Laura Morera, Nehemiah Kish and Edward Watson rehearse Kenneth MacMillan's Song of the Earth with Monica Mason and Grant Coyle.
Kenneth MacMillan first heard Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in 1958. He immediately fell in love with Mahler's elegiac masterpiece and in 1959 asked if he could use the piece in a new commission for The Royal Ballet. But the ROH Board refused, concerned that such a major musical work was not suitable accompaniment for ballet. It wasn't until 1965 that MacMillan was able to create his Song of the Earth, for Stuttgart Ballet on the invitation of his friend John Cranko. The ballet was instantly acclaimed, recognized as MacMillan's arrival into full maturity as a choreographer. The Royal Ballet took the piece into their repertory only six months after its Stuttgart premiere.
MacMillan introduced a narrative thread to the piece's six movements, drawing on imagery from Hans Bethge's free translation of the six T'ang-dynasty poems that Mahler used. Marcia Haydée created the role of the woman, a figure of loneliness isolated from the movements of the corps de ballet around her. The man was created by Ray Barra, and the Messenger of Death by Egon Madsen, then only 23 years old. In MacMillan's hands Death becomes not a figure of evil but a gentle, ever-present companion. Earthbound, non-classical movements morph seamlessly into modernist curves in a work of breathtaking beauty and power.
Kenneth MacMillan first heard Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in 1958. He immediately fell in love with Mahler's elegiac masterpiece and in 1959 asked if he could use the piece in a new commission for The Royal Ballet. But the ROH Board refused, concerned that such a major musical work was not suitable accompaniment for ballet. It wasn't until 1965 that MacMillan was able to create his Song of the Earth, for Stuttgart Ballet on the invitation of his friend John Cranko. The ballet was instantly acclaimed, recognized as MacMillan's arrival into full maturity as a choreographer. The Royal Ballet took the piece into their repertory only six months after its Stuttgart premiere.
MacMillan introduced a narrative thread to the piece's six movements, drawing on imagery from Hans Bethge's free translation of the six T'ang-dynasty poems that Mahler used. Marcia Haydée created the role of the woman, a figure of loneliness isolated from the movements of the corps de ballet around her. The man was created by Ray Barra, and the Messenger of Death by Egon Madsen, then only 23 years old. In MacMillan's hands Death becomes not a figure of evil but a gentle, ever-present companion. Earthbound, non-classical movements morph seamlessly into modernist curves in a work of breathtaking beauty and power.
