This summer's Lincoln Center Festival is tackling subjects as serious as the political situation in the Middle East, while joyfully celebrating the 50th anniversary of the debut of George Balanchine’s ballet masterpiece, Jewels, and presenting performances by the French circus collective Compagnie XY.
The politically-oriented plays include Yitzhak Rabin: Chronicle of an Assassination, which will be performed on July 19 and was directed by Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai, who has made two movies on Rabin; in the play, two Israeli women read from the memoirs of Rabin’s widow, Leah Rabin, in English. To the End of the Land, from the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv and Ha’Bima National Theatre of Israel, is based on a novel by David Grossman about three teenagers who meet in a hospital during the Six Day War and reunite decades later, when the son of one of them volunteers to go to the Lebanese front. This will be performed July 24 to 27 in Hebrew with English supertitles.
The third play, While I Was Waiting, by Syrian playwright Mohammed Al Attar, looks at the aftermath of political upheaval in Damascus through the eyes of the family of a young man, Taim, who falls into a coma after being brutally beaten by unknown attackers. Throughout the play, Taim can speak only to the audience, not to the other characters. This will be performed July 19 to 22 in Arabic with English supertitles.
“One thing that has emerged as a theme this year—because the world has certainly changed since the 2016 festival—is that our international festival has become about borders and specifically about crossing them,” said festival director Nigel Redden.
“The point of the festival has always been to provide perspectives that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. Thought-provoking plays such as To the End of the Land, Yitzhak Rabin: Chronicle of an Assassination and While I Was Waiting force the audience to think about how it would deal with the unimaginable, the things life throws at us,” he added.
On a celebratory note, three of the world’s leading ballet companies—the Bolshoi Ballet, New York City Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet—will share the stage of the David H. Koch Theater, where Jewels was first performed, for five historic performances July 20 to 23.
Balanchine’s created Jewels for the New York City Ballet in 1967; it is today considered a pivotal masterpiece of 20th-century dance, a beloved and essential staple of the repertory. The first three-act, plotless ballet, Jewels was inspired by precious gems—emeralds, rubies, and diamonds—each showcasing a different international style of ballet. Emeralds, with music by Fauré, represents the French style and evokes dreamy romanticism; Rubies, with music by Stravinsky, conjures the Jazz Age in America with its wit, energy, and exuberance; and Diamonds, with music by Tchaikovsky, epitomizes the grandeur of the Russian style.
For the festival performances, Jewels will be performed with sets from the current NYCB production by Peter Harvey, lighting by NYCB’s resident lighting director Mark Stanley, and costumes from each company’s current production, with the Bolshoi Ballet wearing costumes by Elena Zaitseva, NYCB wearing Karinska’s original costume designs, and the Paris Opera Ballet wearing costumes by Christian Lacroix.
From July 26 through 30, the Bolshoi also will perform the U.S. premiere of The Taming of the Shrew by French choreographer and director of Ballets de Monte-Carlo Jean-Christophe Maillot. This full-evening ballet in two acts premiered in Moscow in 2014 and is based on the Shakespeare comedy, with music from film scores by Dimtri Shostakovich.
The performances of Il N’est Pas Encore Minuit by 22 acrobats of French circus collective Compagnie XY, taking place July 19 through 22, will reflect on ways in which humanity deals with instability and imbalance. The festival describes what the acrobats will do as “daredevil feats without safety nets (that) combine with poetic sensibility.”
Redden, who is retiring from his post at the festival after almost 20 years, said his legacy would be “a series oif memories about different events that might not have happened otherwise.”
“In some ways I think we in New York don’t necessarily appreciate how important New York—the audiences, critics—is outside the country. We mean a lot. The festival has helped maintained its significance,” he added, pointing to recent comments by the grand master of the Kanze School of Noh, which performed at the 2016 festival.
The grand master said, “Last year we were invited to appear in New York City by the Lincoln Center Festival, as the first Noh troupe to receive this honor. We performed, among other plays, Okina and Sumidagawa. We purposely did not offer a complete translation of Okina, only a brief explanation. But I sensed that the audiences felt its deep spirituality and beauty. And in the case of Sumidagawa, digital supertitles enabled us to win their sympathy. We had six performances in five days, and were rewarded in the end with stormy standing ovations. I have performed often in foreign countries, but never experienced such passionate appreciation. We all felt that Noh had breached the language barrier. Listening to that long applause, we were all overcome with deep emotion. For 700 years, Noh has been paring away the superficial, sublimating the world of emotions and seeking its abstraction. In New York we were taught once again that this essential aspect of Noh has the power to penetrate people's hearts, across all national, religious and cultural boundaries."
Redden will continue as general director of the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C., where he has worked, except for a hiatus in the 1990’s, since 1986.
