OF THE countless ballets inspired by La Dame aux Camélias, the best known in Britain is probably Frederick Ashton’s 1963 one-act Marguerite and Armand. Fashioned as a vehicle for Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, Ashton’s take on Dumas’ tale of the most famous consumptive Parisian courtesan is less than an hour long.
Lifting its title from the Verdi opera, the South African choreographer Veronica Paeper’s La Traviata clips through three acts lasting approximately 30 minutes each. Originally made for Cape Town City Ballet, this compact and never less than competent romantic weepie has found a natural home in the repertory of Northern Ballet Theatre. David Nixon’s Leeds-based company will tour it till the end of May.
Like NBT, Paeper favours full-length story ballets often from historical, literary or operatic sources. She hit the jackpot here. La Traviata is set to Allen Stephenson’s arrangements of, and variations on, Verdi played live by the NBT Orchestra. The music is a cushion for the drama, not its substance.
There were isolated moments during the opening night performance, however, when the choreography seemed to shy away from richer possibilities. A couple of times the leads, Desiré Samaai and Jonathan Ollivier, stood staring at each other a tad inexpressively for a bit too long. Or, instead of dancing their root feelings, one or the other would flip back on to a bed or fall into a chair.
Samaai’s Marguerite finishes her second-act solo, a stylised outpouring of raw grief, facing downstage. Rather than wring extra drops of emotion out of the situation kinetically, Paeper has her drop to the floor. Is it conventions of good taste, or a lack of inspiration, that prevents the choreographer from pushing her writing farther?
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Yet given this handsomely designed production’s overall success, it seems churlish to complain too loudly. Paeper knows her stuff, balancing lively and well-constructed ensemble dances with fluid pas de deux. Perhaps it is Samaai and Ollivier’s status as an offstage couple that lent their partnerings a frisson of intimacy. As the callow Armand, Ollivier offered fine displays of besotted exultation. In his arms Samaai, a strong slip of a dancer, exhibited a propulsive glide. She handled the corny, melodramatic mime of her refined heroine’s encounter with Armand’s stiff-backed father with great skill.
The brilliantly staged third act shifted from the raucous intoxication and public humiliation of the brothel, presided over by Natalie Leftwich’s wonderfully coarse Madame, to the boudoir. There Samaai was absolutely convincing as the dying Marguerite. Whichever of the four NBT casts you see, be advised: you may need your handkerchief.
Box office: 0113 222 6222 to February 19, then touring to Nottingham, Bath, Norwich, Sheffield, Canterbury and Cardiff. For details: www.northernballettheatre.co.uk