Orchestra-Ballet's "Pulcinella' (2nd review)

Jorma Elo faced no small task in re-choreographing Stravinsky's Pulcinella for the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. When it was first presented in 1920, the Ballets Russes performed Leonide Massine's choreography in costumes designed by Picasso. That staging also repurposed older material, with Stravinsky fashioning his music from older Italian works, and the libretto drawing on a famous 17th-Century commedia dell'arte character.

And to stage a world premiere on the opening night of this first major arts festival— in collaboration with the Philadelphia Orchestra, to boot— only upped the stakes.

Elo chose ten wonderfully paired dancers from all ranks of the Pennsylvania Ballet. The piece opens with the five men and five women arranged in a V, like a flock of birds, pointing toward the front of the stage. Costume designer Martha Chamberlain donned them all in white but deviated from the commedia tradition of masks.

This omission didn't dilute Elo's Pulcinella narrative, but it diffused the understanding of a story originally filled with named characters, leaving Francis Veyette's Pulcinella and Chamberlain's Pimpinella as the only recognizable pair.

The lack of setting in Mikki Kunttu's stage design further detracted from the story. Instead of presenting a group of young villagers seeking romance, this Pulcinella plays on a bare stage in front of the seated orchestra. For all but a few dancers, this arrangement muted their ability to act their assigned roles.

When wind-up dolls flirt

Although Elo eliminated the more character-driven elements and intrigue, his playful choreography didn't deviate from Pulcinella's general romantic theme. He broke the 18 movements into segments of trios, quartets and sextets, rounded out with a few solo, paired and ensemble pieces.

However, the choreography started choppy and over-articulated, with seemingly little regard to context. Chamberlain taps at Veyette's knees to direct him step by step across the stage; he kneels before her later and uses an exaggerated motion to turn her foot. Elo means it as flirting—and, to be sure, I have poked at girls I find attractive (and sometimes still do). But I don't imitate the windup dolls from Coppelia while doing it.

Jealous girls

The choreography achieves this flirtatious effect much better in a later scene, where Veyette turns his back to the audience and seats Caralin Curcio and Amy Aldridge on each knee. He turns his head this way and that as the pair poke at him to gain his undivided attention. Here, Curcio and Aldridge finally become the "jealous girls" of the original libretto.

Some gorgeous images and movements filter into Elo's dramatization. Veyette drags Chamberlain up off the floor into a standing arabesque; later, in the middle of a fight, she leaps into his arms and he catches her to the perfectly timed harsh note of a bassoon. But much of the jerky movement felt discordant.

Puppets, like Pulcinella

As the narrative progresses, Elo's choreography gradually changes to reveal his intent. The choppy gestures of early love begin to coalesce into fluid, natural movements, though still filled with turbulence, humor and heartache. Veyette effectively renders his frustration, spinning his arms in a windmill as he twists his body across the stage. Later, Chamberlain is the picture of sadness when she's left behind by a laughing crowd.

At this point Elo no longer dangles the dancers across the stage like marionettes, but this shift reveals that his initial choreography conceived them as such. Earlier, the dancers acted like the clowns of the title. They pulled at and felt pulled by one another under the tugs of each heart's strings, thrown across the stage in bouts of jealousy and turned like windmills in frustration that only subside long enough to placate with a minor bliss.

Pulcinella and Pimpinella ultimately resolve their tortured affair in a processional (in the original, a wedding). Then they take laughter and pity on the next crop of young lovers who tread down the same path. In its culmination, Elo's Pulcinella appeared at once familiar and original, and I marveled that he could structure its story so cunningly.

Two brief notes:

Audience members who lingered at the Kimmel for an hour after the end of Pulcinella could join the $1,000-a-plate patrons for a treat provided by Grounded Aerial Dance Theater. During a 12-minute piece, six of this company's aerialists scaled up and down and back-flipped across the exterior of Verizon Hall's wood-empanelled exterior, enacting street scenes of romance while dressed in 1920s attire. These performers provided a soaring start to the Festival.

Pulcinella marked the penultimate performance of the Pennsylvania Ballet's principal dancer, Martha Chamberlain, who will retire after this Sunday's matinee of Balanchine's Who Cares? Her most recent performances— minor roles in Swan Lake and the female lead in Pulcinella— displayed her characteristic delicacy, seemingly effortless execution and incredible ability to inhabit a role. Chamberlain leaves, as many performers no doubt wish, at the pinnacle of her powers after a 21-year career with the company. I'm deeply saddened to see her depart.♦


To read a musical critique of Pulcinella by Peter Burwasser, click here.
To read another comment on Pulcinella Alive by Jonathan Stein, click here.