The Prince of the Pagodas

Last updated

The Prince of the Pagodas is a ballet created for The Royal Ballet by choreographer John Cranko with music commissioned from Benjamin Britten. Its premiere took place on 1 January 1957 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, conducted by Britten.

Contents

In February 1957 a recording of a slightly cut version of the score was made by Decca with Britten conducting the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.

The ballet was revived at the same venue on 7 December 1989 in a new production by Kenneth MacMillan, achieving acclaim for Darcey Bussell's work in a principal role. Another production, set in Japan, was created by David Bintley for the National Ballet of Japan and premiered by that company on 30 October 2011; this was adopted by Birmingham Royal Ballet and danced in 2014 at The Lowry, Salford.

Background

In January 1954, Sadler's Wells Ballet announced that Cranko was collaborating with Benjamin Britten to create a ballet. Cranko devised a draft scenario for a work he originally called The Green Serpent, fusing elements drawn from King Lear , Beauty and the Beast (a story he had choreographed for Sadler's Wells in 1948) and the oriental tale published by Madame d'Aulnoy as Serpentin Vert . Creating a list of dances, simply describing the action and giving a total timing for each, he passed this to Britten and left him to compose what eventually became The Prince of the Pagodas. [1]

Britten dedicated the score to Imogen Holst and Ninette de Valois. [2]

Plot synopsis

An Emperor must decide which of his two daughters should inherit the throne, and he chooses the evil older sister Belle Epine over the young and beautiful Belle Rose. Belle Rose is taken by magical flying frogs to Pagoda Land, and meets the Prince of Pagoda Land who is in the guise of a Salamander. Belle Rose and the Prince return to the land of her father and confront her evil sister, in the end driving her away. [3]

Influence of Balinese gamelan on the music

Britten incorporated many elements of Balinese gamelan music into the score of The Prince of the Pagodas, including simulating the seven-tone pelog tuning on Western instruments. Britten was first exposed to gamelan music by Canadian composer Colin McPhee, who had lived in Bali from 1931–38. [4] Britten utilized a “pseudo-gamelan” sound in several of his works, including Paul Bunyan and Peter Grimes , after meeting McPhee. Britten also performed works of other composers which included references to gamelan music, such as Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, which Britten performed with the composer in 1945 and again in 1955, after he had agreed to write a ballet with Cranko. [5]

However, perhaps the most influential experience in gamelan music for Britten was a two-week holiday he took in Bali in 1956. He made a thorough study of gamelan music while he was there and immediately began incorporating Balinese musical ideas into The Prince of the Pagodas. For example, in the Prelude of the ballet, the Salamander Prince theme is played by several instruments in a layered texture, where the instruments are playing in different keys and start the theme at slightly different times in a technique called polyphonic stratification, which is typical of Balinese gamelan music. [6]

Another way in which Britten achieves a gamelan sound is through his instrumentation. His score calls for a variety of percussion instruments, including gong, cymbals, bells, xylophone, and vibraphone, and uses these Western percussion instruments in different ways to produce a gamelan sound. For instance, Britten combines the sounds of an orchestral gong and a double bass to represent the Balinese colotomic gong. [7]

The pentatonic scale, a signature of Oriental music in general, makes frequent appearances in the ballet as well, especially in trumpet fanfares which occur throughout the piece. [8] The interval of the major second appears throughout Britten's gamelan passages, which is normally considered dissonant in Western music but arises from the alternate scales and tunings of gamelan style music. [9]

Britten uses the gamelan sound in his music to symbolize the magical pagodas of Pagoda Land, where the main character, the princess Belle Rose, is taken after a confrontation with her father, the emperor, and her evil sister, Belle Epine. When Belle Rose enters Pagoda Land, she is greeted with gamelan music. Similarly, when the Salamander enters the scene, he is portrayed alongside softer gamelan music to produce a mystical air. The Salamander is revealed to be the human Prince of Pagodaland, and when he changes to a human form, the gamelan music is replaced with more traditional Western orchestral music. [10]

Cranko

MacMillan

This production was dedicated to Margot Fonteyn.

Bintley

Related Research Articles

Gamelan Indonesian traditional ensemble

Gamelan is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. The most common instruments used are metallophones played by mallets and a set of hand-played drums called kendhang which register the beat. The kemanak and gangsa are commonly used gamelan instruments. Other instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes, a bowed instrument called a rebab, and even vocalists named sindhen.

Colin McPhee Canadian composer and musicologist

Colin Carhart McPhee was a Canadian composer and musicologist. He is best known for being the first Western composer to make an ethnomusicological study of Bali, and for the quality of that work. He also composed music influenced by that of Bali and Java decades before such compositions that were based on world music became widespread.

Evan Ziporyn American composer

Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn has composed for a wide range of ensembles, including symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, many types of chamber groups, and solo works, sometimes involving electronics. Balinese gamelan, for which he has composed numerous works, has compositions. He is known for his solo performances on clarinet and bass clarinet; additionally, Ziporyn plays gender wayang and other Balinese instruments, saxophones, piano & keyboards, EWI, and Shona mbira.

