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Ashton's La Fille mal gardée Meets the Joffrey
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12171 |
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THE ARTS
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2 / 1987 |
2,364 Words |
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Barbara Binkley
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La Fille mal gardee, known as La Fille or The Unchaperoned Daughter, is the oldest full-length classical ballet given in contemporary repertories. To the delight of ballet lovers of all ages, renowned choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton has refurbished it into a virtuosic ballet.
La Fille is an ideal vehicle for the Joffrey Ballet, a spirited all-American company that exhibits a bit more of the razzle-dazzle and glitter of its home cities of New York and Los Angeles than the other two major American companies, New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre.
The company was established by Robert Joffrey, a native of Seattle, Washington, and is under his artistic direction. Joffrey is a member of the National Council of the Arts and copresident, with the Bolshoi's Yuri Grigorovich, of the dance section of the International Theater Institute. A recipient of the Capezio Award and the Distinguished Service award of the Dance Notation Bureau, he has been recognized for his contributions to the world of classical ballet.
Ambitious Repertory
Each season, Joffrey ambitiously adds full-length classics like La Fille to the company's repertory. The New York premiere of the Ashton version of this ballet coincided with the company's 20th anniversary season at City Center in its 30th performing year. The standard Joffrey repertory is mixture of the beloved classics like Petrouchka and Romeo and Juliet, and contemporary works like Laura Dean's Night and Mark Morris' Esteemed Guests. Other contemporary works - like Valentine, recently revived, and the acclaimed rock ballet, Trinity - have been contributed by Gerald Arpino, the company's associate director and resident choreographer. Arpino's Jamboree was the first ballet to be commissioned by an American city, San Antonio, Texas, and performed in 1984 to celebrate the city's cultural heritage.
La Fille was first performed by the Joffrey in 1960 and staged by Fernand Nault. The work was based on a 1940 version choreographed by Bronislava Nijinski and Dimitri Romanoff to music of Wilhelm Hertel for the American Ballet Theater's premiere season. The ballet remained in the Joffrey repertory for five years, with Arpino dancing the role of the farmer, Colas.
La Fille mal gardee was originally choreographed in 1789 as a work in three acts by Jean Bercher Dauberval, who was familiar with the ballets of Jean Georges Noverre. Noverre is said to have originated dramatic ballet, upgrading it from a succession of conventional dances. Dauberval's La Fille was first given at the Grand Theatre in Bordeaux, France. Dubbed The Fruitless Precaution, a version of the ballet was presented at the New Theatre in Philadelphia in May of 1794.
Another version was staged by Arnaud Leon at the Lafayette Theatre in New York in July of 1828. At the Maryinsky Theater in Russia, the ballet was titled Vain Precautions, with choreography by Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa.
Ashton first staged his version for the Royal Ballet in 1960 to music adapted and arranged by John Lanchbery from an 1828 score by Ferdinand Herold, chorus master of the Paris Opera. The ballet was performed at the Royal Opera in London's Covent
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