The opening show of the adventurous Multitudes Festival at the Southbank, for one night only, is Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, his so-called choreographic symphony of 1912, Diaghilev’s commission for the Ballets Russes. Originally choreographed by Fokine, designed by Leon Bakst, it premièred 8 June 1912 with Nijinsky and Karsavina in the lead roles. Sounds mouth-watering. But, apparently it didn't come easily, not that you’d know now.
The myth of Daphnis and Chloé follows a traditional trajectory: the two fall in love, she to the sound of his pan pipes, but pirates abduct her (sounds familiar…) and she needs rescuing from their camp with the help of Pan and his engineered earthquake. In the final act, the lovers are reunited and wed in a joyous ‘Bacchanal’. There you have the curve of the symphony itself.
Why not substitute ballet with circus, especially if it is the famed Australian Circa company under their genre-bending and blending artistic director Yaron Lifschitz? I have seen them twice in the past and loved their work both times, but tonight it doesn't really work for me.
Five male and five female performers in Libby McDonnell’s unisex black lace body wear do their strenuous acrobatic feats along a narrow black strip of stage in front of the huge (130 players I believe) London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Edward Gardner. The BBC Singers, providing extra soundscape with their wordless chorus, sit a tier up in the side circle—surround sound, so to speak.
Instead of adding an extra dimension to the score, the physical actors get in the way of it for me, their effort too visible so close up (I am sixth row from the front). One can see the shakes and trembles in their gravity-defying human towers, flying buttresses, tall tree branches and mountainous crags. The silk, rope and pole gymnastics are amazing, but the earthbound thuds do the expressive lyrical music no favours.
Nor do they explicate the tale. It’s all there in the music. Rather the music helps me to see what the Circa players are trying to express—the tug of war, the battle, the passion, the bucolic harmony—there’s something of Debussy’s Faun here too.
It’s a relief when some performers move behind the orchestra to perform more feats on poles, climbing, slithering and balancing with the weight of a body on their lifted hands. The distancing helps—at least the eye can skim over the orchestra rather than having to dodge past bodies to see the LPO’s own ‘acrobats’ on their instruments of choice. Only fifty minutes long, the music is transportive, and there is more.
The fifteen-minute La Valse follows, which suits Circa better, not that they have to waltz, but they have little narrative to illuminate or provoke. Ravel (1875–1937) beautifully references elegant old-world Strauss within his own brilliant modifications, jazzy at times growing in glorious cacophony, the old order giving way to the new post First World War one. The performers get more daring.
The music releases and lets the emotions fly, whilst the human body pushes at its limitations, daring to fly without safety net and injury. It is good to see boundaries broken, innovation is always at the heart of creation, pushing it forward—the two leaders, Gardner and Lifschitz, embrace as they take their curtain call bows—so all power to the Southbank for its experimentation.