Tuyet Hoa, Author at Vietnam National Opera & Ballet

How The Nutcracker became so wildly popular

20/11/2018

The Nutcracker is the cheesiest ballet of all time.

That may enrage some readers for whom attending The Nutcracker is a beloved Christmastime tradition. But as a former dancer who has performed or watched some version of the production for 18 years now, I can state it with certainty: The Nutcracker is the cheesiest ballet of all time.

Just try to recite the plot with a straight face: A young girl’s most cherished Christmas present, a nutcracker, comes alive, saves her by defeating an army of mice and their king, and then the pair travel together to a magical kingdom of sweets. Ballet really doesn’t get more gauche than that.

So why is it so popular in America? To answer that, we’ll have to go back in history a bit.

Thu Huệ is one of the solist in Nut Cracker – A wonder land version 2018 by VNOB

In 1844, French writer Alexandre Dumas adapted an earlier, darker version of The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman that had been intended strictly for adults, making it “happier and more appropriate for children.” The master of the Russian Imperial Ballet liked Dumas’ new, lighter version of the story and decided to transform it into a ballet, commissioning Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky to compose the score, now some of the most recognizable pieces of music in the world.

Many years later, in 1933, Russian-born choreographer George Balanchine was invited to the United States by a young arts patron who shared Balanchine’s conviction that high quality dance training was severely lacking in this country. They co-founded a ballet school, and in 1948, the now world famous New York City Ballet.

As a young dancer in Russia, Balanchine had performed several different roles in The Nutcracker — a mouse, the Nutcracker/Little Prince, and the Mouse King. When he was older, he danced the part of the jester, which involves gracefully wielding and jumping through a large hoop.

A scence in Nut Cracker – A wonder land version 2018 of VNOB

In 1954, Balanchine, who today is revered as the “Father of American Ballet,” decided to choreograph his own version of The Nutcracker. While a smart business decision, it was also a deeply emotional one. As Vanity Fairreports:

He was not just reaching back to the Mariinsky Nutcracker — which in Russia is performed throughout the year — but calling up the Christmases of his childhood, the sense of warmth and plenty that was embodied in a tree brimming with fruits and chocolates, glittering with tinsel and paper angels. “For me Christmas was something extraordinary,” Balanchine told the writer Solomon Volkov. “On Christmas night we had only the family at home: mother, auntie, and the children. And, of course, the Christmas tree. [Vanity Fair]

When asked by a donor years before if he would be interested in doing a popular abridgement of The Nutcracker, Balanchine answered, “If I do anything, it will be full-length and expensive.” That donor ultimately gave him $40,000 — $25,000 of which he spent on the giant tree that trademarks the New York City Ballet’s adaptation to this day. When he received pushback on the astronomical expense of the Christmas foliage, he simply responded, “The Nutcracker is the tree.”

Balanchine was right. The magic of The Nutcracker isn’t in the brilliance of the music or the excellence of the dancing. It’s the tree. It’s the juvenile warmth of the excited children in the party scene. It’s the familiarity of the whole production, even if you’re just seeing it for the first time. It’s the ballet’s ability to reach out and touch a part of you that triggers a warm holiday memory — that’s The Nutcracker.

Before The Nutcracker, the future of the New York City Ballet was still uncertain — and while many people were excited about the kind of “deeply poetic, uniquely plotless, modestly decorated ballets” Balanchine was known for making, the company did not possess the kind of “mainstream” following needed to consistently fill the house. The Nutcracker changed that.

Kids were another secret weapon.

There are a slew of parts for young dancers in The Nutcracker, and in many of Balanchine’s big productions. He believed it was important to have kids on stage for a few reasons. First, it helps children in the audience connect with the ballet. Second, very astutely, Balanchine reportedly surmised that “each child brings four people: mom, dad, sister, and aunt. Multiply this by all the children in the ballet and you have an audience.”

The first production, giant tree and all, ended up costing $80,000, but it was a blockbuster hit within the year. Since then, the ballet has been filmed and broadcast hundreds of times to people all over the world.

The NYCB performs The Nutcracker 47 times each season, but countless professional, amateur, and juvenile companies all over the country perform some version of the holiday special. The hundreds of adaptations have also given rise to new, even cheesier characters — like butchers, dancing pigs, and shepherdesses complete with lambs in the particular version I grew up with.

In many ways, The Nutcracker rallies against what a ballet is supposed to be — graceful and high-brow — (and truly there is nothing elegant about a sprightly young woman in pointe shoes wildly waving a fake plastic sword while dressed in a pear-shaped mouse costume) but that’s exactly the spirit from which The Nutcracker draws its enchantment.

