The Prince of the Pagodas

Birmingham Royal Ballet: Momoko Hirata as Princess Belle Sakura and Joseph Caley as The Salamander Prince; photo: Bill Cooper

MUSIC Benjamin Britten
DESIGNS Rae Smith
LIGHTING Peter Teigen

Some ballet scores seem to have a fatal allure for choreographers, attracting the greatest names but never resulting in ‘definitive’ versions. Stravinsky’s Le Baiser de la fée has been choreographed by Nijinska, Balanchine (twice), Ashton, MacMillan (twice), and John Neumeier, plus many others no doubt, but still proves as elusive as ever.

The Prince of the Pagodas too, since its disappointing premiere in Cranko’s original choreography has attracted numerous choreographers simply because of its musical qualities, musical qualities which, it has to be said, have never greatly appealed to a broad audience. My criticism of the piece is that unlike most other ‘classic’ ballets in the repertory, there is no romance or love interest at its heart, nothing that engages the emotions nearly as much as Britten dazzles the mind and the senses.

My solution in this production made for the National Ballet of Japan, was to make the main protagonists brother and sister, thereby depicting a different kind of loving, but not romantic relationship. The saving of the Prince transformed into a Salamander by his sister Princess Sakura, rescues the Emperor, their father, from madness and restores the Imperial family.

This version was hugely influenced by ukiyo-e artist Kuniyoshi Utagawa and is subtitled, ‘… a dream of Japan’.