With Sinfonietta and Carmen, the Ballet del Colón showed a superlative level

In that same luminous trail with which the Ballet del Colón launched its 2022 season – it was with the imperishable ballet Gisella-, we can identify this second program consisting of two works: Sinfoniettaby Czech choreographer Jiri Kylian, and a brand new version of Carmencreated by the Argentine choreographer Alejandro Cervera.

The company currently directed by Mario Galizzi has revealed, as a dance group and in its soloists and leading figures, to phenomenal artistic consistency and delivery.

a beautiful dinosaur

Let’s start with Sinfonietta. This work was seen in Buenos Aires when the Nederlands Ballet Theater in The Hague brought to the Colón Theater, in 1995, works from different periods by its resident director and choreographer for many years: the colossal Jiri Kylian.

Already then this artist of Czech origin had said, informally, here in Buenos Aires: “Sinfonietta He’s a dinosaur. ”The work had premiered nearly twenty years earlier and for him it was a distant stage in his career.

As it was, it must be said that it is a beautiful dinosaur, joyful and vital, which slightly anticipates some lines that Kylian would follow later: the Apollonian beauty, the clarity of the drawings in space and in that way that can make us think that the choreographic sequence is about to take a certain direction, but then, surprisingly and wonderfully, it deviates.

Romantic and with things to say

The novel Carmenof Prosper Merimée, was published in 1845 and nearly thirty years later Georges Bizet first presented his famous work based on the novel, although the latter was much more popular afterwards.

Both authors were French, both were attracted to Spain and each conceived, in their own language, a romantic drama. Romanticism as an artistic current was in retreat in the mid-nineteenth century, but reality showed that it still had things to say.

The gypsy Carmen, a seductive woman guided exclusively by her desires and will, falls in love with the civil guard Don José, who ends up killing her in a fit of jealousy.

There are Carmen all the ingredients of European romanticism: local color, passionate love, self-exaltation and a tragic ending. And so, with his argument so propitious as to tell it with dance, there are many choreographers of different nationalities who during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have felt the urge to create their own Carmen.

There are many choreographic versions of the literary and musical work; some eccentrics like that of Ruth Page, presented for the first time in Chicago in 1939 under the name of Guns and castanets.

The action takes place in a village in the Spanish Pyrenees, Don José is a Francoist soldier and his girlfriend Micaela denounces Carmen, a revolutionary gypsy dancer who dares to make the republican salute. The plane (on stage) in which the character of Escamillo arrives is shot down by the Francoists and when he runs away he meets Carmen, who will then be murdered by Don José.

“Carmen” by Alejandro Cervera

Alejandro Cervera, who is also a regisseur, has staged this brand new Carmen partly guided by verses from the work of the same name. And in this way the choreographic work has the dimensions, aesthetics and visual appeal of an opera staging.

But it is not only in the formal aspects that the values ​​of this Carmen: also there is a strong dramatic tension, carefully drawn characters and a fluid development of the story. As for the more intimate scenes, it is worth highlighting the duet of love and pain between Don José and Carmen, built with a lot of sensitivity.

As for the protagonists, it should be noted what a good choice Alejandro Cervera made finding in the dancers of the corps de ballet – three of them very young – the four Carmen who will succeed each other in the functions.

the great Rocio Agero (note: this review is about the cast of the preview performance) was the first, in a role he took on in a mature and beautifully danced way. Juan Pablo Ledo made a magnificent Don José in his suffering and desolation as well as the final scene that sees him running around Carmen’s corpse is fantastic.

The bullfighter Escamillo had entered the brilliant interpreter who is Dalmiro Astesiano, the exact character of that arrogant and unscrupulous character. And in a minor role, Edgardo Trabalon he is shown as the large owner of the tavern; he is a joy to see you on stage again.

Renata Schussheim’s wardrobe is soberly adapted to the spirit of the staging, as is Laura Copertino’s austere scenography, in which, however, the bulls that frame the bullfighting scene shine beautifully.

File

Carmen

Qualification: Excellent

interpreters: Ballet of the Colon Theater Director: Mario Gallizzi Program; Sinfoniettachoreography by Jiri Kylian to music by Leos Janacek; Carmenchoreography by Alejandro Cervera to music by Georges Bizet Functions: until 7 July Teatro Colón, Libertad 621

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