(The week.com)

“Maria de Buenos Aires” will be staged in Hanoi on Nov 15

15/11/2018

Tango opera “Maria de Buenos Aires”, written by Astor Piazzolla, will be performed at the Hanoi Opera House on November 15, starting at 8 p.m.

“Maria de Buenos Aires” tells the story of a girl called Maria who lives in Argentina. Born in a poor suburb of Buenos Aires, Maria is marginalized as an object of sexual desire. During the hard moments in her life, she eventually falls in love with Tango. The story follows her life and death, dissolves into the beauty of the Buenos Aires women and the immortal Tango dance.

Solist, Orchestra and Conductor are discussing the idea of the Oprea

“Maria de Buenos Aires” is considered as a declaration of New Tango, in which Tango is used as a musical material to make the Opera. The accompanying ensemble, including strings, guitar, piano and copious percussion, is based on the traditional tango orchestra.

dancers of VNOV are practising the Opera

“Maria is the tango. She is the history and heart and soul of Argentina. She is the subject that inspires and animates the poetry of Horacio Ferrer and lives vibrantly in tandem with the inventive and inspired music of Astor Piazzolla,” said Emeritus Artist Tran Ly Ly, director of the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet.

Tickets cost VND200,000 to VND600,000 and can be purchased at the Hanoi Opera House or on ticketvn.com, nhahatnhacvukichvietnam.com.

The Sound of Tango, the Story of Mary

01/11/2018

There was no piano in Astor Piazzolla’s vacation home in Parque del Plata, Uruguay, where he spent the summer of 1968 working with the poet Horacio Ferrer on an operita, a “little opera,” so he composed on the bandoneón. The resulting work, “María de Buenos Aires,” is an intense cocktail of poetry, tango music and dance that is performed by a folk contralto, an operatic baritone and one male actor. But it’s the fourth voice — the bandoneón, the soulful South American accordion — that calls the shots and, to borrow Ferrer’s words, “burns in the back of your throat.”

It was appropriate, then — and a sign of the substantial Argentine contingent among the capacity audience in Le Poisson Rouge on Friday evening — that the applause at the end of Opera Hispánica’s production of “María” was loudest for the bandoneónist J P Jofre, who took his bow last. The production, directed by Beth Greenberg, was billed as the first fully staged one to be presented by Opera Hispánica, which is now in its third season. Most of the nightclub’s narrow stage, however, was taken up by the excellent nine-member band, conducted by Jorge Parodi, leaving the singers and dancers to stalk one another on just a few claustrophobic square feet of space.

But then, it’s in the nature of tango to express oversize passions with a rigorous economy of gesture. And despite its limitations, Opera Hispánica’s production was an elegant tribute to Piazzolla’s and Ferrer’s ability to combine music, movement and words of hallucinatory power in a concentrated format that is as pungent and stimulating as a cup of espresso.

The work is more of an oratorio than an opera. Written in the key of “Ay! minor” (Ferrer’s libretto is laced with musical puns), it’s a Passion play in which the central character, María, represents both Jesus and the Virgin. She sleepwalks through scenes of sexual violence, her burial and dreamlike confessions to a chorus of psychoanalysts until, resurrected, she gives birth to a new version of herself.

New York Time

“Bolero and Suite en Blanc” ballet night to delight Hanoians

19/10/2018

For the first time, the famous choreographer of the English National Ballet Theatre, Le Ngoc Van, has coordinated with Vietnam National Opera and Ballet (VNOB) to choreograph two famous works, “Bolero” and “Suite en Blanc”, for a ballet night at the Hanoi Opera House on October 17, 2018.

Choreographer Ngoc Van is expected to thoroughly exploit the creative power of the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet (VNOB) dancers to bring an aesthetic work of art to the audience.

VNOB also staged the full version of “Suite en Blanc” created by Le Ngoc Van, from which a small excerpt was performed by the English National Ballet Theatre in 2017.

“Suite en Blanc” is a non-plot of the script, simply showing the beauty of ballet. With solo, duo and trio performances, the group of dancers will create gentle, elegant ballet moves on the white background of the entire work with melody composed by composer Leo Delibes.

The romantic ballet shows the beauty, perfection and elegance of the classical ballet language through the strong and powerful body language of male and female artists.

“Bolero” is a play that shows simplicity but power from beginning to end. The audience had a chance to witness the power of the artists through their simple but inspirational ballet moves.