Harlequinade

The Australian Ballet
Friday 17th June, 2022
(With livestream on Friday 24th June, 2022)
State Theatre

Choreography: Marius Petipa
Staging and additional choreography Alexei Ratmansky
Assisted by Tatiana Ratmansky
Music: Riccardo Drigo
Costume and set design: Robert Perdziola inspired by Orest Allegri and Ivan Vsevolozhsky
Lighting design: Brad Fields

With Orchestra Victoria

Here comes Harlequin with Mercury’s wings on his feet. Penniless, true, but spry. Harlequin and Clown, my response to The Australian Ballet’s Harlequinade, with its puppetry of fumbling Pierrots, sharpness of Pierettes, and blush of Columbines to cause a leap of Harlequins to somersault with joy, drawn up especially for Fjord Review. “Here we are again”, calls the clown, in 1900, more or less.

In Alexei Ratmansky’s revival of Marius Petipa’s lost classic Harlequinade, assisted by Tatiana Ratmansky, we have the familiar characters Pierrot and Pierette, Harlequin and Columbine. Known from paintings, figurines, pantomimes, other ballets, sweets, and from the commedia dell’arte. With a chorus of characters, young and old, coloured by collective, ever-changing memory over the centuries, The Australian Ballet presents Harlequinade, a co-production of American Ballet Theatre and The Australian Ballet. This merry romp, a light-hearted play, a confection for the senses. True to history, Harlequinade’s appeal lies in its quick-change movements of the familiar, stock characters and the quick-change movements of the story. In his pre-curtain address, on opening night, Artistic Director, David Hallberg offered forth a tumbling “sugar rush” to tuck into.

The stage like a moveable flap book (also known as turn-ups, metamorphoses, or harlequinades) is both a toy and story book[i], just as a commedia dell’arte is “not an idea or a meaning, but a collection of images with many meanings”[ii]. True to an interactive book set apart by how they can be read, lift the flap, and a balcony can slide down to the ground, in Act I. Spin the wheel, and a Good Fairy can materialise where previously stood a statue in the village square. Turn the page, Act II, and Harlequin as a hunter can pop up from behind a spinning umbrella in pursuit of his lark, Columbine. Through engagement, a delicious puzzle!

The pretty paper platform itself is based on the original sets from 1900, rounded out by Riccardo Drigo’s cheerful score[iii]. Working from “notations written out in the Stepanov system, made by the Director of the Mariinsky Theater Nikolai Sergeyev and his assistants” Ratmansky, proceeding from the “idea that these records reflect the choreography of Marius Petipa as it was seen onstage during his life”, has created a “sincere homage to Petipa”[iv]. The pleasure lies in the charming choreography brought to life on opening night (and the livestream that followed) by Benedicte Bemet as Columbine and Brett Chynoweth as quick-witted, quick-footed Harlequin; and by Jill Ogai and masked Marcus Morelli on Tuesday night.

Where Kunstkammer gave us a ‘room of art’ (and what a brilliant chamber that was to explore), presented on its heels, this commedia dell’arte gives a delightful ‘comedy of art’ showcases the company’s technical and creative versatility, replete with a solo mandolin Sérénade and exquisite corps de ballet pink-and-grey larks to flutter around Columbine. Drum rolls and cymbal crashes underscore the comedic-melodramatic moments, such as when Harlequin (in mannequin form) is tossed from the balcony, proving pace and rhythm is everything in comedy, and that the score and choreography, to paraphrase Music Director and Chief Conductor, Nicolette Fraillon, are inseparable. And of comedic timing, Timothy Coleman and George-Murray Nightingale as Léandre, hammed it beautifully as the suitor more interested in the self. From preening and affected to adorable. Extend the accordion, and thirty-two children in miniaturised versions of floppy-sleeved Pierrot et al. appear, thanks to ballet schools from across the state. A bobble-headed tiny carnival, to echo the switched-on pointiness of Sharni Spencer and Robyn Hendricks’s Pierette, and the powdered languidness of Callum Linnane and Adam Bull’s Pierrot.

Playful, comedic, historical, yes, but it is not, as Ratmansky expressed, a time machine “because the time is actually running ten-times faster than it did in 1900 and everything including the bodies of the dancers, the pointe shoes of ballerinas, the floor, the materials of the costumes, the way the audience see the bodies, everything is different. Today’s technique require the bodies to be very much pulled up, very vertical.”[v] And so we have our smitten Harlequin with his lowered centre of gravity, and a magical slapstick with its resounding whack-whack, inhabited so completely, and differently, by both Chynoweth and Morelli. Together with gesture and mime to guide the audience through the story, while also charming us, with each pose struck, the richer the palette of movement, the sweeter the rush.

Spencer’s Pierette sparkled and mirrored Bemet’s tender-hearted Columbine. (Spencer was promoted to Principal Artist after her performance as Columbine on the closing night of Harliquinade[vi]). From Bemet’s thirty-two fouettées, and light hops on one leg as she journeys from front to back, rendering the trickster here not just Harlequin, but Columbine, to the hypnotic swirling patterns drawn by each and every corps de ballet lark, I’m all in for the visual spectacle.

[i] Clive Hurst, Early Children’s Books in the Bodleian Library, exhibition catalogue (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1995), preface; Emma Laws, ‘Miniature Libraries from the Children’s Books Collections’, exhibition catalogue (London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2002), p. 5.

[ii] Martin Green and John Swan, ‘The Triumph of Pierrot’ (New York: Macmillan, 1986), xiii; cited by James Fisher, ‘Harlequinade: Commedia dell’Arte on the Early Twentieth-Century British Stage’ Theatre Journal Vol. 41, No. 1 (March, 1989), p. 30.

[iii] You can access the dance notations and music scores for Harlequinade via the digital collection of the Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, https://digitalcollections.library.harvard.edu/catalog/hou01987c00129, accessed 23rd June, 2022.

[iv] Alexei Ratmansky, Choreographer’s Note, The Australian Ballet Harlequinade programme, 2022, p. 20.

[v] Alexei Ratmansky, in conversation with Catherine Murphy, transcribed from a pre-recorded interview included at interval during The Australian Ballet’s livestream of Harlequinade, 24th June, 2022.

[vi] “Sharni embodies the delicate balance of star quality and humility, making this promotion to Principal Artist a joy to celebrate. She lights up the stage and with each opportunity, has taken her artistry and technique to higher levels. Sharni is always open to growing, learning, and stretching herself as a dancer and the joy she finds in this art form isn't lost on her audience that has enjoyed witnessing her growth. My utmost congratulations to this stellar artist.” Artistic Director, David Hallberg, The Australian Ballet Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/CfOmo_uJXhS/, accessed 26th June, 2022.

Friday 17th June
Friday 24th June (livestream)
Columbine: Benedicte Bemet
Harlequin: Brett Chynoweth
Pierette: Sharni Spencer
Pierrot: Callum Linnane
Cassandre: Steven Heathcote
Léandre: Timothy Coleman
Pierette’s Partner: Jarryd Madden

Tuesday 21st June
Columbine: Jill Ogai
Harlequin:Marcus Morelli
Pierette: Robyn Hendricks
Pierrot: Adam Bull
Cassandre: Brodie James
Léandre: George-Murray Nightingale
Pierette’s Partner: Christopher Rodgers-Wilson

Image credit: Brett Chynoweth in Harlequinade by Alexei Ratmansky, by Jeff Busby, his costume, a bright patchwork of pieces fashioned together to form diamond shape upon diamond shape, in this incarnation, thanks to the costumes faithful to the originals by Robert Perdziola, inspired by Orest Allegri and Ivan Vsevolozhsky