From Opus Arte: The Royal Ballet in Frederick Ashton’s La fille mal gardée
Posted by Kelly in New Releases
On July 29, Opus Arte releases La fille mal gardée, with music composed by Ferdinand Hérold (arranged by John Lanchbery) and choreography by Frederick Ashton, recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in February of 2005. It has been said that La fille mal gardée was the first ballet about regular people in everyday situations, and although its first performance occurred at the dawn of the French Revolution, there is no evidence that proves that its original choreographer meant the ballet as revolutionary propaganda. The simple story of a forbidden village love affair, it is without question that that the ballet is intended as an unpretentious illustration that true love conquers all.
La fille mal gardée was first performed in 1789 at the Grand Théâtre in Bordeaux and was choreographed by Jean Dauberval. Frederick Ashton’s production of the ballet premiered at the Royal Opera House on January 28, 1960, and unlike many of the other ballets that Ashton had choreographed in the 1950’s, it became an immediate classic. It was famous Russian ballerina Tamara Karsavina who convinced Ashton to create his own version of Hérold’s ballet. Karsavina showed Ashton the mimes that she had learned as a child at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. These passages dated back to the production staged by French Choreographer Marius Petipa in 1885, and some markings in original choreographer Dauberval’s score suggest that some of them may go back to 1789.
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