Thanks for the replies. I assumed that there would be something for Peer Gynt, which already had Grieg's music. But I did was interested to see that Neumeier's version, which I've never seen or read about, has a score by someone else.
Grieg's music (an hour and a half of it) was intended to be "incidental" the play. Later, some was gathered in a couple of suites which were frequently programmed when I was young. I guess most people have heard the Hall of the Mountain King and Solveig's Song. I wonder which music Zurich Ballet used? Theater directors -- Robert Wilson, for example, for a production in Norway and later at the Brooklyn Academy of Music -- combined Grieg (as background music, I gather) with an elaborate structure of technical effects. But ... is Grieg really danceable, over an entire evening at least?
Google led me to an earlier thread on Ballet Talk which has further information on Peer Gynt:
http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/lofiver...php/t28427.htmlThank you, PeggyR, for the information about Caniparoli's piece. I suppose he would HAVE to reduce the character differences among the women, since few in an American audience would have had Rosmersholm, Ghosts, or Lady from the Sea as part of their cultural memory.
Caniparoli seems to have dealt with the relative obscurity (to Americans) of his characters by reducing them to a just a few typical gestures. According to Macaulay:
QUOTE
Mr. Caniparoli tries to sum up each woman with one or two characteristic gestures; if Nora from “A Doll’s House” had smoothed her hair or pressed her hands to her skirt any more, you’d have thought it would be her husband, Torvald, who’d walk out of the marriage, not she.
But I still became confused as to which character was which. I stupidly assumed that the third woman, Mrs. Alving in “Ghosts,” was dancing with Pastor Manders, when I should have guessed (those giveaway high extensions from under the frock coat) that he was her scarcely repressed son, Oswald.
Likewise, I assumed that Ellida Wangel (my favorite Ibsen heroine, from “Lady From the Sea,” identifiable here by her flowing hair) was dancing with her husband and not (my fault again) the Stranger; and with Hedda Gabler showing quite some interest in her male partner, I assumed (wrong again!) that he was not her husband, George Tesman, but her ex-lover Ejlert Lövborg. Perhaps it was for the best that I am not well acquainted with “Rosmersholm,” though it was hard to tell what kind of angst this Rebecca West was having with this John Rosmer.
It's a shame to lose the story. The stories of Nora and Hedda ARE known by many culturally aware people --even by many who have not seen the plays. These works have strong characters and broad social and psychological significance. They also have a simplicity and clarity of structure that would be very helpful to a potential choreographer.
Caniparoli -- whose early Lady of the Flowers I HAVE seen -- is (or used to be) very good at conveying story and character on stage. Maybe, now that he has tried to "take the essence" of so many characaters, he WILL settle down to tell the story of a single play.
