2015 will be an auspicious year for Birmingham Royal Ballet as it prepares to honour two important anniversaries: the 25th year of the company’s re-birth and move from Sadler’s Wells to Birmingham and David Bintley’s 20th anniversary as Director.
In honour of this dual birthday, from 19 to 21 March the company will present at the London Coliseum a revival of Bintley's 1995 large-scale production Carmina burana, the first piece he made for the company, and Serenade, the 1934 piece made for students of the School of American Ballet by one of Bintley’s personal heroes, George Balanchine.
Bintley’s choreography for Carmina burana is inspired by the satirical writings of medieval priests and underpinned by Carl Orff’s score. The Royal Ballet Sinfonia and English National Opera Chorus will perform along with the company. The production hasn’t been seen in the capital since its première at the Royal Opera House in 1996.
“I’d been thinking about Carmina burana ever since I heard the music when I was 17,” said David Bintley.
“When we were coming up to my opening night with Birmingham Royal Ballet, I didn’t want to just creep in and do something nice and pretty. I wanted to do something that was a landmark; I was the boss so I allowed myself to have a choir which was a first.
"I wanted to get everybody in the company onstage, to present something really big and ambitious and to get everyone involved in something really daring. Carmina burana was born.”
“The nice thing about the Coliseum performances is that we have room for the full orchestra and choir. I’m very excited about bringing Carmina burana to the Coliseum in March—the public love it and it’s one of the most popular pieces that we do. In a sense it has become a modern signature piece.”
Serenade was Balanchine’s first ballet to be performed in America and was inspired by Tchaikovsky’s 1880 Serenade for Strings.
“Serenade has got to be one of everyone’s Desert Island ballets,” said Bintley. “It’s exquisite, which is not a word I use very often. I first saw a film of it done by New York City Ballet for whom it’s virtually a signature piece. Balanchine made it in the 1930s when there were virtually no men dancing so it’s predominantly a ballet for women.
“In a sense coming from the English tradition, which is far more rooted in theatre, narrative and theme work, I like Balanchine’s work because it’s almost the opposite,” continued Bintley.
“He doesn’t really do things like us; he favours pure dance and that’s why I like his work. He’s one of the few people with an enormous body of work, most of which is a classical choreographer’s response to a wide variety of music.
"There’s virtually nobody who has achieved that, and that’s down to his tremendous invention. Most of his ballets were one act ballets so they’re very useful to Birmingham Royal Ballet because they’re classical.
"They also keep us tuned as dancers if we’ve got work which is more narrative, so Balanchine is never far from our repertoire. He’s intensely musical as well, which is beautiful.”