Customer Reviews

Britten - The Prince of the Pagodas / Bussell, Cope, Chadwick, Dowell, MacMillan, Royal Ballet

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My love affair with the beautiful score of this ballet goes back to the days of its London LP life, when I would listen to it for hours in my room and dream of what the ballet would look like. Decades - just a few - later, long after having fallen under the spell of Britten's "Death in Venice," "Billy Budd" and of course, "Peter Grimes" I was spellbound when I saw the laser-disk version of this ballet playing in a Tower Records store. I rented the VHS version innumerable times and debated shelling out the $70 for my own copy. Then it disappeared. But, just in time, the Royal Ballet made a rare appearance in New York City with its revived production of "Prince of the Pagodas.' I was in standing room at the Met for every performance and would do the same today. It is a remarkable ballet in every sense. MacMillian did right to throw out the original scenario and created a darker and much richer - if, albeit, more complicated - story.

I disagree strongly with those who say there are no melodies in Britten's amazing, breathtaking score. I can still remember sitting up, with chills, when I first heard it, years ago. That same thrill takes me every time I hear it. There are so many memorable passages, from the eerie, rather threatening horns in the Prologue (which MacMillian uses to great effect in his new scenario), to the variations of the Four Princes, to the Salamander's motif and glorious expansion, to the Fire, Water, Air and Cloud dances, to a set of stunning celebratory dances which fill the last act of the ballet and which, in MacMillian's endlessly amazing choreography, become even more sumptuous and thrilling.

The Princess Belle Rose's journey of self-discovery through the piece is heartbreaking and estactic, especially as danced by Ms. Bussell. Her dances with the King of the South, with the Salamander-Prince and especially with the ageing King are full of beauty and passion. And indeed, Anthony Dowell's performance as the doddering King, (on the DVD and certainly, powerfully, in the live performance), must remain as one of the most moving dance portraits in the repertory. It is a wild and unpredictable ride in this ballet, and the opening chaos of the Monkey Court, with an absolutely hair-raising dance of the Monkey-Courtiers, are unforgettable moments of great dance theatre.

It was said that Prokofiev's score for 'Romeo and Juliet' was undanceable and I have heard that same criticism here and elsewhere about Britten's music for this ballet. MacMillian, ironically, with both ballets, has proven all those naysayers utterly wrong.

If you can take a chance and are not afraid to listen - and watch - more than once, there is a wonderful, nearly unlimited range of delights in this overlooked score and grossly under-rated production.

I have just finished watching The Prince of the Pagodas, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. MacMillan's ballets are not always well received, but this story line of a prince and princess triuphing over adversity has the fairy tale completeness that I find very satisfying. The stage settings is extremely well lighted, which displays the background scenery and cast. Speaking of the cast, this is a large production using the remarkable talents of an array of very capable dancers. Darcey Bussell as Princess Rose has the appealing primness that makes me root for her character's success. Jonathan Cope apparently dances both the part of The Prince and the chameleon. I say apparently because I wanted to see how he would transition from the chameleon to The Prince without leaving the stage. At the time of the transition there are enough cast characters surrounding him that I was not able to see just how it was done. Well, I shall leave it to the magic of the stage. Indeed, a very watchable ballet. I shall have to keep from viewing it too quickly again. A little time should pass before I take it down from the shelf for the next time.

The Prince of the Pagodas is a lovely, enchanting ballet by Benjamin Britten that is just a little too outside the mainstream for some vociferous, though musically limited, people to appreciate. As if to challenge forever such ignorant opinions, this video clearly demonstrates how the score is FILLED with elegant, original, sensuous music that not only uses gamelan as an influence but a rich tapestry of thematic development that is more Beethoven than Tchaikovsky. And Britten's music can unashamedly stand in the company of either. Yes, sometimes the sounds are spare, lean, small. Sometimes they are anything but. But it is all worthy and memorable for anyone who can "hear" it. Perhaps all it needs is a listener with a slightly sophisticated ear. The Kenneth MacMillan choreography that accompanies this great score is simply wonderful. It does lean heavily on classic ballets of the past, but it just as often goes its own way with some very striking sequences that do not call to mind anyone else. Besides, using ideas that work from the past to enrich the present is hardly a flaw. Britten is a perfect example of the glorious results that can come from such thinking. (Try the dances for the four suitors or the pas de deux when the prince has been turned into a reptile to get a good taste of both Britten's and MacMillan's work.) The dancing is spirited, beautiful, emotional, elegant, controlled, and enrapturing. The sound, playing, and videography are all superb. All in all, a great work done worthily. The documentary that is included is informative and easily taunts with snippets from works that would be good to see.

