Word: capricci
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Dates: during 1983-1983
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...Frederick Ashton has done it again. In his new work, Varii Capricci, given its world premiere last week in New York City by London's Royal Ballet, Britain's leading choreographer, 78, has spun a fragile comic fable of misdirected lust, a brief encounter that demonstrates Ashton's continuing mastery of psychologically revealing nuance, even when the subject is a mere wisp. Set to a spunky scare by the late Sir William Walton and played out against a disarmingly evocative set by Artist David Hockney, Varii Capricci also revives one of ballet's most brilliant partnerships...
...Varii Capricci finds both soloists in splendid form, but paradoxically playing against type; Ashton seems to have in mind a parody not only of his own romantic aesthetic but also of the origin of the fabled partnership as well. Here is the regal Sibley, the gossamer Titania of The Dream, reduced to a semislattern with one thing on her mind. Here is the princely Dowell, once her dashing Oberon, as an even more unsatisfying lover, a sexually indeterminate gigolo with Saturday-night fever. At the end of the first, teasingly erotic pas de deux, Dowell effortlessly lifts Sibley aloft...
...Ashton's Capricci is a lighthearted, winking jape, it is also a winning tribute to a major figure in British music. Just before his death at his villa on the Italian island of Ischia (the inspiration for Hockney's set), Walton had put the finishing touches to his score. The music is carefully crafted and sparklingly orchestrated with sprinkles of harp, celesta and xylophone-qualities that are reflected in Sir Frederick's deft choreography. Like his great colleague George Balanchine, Ashton has an unerring ability to match movement with sound in a way that slights neither, creating...
...romantic concertos for violin, viola and cello. A slow, painstaking composer who once complained, "A lot of the time music irritates me to madness, especially my own," he nonetheless wrote up to the end; a few days before his death he completed the score for the ballet Varii Capricci, which will premiere in New York City next month...
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