Richmond Ballet: Love Songs
November 16, 2011 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Love lingers. Long after the curtain closes on the Richmond Ballet’s production of “Liebeslieder Waltzer,” images of the dancing fill heart and mind. The company seldom has performed better.
George Balanchine choreographed the ballet to love songs composed by Johannes Brahms. Pianists and singers share the stage with dancers. The sets project the elegance of a palace. The performers depict courtly manners as well as the ordered passion of the waltz. Balanchine interpreted a dance associated with ballrooms through the prism of classical technique.
The Richmond Ballet captures the essence. Its Studio Theatre offers appropriate intimacy. The larger spaces of New York’s Lincoln Center swallow the piece. The Richmond stage invites the audience to a private evening scented, it seems, by Bal a Versailles.
Waltzes convey the romance of yesteryear. The dance once was considered decadent, perhaps because men and women move while embraced, or because, while couples dance in regal settings, enemy armies always seem to be massing along the river’s opposite bank. Tanks strike at dawn. Waltzes evoke images of Warsaw, Prague, Budapest or Vienna on the eve of cataclysm.
The waltz proved nostalgic even at its birth. It reflects human potential and the tragic sense of life. If love songs break the heart, then it is because they understand humanity’s center. “Liebeslieder Waltzer” counters the vulgarity evident in every age. The Richmond Ballet’s performances continue this weekend.