Considering that Darcey Bussell is one of the greatest ballerinas of recent times, it is amazing that this is apparently the only dvd that features her in the principal role! We finally have a dvd to showcase her incomparable talent. MacMillan is true to his wonderful form here, giving us very intense and classically faithful choreography for both the male and female dancers. He doesn't hold back and the dancers perform miracles on the floor and in the air. The performance is technically flawless and inspiring. The music is some of Britten's finest, in his neo-romantic style. There are two main female roles: Princess Rose, played by Darcey Bussell, and her sister, Princess Epine, played by Fiona Chadwick,(Rose is still the primary role). There are a few lesser female roles. There are also two main male roles: the Prince, played by Jonathan Cope, and the Fool, played by Simon Rice(the Prince being the primary role). There are several other important, but lesser male roles, the various kings. The sets and costumes are sensational and extremely vivid and somewhat surreal. The intense vividness of the characters might be disturbing to very young children, but otherwise this is something children as well as adults should appreciate. The story is a little difficult to follow, but there are explanations before each scene. There is also included as a special feature a wonderful and extensive documentary on this ballet, including reheasal clips, as well as classroom shots of Bussell doing an extensive solo; it also goes into MacMillan's entire artistic life; his wife is also interviewed. Don't pass this one up!

I loved this ballet. I could not take my eyes off the screen. The costumes are spectacular. I am not a lover of ballet, so this really surprised me in how it grabbed me. The music and the choreography were also spectacular.

"The Prince of the Pagodas" is one of the more problematic works in Benjamin Britten's output. Though several of his works were used to accompany dance, this is only one specifically conceived as a ballet, in fact a full-length three-act ballet in the Tchaikovsky tradition. It was composed for the Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1956, after Britten returned from an ear-opening, deeply influential visit to the Far East, and was successfully performed the following year. But composing and producing the ballet was not a happy experience for Britten. On one hand, he had to compose a great deal of music fairly rapidly, and he felt equivocal about its quality. On the other, while thoroughly accustomed to the worlds of instrumental music and opera, the intense, inbred world of ballet was entirely foreign and made him very uncomfortable. He conducted a splendid recording of the complete score, and he then put it away. It was not staged again during his lifetime, and he resisted suggestions that he or someone else produce a concert version. Near the end of his life he finally allowed Norman Del Mar to extract a concert suite, which has been performed and recorded. It was not until 1978, two years after Britten's death, that the full score was published.
All this is unfortunate, because the work deserves to be better known. It is Britten's largest purely orchestral work, full of beautiful and striking musical ideas and truly dazzling orchestral writing, not least the passages influenced by the Balinese gamelan orchestras.
In 1990 the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan put on a new production by the Royal Ballet; this DVD is a film of this production. The sets and costumes are sumptuous, and to my inexpert eye the dancing looks excellent. But, unfortunately, it cannot be taken seriously, because it has next to nothing to do with what Britten wrote. MacMillan discarded the original scenario and choreography by John Cranko and substituted his own, and it emphatically does not work. MacMillan's story is more prosaic and much less interesting than the highly fanciful original. And Britten's music was written to illustrate specific events in Cranko's story; when it accompanies something entirely different it makes no sense. A good example is the opening scene. This is supposed to be a confrontation between the goodhearted Court Fool, represented by fast, sprightly music, and the evil Dwarf, represented by dark brass chords. MacMillan omits the Dwarf entirely and make this scene a dance for the Fool and Belle Rose, who isn't even supposed to have appeared at this point. The choreography and music have nothing to do with each other, and this sort of mismatch continues throughout the work. The greatest absurdity: The Prince is supposed to be the ruler of a magic kingdom inhabited by Pagodas, which (like those in Ravel's "Mother Goose Suite") are magical creatures, not buildings. There are no Pagodas in MacMillan's story, rendering the title itself nonsensical!
It's too bad that this production is so poor, since we're unlikely to have another in the foreseeable futute. I'd advise you to find Britten's recording of this splendid music and watch the staging through your mind's eye.

