Customer Reviews

Ravel - L'Enfant et les Sortilèges / Netherlands Dance Theater (Jiri Kylian)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a singer with The Washington Chorus, I had the good fortune of singing "L'enfant et les sortileges" with the National Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin at the Kennedy Center's Festival of France in January 2004. We sang a semi-staged production, with cutouts representing most of the props and scenery. The music and singing were wonderful, and I deeply loved the music, but the visuals left a lot to the imagination (especially from my vantage point at the back of the stage!).

After our performance, I was delighted to find the Netherlands Dance Theatre's ballet adaptation of this opera on DVD. All aspects of this DVD are first-rate -- dancing, singing, orchestra, costumes, and set design. The costumes are stunning. I was particularly impressed by the Fire, the Princess. and the Frogs! The dance interpretation was a perfect counterpoint to the singing. Now that I have seen the opera performed this way, it's difficult to imagine it being done better any other way, unless as a cartoon!

Maestro Slatkin told the audience before our concert that "L'enfant et les sortileges" was his favorite piece by Ravel, one that "shows the composer at the peak of his powers, in complete mastery of all facets of his art." I certainly grew to love the piece as we rehearsed and performed it. I'm thrilled to have this DVD in my collection. I know I will watch it countless times over the coming years.

The Netherlands Dance Theater production takes a truly magnificent opera that is often hampered in performance by the imaginative story (a young boy refuses to do his homework and throws a terrible tantrum, breaking clocks, jumping on chairs, and pulling the tails of his two cats- the tables are turned as Maman leaves and the objects of his ire awaken to taunt and terrify the child!) and brings it to life. The orchestra and singing are marvelous and the dance amazingly well choreographed in both small-scale detail towards the score and long term action. I for one consider this the best version of L'Enfant et les Sortileges commercially available at present and it's certainly worth purchasing for any fan of 20th century Opera, ballet, or plain great shows.

Released with a Peter and the Wolf that I have not seen. It sells for a fraction of this OOP release.

If you are interested in Ravel, you should own this DVD. The production is first rate in every respect.

This work was originally conceived by Colette as a ballet, to which Ravel added the operatic element. Everyone on stage is a dancer in this production, which is choreographed in a contemporary idiom by Jiri Kylian (not Balanchine, the work's original choreographer). The singing that corresponds to the action on stage is sung from off stage in its original French. Subtitles are an option. It is therefore hard to categorize this as either an opera or dance DVD (it's really both). This production is made especially for video and is not simply a recording of a performance.

Kylian takes some time before the performance to introduce the work and his approach to it. The dancing is extremely sensitive to both the drama and the music.

I found this DVD highly entertaining: the music was beautiful and dancing was artistically attuned to the fairy tail story. I have never seen a production of this Ravel work. Too bad this beautiful work is not performed more often.

There is about 5 minutes of real dancing on this DVD the rest is writhing and silly movement. I love Ravel's music, and wish this company had done his opera music a more justice than this tripe. 99% of it isn't even athletic let alone artistic.

Well lit, filmed, and costumed. Too bad the dancing is miserable.