The plot of The Red Shoes centres on a ballet company staging their version of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy story of the same name, involving a young girl whose pride in her new red shoes leads to her being cursed and unable to stop dancing.
As Powell and Pressburger rightly recognised in their 1948 film on which this production is based, this is a perfect central image for a ballet. In their hands — and in Matthew Bourne’s glorious retelling — a simple tale is translated into a timeless fable about the sacrifices required in order to become a truly great artist.
Here, as there, we are presented with the compelling story of Victoria Page (Cordelia Braithwaite), a ballerina starring in The Red Shoes, who is forced to choose between the stardom that requires submission to the demands of ballet impresario Boris Lermontov (Andy Monaghan) and her love for the ballet’s struggling composer, Julian Craster (Dominic North).
Whilst this Lermontov is no less demanding than his screen counterpart, his stage incarnation is perhaps more elemental than human – a Mephistopheles as much as a man. This is not so much a simplification as an excavation: Bourne honours the film, but he also digs deeper, and in doing so brings us a tale as potent as any Greek myth.
This in turn creates an even greater contrast with the love story so beautifully brought to life by Braithwaite and North.
Bourne is an astoundingly accomplished Choreographer and Director; but just as importantly, he’s a master storyteller, with a depth and breadth of vision — and an ability to realise that vision — which is simply breathtaking.
The phenomenal quality he brings to proceedings is reflected in Paule Constable’s lighting, Lez Brotherston’s sets and costumes, Duncan McLean’s projections, Terry Davies’ orchestration, Paul Groothius’ sound design: each and every contribution comes across as unimprovable.
As for the dancers – when you see them float through the air as effortlessly as dandelion seeds, you know you are witnessing greatness in human form.
At the same time, Bourne steadfastly refuses to allow technical mastery to get in the way of connecting with the audience on every level. There may be other ballet companies just as accomplished in pure dance terms; but are there any that can cause such visceral reactions, making you laugh out loud one moment, breaking your heart the next?
Underpinning this is a clarity and specificity which shows that, though not a word is spoken, there is a crystal-clear script. Even when two characters are conversing from opposite sides of a stage full of people, you can not only tell who is talking to whom, but also precisely what they are saying.
Likewise, you know instantly without being told how members of the fictional on-stage ballet company relate to each other off stage.
With a source as great as the film, it might appear tempting to just try to reproduce it on stage. Whilst honouring what has gone before, Bourne resists this temptation. A prime example is his choice not to use the film’s Oscar-winning soundtrack, but instead to use music carefully plucked from the film scores of Bernard Herrmann, including those for Fahrenheit 451, The Ghost and Mrs Muir, and Citizen Kane. With new arrangements by Terry Davis, it’s a choice that pays off perfectly.
There are also whole scenes either invented or totally reinterpreted by Bourne, including a formal black-tie dance, a beach party, and Vaudeville performances at a music hall. Each is as wonderfully realised as it is perfectly placed. The dance, for example, is so stiff and stylised it almost resembles puppetry — and yet it still embodies the huge technical ability of the dancers performing it, and as a result has a compelling beauty all of its own.
Dualities of this kind can only coexist comfortably within the most sublime of art. There are several examples peppered throughout the production of such apparently dissonant elements made to harmonise in ways that are unexpected, yet entirely without contradiction.
The beach scene, meanwhile, is a wonderful confection, though it is not merely there as light relief. Instead, it acts as a much-needed counterbalance to the more intensely dramatic scenes to come.
In the music hall scene, Bourne for once breaks his own rule of not recreating what has gone before, and presents us with a replica so accurate I can only assume he’s gone back to the 1930s in a time machine and kidnapped two thirds of real-life vaudeville act Wilson, Keppel and Betty. The comic ‘sand dance’ reproduced here may not be ballet; it is, however, re-presented not with mockery, but with warm appreciation of the model on which it is based. As with every aspect of the production as a whole, it is hugely entertaining.
Seeing this prompted me to look up the original act on YouTube, and I swear the on-stage performers are even wearing the same shoes.
A further example of this incredible attention to detail comes in the shape of the huge portrait of real-life Russian Prima Ballerina Tamara Karsavina in an early 1990s production of The Firebird, in front of which Page at one point dances. Karsavina eventually settled and taught in London, and is now recognised as one of the founders of modern British ballet. I’m sure, should she look down from the great barre in the sky, she will be greatly honoured to have been included here.
Touches such as this confirm this is no mere ballet — nor even a ballet elevated by its deep resonances. It is a perfectly-penned love letter to the art of dance itself.
It would be easy to assume that Matthew Bourne might identify fully with Lermontov’s point of view, given that he must surely pour his heart, mind, body and soul into every moment we see; however — without giving away the nature of the ending, for those unfamiliar with the story — there is for me a final teasing ambiguity. As a result, it will be not only the quality of the storytelling, but the question of the story’s ultimate meaning that will live on in my imagination.
Whether you have never seen a ballet, or are yourself a professional ballerina, you absolutely must try to catch this masterpiece. It is an experience of such stunning beauty you’ll remember it forever.
The Red Shoes is on at the Liverpool Empire until Saturday 28th February, then tours the UK until May 9th.
See www.new-adventures.net/the-red-shoes#overview for details.