Benjamin Britten, Kenneth MacMillan and the entire Royal Ballet company, not to mention the scenic designers, costumers and BBC, have brought us one of those entirely gratifying evenings which keep ballet alive as a vital part of contemporary culture. A pat on the back, too, for Kultur which so often receives brickbats from Amazon reviewers.
As explained in the very fine accompanying documentary on MacMillan, the music by Britten was written to a very different book than we see here; after years of trying, MacMillan managed to get his Estates consent to create the ballet around the book used here. It was a conception that has worked out quite well. The story is a Fairy tale of a good princess and a bad one and how good eventually triumphs over evil. To this simple theme, the Brittan score is shown to great effect as MacMillan weaves vigor and enchantment, classic basics with ultra-modern moves, to produce magic on stage. Each of the featured dancers is made to look very good, the leads to be superb, the stage glowing both materially and with the human body in movement.
This is fun. It is more than that, however, it is an evening of exciting dance, as good as one could hope for.
See it!

We, probably, forgot what ballet is, if we can amuse such a work. MacMillan did a good job working hard on The Prince of the Pagodas. But, it is very heavy piece in order to enjoy as a ballet piece. There is no light in this ballet. It should be, by the context of the story. But the music and the background do not emphasize the DANCE, the BALLET. We do not need sophisticated ears or eyes to see real ballet. And real ballet is not just about dancers and their sharp technique. To be unique, as MacMillan tried to be, does not mean to overload ballet with some extraordinary things like music for "sophisticated ears" by Britten. I would not recommend this ballet to my friends not at all.

... is a dance marathon (127 minutes) where nobody drops from exhaustion except the home viewer.

Born in South Africa, John Cranko (1927-1973) made his career as choreographer/director in London and Stuttgart. At 26 he was commissioned to make a three-act ballet for Covent Garden. Thus he originated "Pagodas," incorporating fairytale elements including the old French stories "The Green Serpent" and "Beauty and the Beast," and a comedic treatment of "King Lear." When he asked Benjamin Britten to suggest a composer, Britten liked the scenario and said he himself would do it. Busy Britten later asked for a series of schedule extensions, including one to visit Bali, where gamelan music so impressed the composer he included such effects in his ballet score. Between choreographer and composer the familiar conflict arose: whatever Cranko had envisioned had to be modified as Britten's piano score (not yet orchestrated) drifted in: two divergent imaginations! And of course, one couldn't keep changing sets and costumes in progress. The 1957 premiere was followed by 22 performances at home, 10 on the American tour (New York was unenthusiastic). After 1960, with all its faults, the ballet disappeared. Though the scenario had proved a muddle, Britten and subsequently his Executors would not approve use of the music for a different story.

After a 5-year period in which he had not created a ballet for Covent Garden, and having survived a serious heart attack in 1988, Kenneth MacMillan (1929-1992) was perhaps precipitous in deciding to remount the faulty "Pagodas." Honored writer Colin Thubron was called in to rectify the basic problem: the diffuse scenario deficient in events. MacMillan made a superhuman effort to animate the three long acts (Britten's music could NOT be cut).

The new production premiered in December 1989, and the video appeared in 1990. The costumes are brilliant. The sets are rather sparse, but that's to the good. Britten's music is fresh, danceable, full of ideas, but finds no cause for dramatic flights, for human emotions: it's a superficial fairy-Leary tale.

