Who wouldn’t want this to succeed? Kenneth MacMillan’s last full- length ballet; Benjamin Britten’s only ballet score. You can understand Monica Mason, director of the Royal Ballet, wanting to restore the lustre to such precious assets. She and Grant Coyle have worked hard on this fresh staging of The Prince of the Pagodas, created by MacMillan in 1989 and unseen for 16 years. Great intentions and fascinating revelations, but ultimately, I fear, their new production is a disappointment.
MacMillan, who was a master at choreographing the extremes of human passion, clearly had trouble finding a similar connection with this dark and grotesque fairytale. A scenario that’s best described as King Lear meets The Sleeping Beauty does little to make us care about its leading characters and although the story is far from complex it is messy and not well told. And while much of the movement soars with beauty, much is laboured.
Two royal half sisters fall out after their ancient father, the Emperor, divides his kingdom in favour of the younger Princess Rose. Irate, the elder Princess Epine curses the empire and turns Rose’s fiancé Prince into a salamander. When Epine snatches her father’s crown the kindly Fool leads sweet Rose on an imaginary journey filled with nightmare visions, a violent sexual encounter and a meeting with her reptilian beloved. In Act III a compassionate and more womanly Rose kisses her salamander Prince, transforming him back into a human just in time for him to vanquish the evil Epine and her four accomplice Kings. And in homage to Sleeping Beauty, harmony and order are then restored in a final burst of classical grandeur.
Nicholas Georgiadis’s designs (rethought by Deborah MacMillan) don’t help. The Gormenghast-esque sets, a distorted landscape of dwarf turrets, are ugly, intrusive; Elizabethan costumes (even for the baboons) are ill-judged. Britten’s score is a problem despite fresh and welcome cuts. A combination of gamelan enchantment and brassy drama, it has the excitement of atmosphere but little momentum for dance until a gorgeous Tchaikovsky-like gush in Act III’s grand pas d’action.
On Saturday, inheriting Darcey Bussell’s role, Marianela Nuñez was a stunning Rose, gentle and giving. Her dancing was voluptuously physical, conveyed with extraordinary largesse and exquisitely nuanced musicality. Alastair Marriott was doddery as her Lear-like father; Tamara Rojo was a deadly Epine, Alexander Campbell an appealing Fool and Ricardo Cervera acted wonderfully against type as the cruel King of the South. Nehemiah Kish excelled as salamander and Prince.
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