Faust in Pilsen

Ballet of the J. K. Tyl Theatre in Pilsen prepared another premiere of a dance performance this November. Company director Jiří Pokorný directed and choreographed his new piece to the music of Charles Gounod’s opera Faust. We will have to wait and see if the piece survives the test of time but there are some questions about its quality and shortcomings.

Faust is a topic seeded in mysticism, drama and complicated human relations. Although generally considered a legend, it is not a fairytale but rather a story of tragic impotence, solitude, temptation and lack of faith in human emotions and love. Jiří Pokorný’s take on Faust is typically provincial in its narration both in choreography and stage design. He adds nothing to the well-known legend and tells it by simple transcription of the traditional story: Faust’s yearning for absolute happiness, his meeting with common people and their everyday concerns, his meeting with Marguerite and true love, the devil’ temptation, the Walpurgis Night, Faust’s killing of Marguerite’s brother, her insanity and Faust’s end.

Gounod’s music does not lend itself to much experiment and is not very suitable for dance, which occasionally shows in clashes between dramatic action and music climaxes and often in a lack of fluidity and inventiveness of movement in solo sequences, too. But this does not seem to hinder the dancers in their interpretation of the roles.

The Plzeň ballet company has excellent dancers and each of its members has the potential to be a soloist. The author’s work with the ensemble is a positive achievement in terms of choreography: the movement has a nice flow, the company is in synch and the canons (a favourite device of the author) are exact. Principal dancers of the cast - Miroslav Hradil (Faust) and Zuzana Hradilová (Marguerite) – have excellent technique but unfortunately their artistic expression is too sugary. Petr Hos’s Valetin is much more natural while maintaining perfect dance expression. Moreover, both Marguerite and Faust were not given the grand solos they deserve – Faust right at the beginning and Marguerite in the scenes of despair over her unhappy love. At the moments when they should have the entire stage to themselves the scene is full of other characters uselessly illustrating things that should be expressed through dance alone. This is not the only example of the director and choreographer apparently underestimating either the ability of his dancers to deal with the high drama or the intelligence of the audience to understand disappointment and torment expressed through dance. On the other hand, solo parts during the Walpurgis Night scene do nothing for the storytelling but still seem relevant. The choreographer takes full advantage of the qualities of his young soloists here, especially Sergej Gherciu who shines in his virtuoso variation.

The introduction of a new character – the female Méphistophéla – is interesting but in the interpretation of Jarmila Dycková she fails to achieve her full potential. She is not too keen in her seduction of Faust and her main role seems to be a sister and companion to Méphistophélès (Richard Ševčík). It is hard to tell whether the devil’s duality in this form was a fortunate choice. There are a few other symbolic elements in the choreography including a couple of “angels of love” (Michaela Musilová, Marek Kašparovský) whose role is interesting but, once again, not sufficiently developed.

The latest premiere in Plzeň proves again that the company has a very high dance potential  but at the same time points to certain problems and shortcomings in the directorial abilities of the ballet director. He has already succeeded in rejuvenating his company, now it is time to think about building a new, young creative team (director, art director, choreographer) that could use the traditional form, well suited for a provincial theatre, and give it a deeper meaning and a new dimension. Epic ballet productions are an ideal vehicle for such efforts. The company should rely less on spectacle, be it in dance, stage design or costumes, and instead focus on analysis of human behaviour, motivation and human souls. After all, dance and especially ballet is a mirror to the soul, not a mere reflection of physical processes.