A big turnout for BM, PPO Tchaikovsky evening

It is rare that ballet and orchestra come together on stage in the Philippines. The cost of maintaining a theater staffed with both orchestral and ballet ensembles is daunting in a country where the performing arts rarely receive popular support from the public and private sectors. For an orchestra or a ballet company to survive here, they would have to be innovative in their management and programming and prudent in costs.

That is why the recent team up of Ballet Manila and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra in an evening of music and dance by the Russian master Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, dubbed An Evening of Tchaikovsky, was a rare treat for theatergoers. In fact, the Main Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines was full for this production, proof that there is an audience for ballet and orchestral music. Perhaps the innovative program devised for the occasion, ballet and music in one show, made the trip to the theater a pleasurable one. Just think: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and Act II of Swan Lake? Purists might balk at seeing just one act of Swan Lake, but for some, that is enough to get them out of their houses and drive to the CCP.

The selling point of this evening of Tchaikovsky was Ballet Manila’s accomplished production of Swan Lake, which it presented in a full all-Filipino staging last year. For the move to the CCP, they brought with them their property for Act II, complete with a conveyor belt of swans. Many found the line of drifting swans upstage to indicate their crossing of the lake cute, a charming touch to the ballet’s fairy-tale story.

For laymen, Swan Lake is the epitome of what a ballet is. The sight of ballerinas flitting across the stage in immaculate white tutus has come to be a defining image for most ballets. And in Act II of Swan Lake, you get lots of that and more.

Lisa Macuja-Elizalde’s followers know what to expect of her Odette, the swan princess under the spell of the evil magician Von Rothbart. With her longtime dance partner Osias Barroso as Prince Siegfried, they reprised their roles and showed why exactly they are the dance team to beat in the local ballet community. The moments they were together on stage – Odette and Siegfried do not really dance that much together in Act II – were moments of magic.

Macuja-Elizalde and Barroso are great actors, and in this act of ballet, the story calls on much acting from the leads. In the final minutes when Rothbart transforms Odette again into a swan as day breaks, the team showed the anguish at their parting. Macuja-Elizalde’s transformation into a swan might not be as finely shaded as in a full production, but the thrill of seeing Swan Lake danced with heart is enough to cap an evening of vivid dancing.

Mention must also be made of the big and little swans, whose character dances add charm to Swan Lake’s Act II. The big swans were performed by Eileen Lopez, Christine Rocas and Sandra Lynn Huang, while the little swans were essayed by Marian Faustino, Mylene Aggabao, Sofia Sangco and Alexa Sayson.

Apart from Act II of Swan Lake, Ballet Manila also mounted a dance transcription of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. Choreographed by People’s Artist of Russia Sergey Vikulov, the husband of Macuja-Elizalde’s teacher Tatiana Udalenkova at the Russian Ballet School, it telescopes the story of the Shakespearean tragedy in 20 minutes for five characters – Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, Mercutio and Friar Lawrence.

Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet music distills the action of play into two distinct melodies, that of the warring Capulets and Montagues and the love between Romeo and Juliet. Much of the dancing requires miming and even fencing, all danced in fairly big gestures.

Macuja-Elizalde and Barroso wore their hearts on their sleeves, putting as much feeling to their dancing. But the music is too brief to really play on one’s emotions. Placed before the Swan Lake excerpt, their dancing as Romeo and Juliet hinted at the audience would expect next on the program. Dancing as Mercutio was Jerome Espejo, while Marcus Tolentino was Tybalt, with Aldrin Villanueva as Friar Lawrence.

The dancing was the evening’s biggest draw, but saying that would be like putting down the contributions of the PPO, that night led by Russian conductor Alexander Vikulov. However, this wasn’t far from the truth.

Under Vikulov’s leadership, the orchestra’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony was a let down. Coming at the first half of the evening, it proved to be a bit wearying. While Tchaikovsky invested this symphony with his best tunes– the melody in the slow movement is more popularly known as the old ditty Moonglow – Vikulov’s attention to detail wore down the symphony’s forward thrust. Rather than roaring with true bombast in the finale, spinning in the dizzying waltz of the third movement and melting in the sentimentality of the second movement, the music’s energy started and stopped. Just when you thought it would zoom forward, the tension would relax as the conductor tinkered with an orchestral detail. The music just didn’t pick up the way it should. And to think that the PPO has been playing the Tchaikovsky Fifth for ages.

The same was true with the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. The transition from the warring melody to the love music wasn’t as emphatically delineated to heighten the audience’s emotion. And to think that Ballet Manila’s dancers were dancing to it on stage.

Vikulov had more success with the music to Swan Lake, all little character pieces to accompany the dancing on stage. In the pit, his conducting was impeccable. He knew how to guide his dancers, carefully timing his music to their movement. The pace might have been slow in some parts, but the music flowed well for the dancers.

The Russian conductor, longtime friend and buddy of Macuja-Elizalde, conducted the PPO in 2001 for Ballet Manila’s performances of Romeo and Juliet at the CCP. He conducts regularly the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra and is currently the artistic director of Petersburg Concert Spirituals, an organization promoting concerts.

This partnership between BM and PPO was a one-night only event, which was a pity considering that the evening was a success. Perhaps, more programs planned along the lines of this Tchaikovsky evening might prove to be the winning formula into bringing people back into the theater. Maybe.