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March 14, 2006, The Globe and Mail Review
By Paula Citron
The Royal Winnipeg Ballet has a warm relationship with Argentinean-born choreographer Mauricio Wainrot. It was Wainrot, after all, who gave the company its monster hit Carmina Burana in 2002. Continuing on with the oratorio theme, The Messiah is the company’s newest Wainrot work, and is set to the beloved music of Handel’s masterpiece. The full-length, off-pointe ballet was created for the National Ballet of Chile in 1998, and many companies in Europe and South America have picked it up for their repertoire, and with good reason. It is accessible dance and familiar music.
The ballet runs 90 minutes without intermission, and incorporates 32 sections of the oratorio, ending with the Hallelujah Chorus. It is a work that has grown in increments. The 1996 first version for the Royal Ballet of Flanders was 26 minutes in length. Then came the 31-part full-length version for Chile, and now the 32-part version for the RWB. The extra duet, Thou Art Gone On High, is a special gift to dancers Sarah Murphy-Dyson and Johnny Wright. Murphy-Dyson is leaving the company at the end of the season to pursue an acting career, and the pas de deux was created so Murphy-Dyson and husband Wright could dance together. It was a charming gesture and charmingly performed.
Wainrot’s approach to Handel is abstract. The choreographer does not interpret Charles Jennen’s text per se. Rather, he tries to capture the spirituality of Handel’s music. It is a non-denominational piece, embracing the message of hope in troubled times, and while some Christian images occur, figures on a cross and a Pietà, for example, they are few and far between.
The cut and thrust of the choreography is a series of swirling movement patterns for shifting number of dancers executed in Wainrot’s signature gymnastic style. Wainrot’s fluid use of the body during highly athletic manoeuvres has a mellow feel. Push-ups, somersaults or body balances never jar. Wainrot’s omnipresent angled elbows and legs never look distorted. The secret is the way the choreographer weaves the muscular and vigorous elements together, managing to smooth potential rough edges.
He is also fond of quirky partnering that involves acrobatic moves, such as the men lying on their backs, supporting the women with both their up thrust knees and their outstretched arms. Each section ends in a tableau of some sort involving soaring pyramid lifts. Wainrot also repeats patterns, so that one section is echoed in another to provide a through line.
The ballet is an attractive piece of living sculpture, but medium cool. It is never too joyous or too reflective. It is like watching a kaleidoscope – the pictures change, but the basic components remain the same. Wainrot has created a distant, if beautiful artwork, gorgeously costumed in haute couture white by Carlos Gallardo. The drape of Gallardo’s pants and shirts for the men is unbelievably flattering, and the various blouses and top tunics for the women over shin length pants epitomizes casual chic.
The simplicity of the costumes is echoed in Gallardo’s set which includes just a few white modernist benches against an empty cyclorama, with front and side teasers of pearl grey. Dancers sit on the benches, palms on thighs, backs erect, watching their fellows. It is all part of the meeting hall community spirit of the piece. Eli Sirlin’s lighting design bathes the dancers in moods of colours.
The live music provided by the soloists, chorus and orchestra in the pit sounded remote but engaging. Conductor Tadeusz Biernacki and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra gave Handel a conventional sprightly spring, while the University of Manitoba Singers, coached by Henry Engbrecht, were in tuneful voice. Mezzo-soprano Colleen Skull and tenor Kurt Lehmann gave a good account of themselves, but the diction of warbly soprano Monica Huisman was incomprehensible, while bass Victor Engbrecht was uneven in delivery.
As an ensemble, the ballet is looking very strong and tossed off Wainrot’s very physical choreography with panache. The stately Tara Birtwhistle and the whirling dervish Yosuke Mino made a particularly favourable impression.
If there is one note of disappointment in the ballet, it is the lack of powerful emotional content. Wainrot’s vision catches the eye, but not the heart.
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