Christopher Wheeldon’s ballet adaptation is a true collaborative effort,
with spectacular designs from all the creative team coming together to tell the
story.
Shakespeare’s work has been adapted in numerous
different ways, from films of Romeo
and Juliet to a
dance-theatre version of Macbeth – not to mention translations
into hundreds of languages. But Christopher Wheeldon’s ballet of The Winter’s
Tale is not just a
choreographic adaptation – it tells its story through the coming together of
many different elements. Shakespeare’s tale is not only retold but interpreted
afresh through a multiplicity of media. With its specially written score by Joby Talbot, designs by Bob Crowley, lighting by Natasha Katz, projections by Daniel Brodie and silk effects by Basil Twist, it’s a work that has collaboration at its heart.
Take Crowley’s set and costume designs, which do so
much more than set the scene. Act I, set in the court of Sicilia, begins as a
wintry idyll marked by deep, rich colours: the purple of Hermione’s dress, the
dark orange-red of Polixenes’ shirt and velvet coat. After her arrest and the
confiscation of her newborn child, however, Hermione returns to the stage in
all white: she seems pale and broken, little like her former self. Watson, too,
sheds his dark overcoat to reveal a white shirt and appears vulnerable: his
jealousy – as he realizes too late – is destroying both of them, as well as
their son Mamillius. In tandem with Katz’s startlingly sombre lighting for this
scene, Crowley's designs immediately convey the essence of the characters'
development, giving Wheeldon's choreography the freedom to scrutinize
the relationships between them.
What a contrast the Bohemian Act II is, with its
verdant tree and vivid, bright costumes. Nothing, on the surface of things,
could be more different from Act I – but it's the costume design that provides
the link between them. Perdita, the lost daughter of the Sicilian court, wears
a purple dress – a slightly shorter version of the one her mother Hermione wore
before. Through this subtle detail, it's immediately clear who she is.
Likewise, her lover Florizel's coat recalls that of his father Polixenes in Act
I, although the brasher colours and simpler materials he wears underneath this
coat add detail to his story: here is a royal with a taste for adventure beyond
the confines of the court.
Paulina, the head of Leontes’ household, opens Act III
in a dark shift, still in mourning. All the costumes, in fact, now convey an
atmosphere of sober penitence: the court has not recovered from the devastating
effects of Leontes’ jealous madness 16 years earlier. The sudden appearance of
the Bohemians creates a clash of costume style, but after the young couple's
true identities are made clear, all is resolved into a soft palate of cream and
white for the wedding scene, gently adorned with yellow flowers in the women's
hair. There is no place now for the vibrancy of Act II – Leontes’ sense of
guilt remains, and so does the loss of Mamillius and Paulina’s husband
Antigonus – but as the characters move gradually towards acceptance, the darker
mood in which the act opened is dispelled.
The Winter’s Tale runs 12 April–10 June 2016.
The production is a co-production with the National Ballet of Canada and is given with generous philanthropic support from Anna and
Moshe Kantor, Lindsay and Sarah Tomlinson, The Royal
Opera House Endowment Fund and The Friends
of Covent Garden.
http://www.roh.org.uk/news/designing-the-winters-tale-telling-shakespeares-tale-through-more-than-words
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