Angklung Indonesian musical instrument made of two-three bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame

The angklung is a musical instrument from West Java, Indonesia made of a varying number of bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved to have a resonant pitch when struck and are tuned to octaves, similar to Western handbells. The base of the frame is held in one hand, while the other hand shakes the instrument, causing a repeating note to sound. Each performer in an angklung ensemble is typically responsible for just one pitch, sounding their individual angklung at the appropriate times to produce complete melodies.

John Cranko South African choreographer

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

<i>Noyes Fludde</i> opera

Noye's Fludde is a one-act opera by the British composer Benjamin Britten, intended primarily for amateur performers, particularly children. First performed on 18 June 1958 at that year's Aldeburgh Festival, it is based on the 15th-century Chester "mystery" or "miracle" play which recounts the Old Testament story of Noah's Ark. Britten specified that the opera should be staged in churches or large halls, not in a theatre.

Gamelan gong gede Indonesian musical instrument

Gamelan gong gede, meaning "gamelan with the large gongs", is a form of the ceremonial gamelan music of Bali, dating from the court society of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, associated historically with public ceremonies and special occasions such as temple festivals.

Gordon Crosse is an English composer.

Sir Peter Wright, CBE is a British ballet teacher, choreographer, director and former professional dancer. He worked as a choreographer and as the artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, a classical ballet company based in Birmingham, England. On retiring from the company in 1995, he was bestowed the honorary title of Director Laureate of the company.

Christina Joyance Boughton was the daughter of English composer Rutland Boughton and artist Christina Walshe. She died in 1963 in tragic circumstances..

Richard Marriott American composer

Richard Marriott is an American composer and performer. He has composed for film, television, dance, theater, opera, installations and video games. He is the founder and artistic director of the Club Foot Orchestra, an important modern ensemble for live music performance with silent films. His teachers include Dominick Argento and Paul Fetler at the University of Minnesota, Pauline Oliveros at UCSD, North Indian sarod master Ali Akbar Khan, shakuhachi master Masayuki Koga, and Balinese composers Nyoman Windha and Made Subandi. Marriott was a member of Snakefinger's History of the Blues and has recorded with The Residents, Brazilian Girls, "Singer at Large" Johnny J. Blair, and many others. He performs on brass and woodwind instruments, Western and Asian.

Maryon Lane was a South African ballet dancer who became well known in Britain as a ballerina of the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet and as a soloist with the Royal Ballet.

Leighton Lucas was an English composer and conductor. Born into a musical family, he began his career as a dancer for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1918–21). He became a ballet conductor at 19, as well as a self-taught composer of religious works and film music He also worked as an arranger for Jack Hylton's orchestra between c.1926 and 1930.

Richard Cragun American ballet dancer

Richard Cragun was an American ballet dancer who rose to international fame with the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany. He has been called a "prince of the ballet world" and "one of the most important dancers of the twentieth century."

This is a summary of 1957 in music in the United Kingdom, including the official charts from that year.

This is a summary of 1955 in music of all genres in the United Kingdom.

The Cello Sonata, Op. 65, is a work by the English composer Benjamin Britten. It was premiered in July 1961 at the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk. The work is in five movements:

  1. Dialogo. Allegro
  2. Scherzo-Pizzicato. Allegretto
  3. Elegia. Lento
  4. Marcia. Energico
  5. Moto perpetuo. Presto

The Prince of the Pagodas is a ballet created by Kenneth MacMillan in 1989 for the Royal Ballet, London, based on the original 1957 John Cranko version. The music is by Benjamin Britten. The scenario was by Colin Thubron, the set and costume designer was Nicholas Georgiadis, and the lighting designer was John B Read.

Brian Shaw was a British ballet dancer and teacher. As a leading dancer with the Royal Ballet during the 1950s and 1960s, he was widely regarded as "one of the finest classical male dancers of his generation".

Benjamin Dwyer is an Irish composer, guitarist and musicologist.

References

  1. ↑ Reed, Cooke & Mitchell (2008): pp. 258–60
  2. ↑ Reed, Cooke & Mitchell (2008): p. 123
  3. ↑ Britten, Benjamin. The Prince of the Pagodas. Published 1957. Boosey & Hawkes.
  4. ↑ Taruskin, Richard. Music in the Late Twentieth Century. Published 2010. Oxford University Press.
  5. ↑ Philip Brett, et al. Britten, Benjamin. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 14 Apr. 2011
  6. ↑ Cooke, Mervyn. Britten and the Far East. Published 1998. The Boydell Press.
  7. ↑ Cooke, Mervyn. Britten and the Far East. Published 1998. The Boydell Press.
  8. ↑ Britten, Benjamin. The Prince of the Pagodas. Published 1957. Boosey & Hawkes.
  9. ↑ Cooke, Mervyn. Britten and the Far East. Published 1998. The Boydell Press.
  10. ↑ Cooke, Mervyn. Britten and the Far East. Published 1998. The Boydell Press.
  11. ↑ Birmingham Royal Ballet, Program January–March 2014

Sources

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.