ACT I. At Court, "evil" stepsister/sorceress Epine (Thorn) immediately transforms the courtiers to monkeys and changes sister Rose's beloved prince into a salamander, which is banished to The Other Land. Four kings, of wildly different personalities, court Epine and then Rose. The Fool, with painted clown face, also has transformative magical abilities, and briefly brings back Rose's human prince for a pas de deux. Epine seizes the crown from the old king, and Rose dashes off to The Other Land:

ACT II. After the shallow plot mechanics of Act I, Act II is a phantasmagoria in which all principals appear, dancing, dancing, dancing. The backdrop comprises splotchy clouds, and soon six female clouds and two male clouds dance and dance. Oh, before that, two quartets of young men run around with dragon banners. The Fool blindfolds Rose so she can imagine she is dancing with her human prince. But when the blindfold is removed, her beloved appears as a ground-slithering masked salamander. From the wings, movable medieval castle sections invade the stage as the salamander scurries away from the bewildered Rose. Blue pagodas appear. Finally, the greenish creature stops, and Rose cradles its poor head. Lovingly. Forty minutes of choreography, ten minutes of which have a point!

ACT III. The Court again. Epine teases and abuses the old king (a doddering character role). The salamander slithers on, and is immediately restored to human form (by Rose's love). Principals and corps perform a long series of bravura dances (eliciting Brava, Bravo, Bravi from several claques working for chocolates). The prince battles and routs the four foreign kings. Order in the Court is restored, and Princess Rose and Prince Sal in magnificent robes advance to the audience, and the Fool pops up between them, but before he can say "I wrote this!" the curtain nips shut.

I beseech Britten's Estate: Liberate his imaginative music from this anemic fairy-Leary scenario engendering interminable unfocused dancing. Divide the three-part score among an American, an Australian, and a Canadian choreographer. We'll call the evening "English Spoken Here."

There is one magic section in the second act of "Prince of the Pagodas" where the Prince-as-salamander (the elegantly virtuosic Jonathan Cope) dances and is later joined by Princess Rose (the luminous Darcy Bussell) in a radiant pas-de-deux, when gamelan-inspired music, choreography and staging come together to form an indissoluble whole much greater than the sum of its parts, truly a masterful creation by all concerned. MacMillan seems to have come into his own in those few moments.

It is a pity that this section, lasting all of about 15 minutes, is the only instance in this dull, full-evening ballet that truly hangs together and blossoms. Everything else seems to be a bad dish of routine, uninspired classical choreography, incongruous with a score of mostly mediocre music, and set in unimaginative, seemingly penny-pinching decor. The overall failure is mitigated by the consistently high standards of the Royal's dancing and the beautiful costumes. One is left with the impression that there was never one global vision for "Prince of the Pagodas." From what I read, this also seems to have been true of its first production, in the 1950's (choreography by John Cranko), generally considered a failure, though photographs of John Piper's scenery suggest a more exotic, fairy-tale ambiance than we are offered now.

The jinx may lie in Britten's music. Whatever one thinks of Britten as a composer, in context with his other work, "P. of the P.", though always well-crafted, does not sound top-drawer, notwithstanding the interesting gamelan-inspired sections. A tune always seems to be lurking around the corner but the corner is never turned..... ( isn't this too often the case with Britten?). In fairness, others disagree: the eminent Oliver Knudssen has been an eloquent advocate of Britten's score and has a very fine recording of the work on Virgin. Whatever the merits, this music sounds rather glum and not very danceable. Certainly the steps MacMillan has given his dancers belong in some re-working of a Minkus or Drigo piece, not with these notes. It is true that Balanchine masterfully set dances to Webern, but Macmillan is not Balanchine, nor, for that matter, is Britten Webern. In short, this has been, overall, quite a disappointing DVD.

Conversely, the supplementary feature, a documentary on Macmillan is interesting, informative, and not the vanity piece one usually expects. In an aside that goes by almost unnoticed, Macmillan reveals that he wanted to throw out the "Prince of the Pagodas" scenario altogether and choreograph the music to something else. Covent Garden wouldn't let him. Pity.