerous roles for Cranko. He retired from Stuttgart in 1981.

<i>Onegin</i> (Cranko)

Onegin is a ballet created by John Cranko for the Stuttgart Ballet, premiered on 13 April 1965 at Staatstheater Stuttgart. The ballet was based on Alexander Pushkin's 1825-1832 novel Eugene Onegin, to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and arrangements by Kurt-Heinz Stolze. The ballet had since been in the repertoires of The Australian Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, American Ballet Theatre and The Royal Ballet.

The Taming of the Shrew is a ballet in two acts choreographed by John Cranko to keyboard works by Domenico Scarlatti arranged and orchestrated by Kurt-Heinz Stolze. With scenery and costumes designed by Elizabeth Dalton, it was first presented as Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung by the Stuttgart Ballet at the Wṻrtembergische Staatstheater in Stuttgart on 16 March 1969.

The Deutscher Tanzpreis is a prestigious prize for artistic dance in Germany. It has been awarded annually since 1983.

Gary Burne

Gary Burne was a Rhodesian dancer, ballet master, and choreographer who spent ten years with the Royal Ballet in England before moving to South Africa to dance with ballet companies in Johannesburg and Cape Town. He also danced for a period in Toronto, Canada.

Anne Woolliams was an English artistic director, ballet choreographer, dancer and teacher. She began studying dance at age five, performing with the Russian Opera and Ballet, the Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise and the St. James' Ballet and danced in the film The Red Shoes and stage musicals. Woolliams taught at Folkwang School, was appointed ballet mistress of Stuttgart Ballet, founded the John Cranko School with the director John Cranko, was the third artistic director of The Australian Ballet, was dean of dance at Victoria College of Arts, Melbourne and was artistic director of the Vienna State Ballet.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Craine, Debra; Mackrell, Judith (19 August 2010). The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. p. 230. ISBN   978-0199563449.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Percival, John (1983). Theatre in My Blood: A Biography of John Cranko. ISBN   9780906969045.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Mathis-Masury, E. Hollister (2021). "John Cranko's Stuttgart Ballet: A Legacy". In Farrugia-Kriel, Kathrina; Nunes Jensen, Jill (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190871499.013.45. ISBN   9780190871499.
  4. 1 2 Parry, Jann (20 November 2013). "Stuttgart Ballet – Made in Germany bill – London". DanceTabs.
  5. ↑ Barnes, Clive (10 June 1973). "Dance". New York Times.
  6. ↑ Barnes, Clive (14 June 1975). "Dance: Stuttgart's 'Daphnis and Chloe' in Premiere". New York Times.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.