Colorado Ballet Hurts Financially And Audiences Suffer

Colorado Ballet's current (February 2010) production of "Beauty and the Beast" is performed most competently by that company's splendid dancers. And Domy Reiter-Soffer's choreography is adequate - not stunning, but adequate. And much of the complex staging of the enchanted forest, and of furniture that appears, moves, and disappears is done well. But - that word that invalidates all that was said before it - much of it ends there. For some reasons (maybe financial and union contracts) a skeleton orchestra sits mostly stoically idle while insipid recorded music composed by Seen-yee Lam plays - complete with tacky growls whenever the "Beast" appears, or is about to appear. In addition a lot of the staging works so poorly it adds its own loading of tawdry on top of the recorded music. A major part of the enchanted forest is foreboding vines on overhead scrims. Unfortunately the scrims are so poorly lighted they are revealed as just that - scrims and pretend vines. The superstructure of Belle's bed, is so unstable that every time she touches it one worries about collapse, and personnel supposedly moving boxes and/or furniture in invisible ways are oh-so-visible (maybe some lessons from Moses Pendleton are in order). And the ballet ends with angels and the "Goddess of the Forest," Janelle Cook, lifted high above the wedding throng on wires rendered totally visible by the lighting.

Despite all of the above, the dancing in this production is wonderful. Igor Vassine is a stoic and suffering "Father," Sharon Wehner a believably pure "Belle," and her duets with Vassine are tender, given both dancers' abilities to find character. Likewise with Alexei Tyukov's dominant "Hercules," and Wehner's consistent and oft-times subtle rejection of him. In contrast Dmitry Trubchanov's "Beast" is danced precisely and well, but he never finds the emotion so essential to that character, with even his contractions being nothing more than contractions. Maria Mosina's "Ruby" and Sayaka Karasugi's "Opal" are delightful in their trios with Wehner, as are their interactions with their suitors. Viacheslav Buchkovskiy and Andrew Skeels. Costume designs for "Wolves," "Warriors," and "Forest Creatures"are terrific, and a brief opening scene with creditors dancing as they wave invoices at Vassine is well staged.

Many, many performance companies are suffering financially. Low ticket sales are only the tip of the iceberg. At most tickets pay some 40% of the costs of staging something like Beauty and the Beast - maybe less. A more real concern is the fact that other funding sources have shrunk as the recession reduced their resources. But, Colorado Ballet still advertised "bargain" tickets at $99.00 for two. That is about $50.00 per seat, and add on $12.00 to park. For that amount maybe audiences deserve more. And maybe, just maybe something needs to be scaled back where excellence remains and costs go down. Audiences love big story-book ballets and grandiose staging, but maybe right now we/they can't afford them.

Donald K. Atwood

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