A feast for the eyes

THE ENGLISH NATIONAL Ballet (ENB) wrapped up its three-week Asia tour recently at the Esplanade Theatre with “Le Corsaire”, having already performed “Swan Lake” and “Coppelia” in three Chinese cities. The Durian’s decision to present a lesser-known work earned praise in its own right, notwithstanding the fact that this new version of “Le Corsaire” by Anna Marie-Holmes was the first work commissioned by Spanish ballerina Tamara Rojo when she took the helm of the company two years ago.
Rojo also needed to fill in as Medora on Saturday evening after the scheduled Alina Cojocaru pulled out for personal reasons. Despite having danced the previous evening, Rojo gave a sparkling performance, as evidenced by the jubilant cheers from cast members and rapturous applause from the audience when the curtain came down.
Showing no signs of exhaustion or stress, her Medora flew smoothly and effortlessly from one scene to another in much the same way as the ballet itself. Another star of the evening was Japanese Shiori Kase whose Gulnare shone bright in all her scenes. With the bar set high by the women, the male leads were up to it, showing another strength of this company. The most captivating was Cesar Corrales in the role of Ali, slave to Isaac Hernandez’s arresting Conrad in his adventure-filled journey to save the love of his life.
The whole performance showed that the company puts as much emphasis on storytelling and characterisation as ballet skills. In the end, I’m sure I’m wasn’t alone in feeling we all had more fun at this classical ballet inspired by Lord Byron’s poem than we’d expected.
The production’s visual feast, which successfully took the audience to the Ottoman Empire, was enhanced by set and costume designer Bob Ringwood who appropriately translated his experience in Hollywood to this ballet stage. Nicely filling the large proscenium frame, his set designs showed fine details and at the same time created dimension while allowing ample space for the dancers and his choices of colours for the costumes to stand out. His deft co-ordination with lighting designer Neil Austin was evident in the pirate ship’s sailing and wrecking scenes as they made smart use of scrim and projection in creating a very realistic image.
The performance was tunefully backed up by the Singapore Lyric Opera Orchestra, under the baton of conductor Gavin Sutherland, and the audience both approved of and took pride in this collaboration.
With the year-round “da:ns series”, the Esplanade has been able to present dance performances from around the globe outside of its annual “da:ns festival” in October. Five performances of “Le Corsaire” proved there’s a significant number of ballet fans in the island state, though the fact that none of the performances was sold out would seem to indicate that audiences still prefer familiar tales like “Swan Lake”.
And since ENB doesn’t travel around here that often, asking them to do another modern programme alongside this classic might better show us their full range.
 BABYMIME
AT THE DURIAN
 n The Thai pantomime trio Babymime joins an international roster performing artists like New Zealand’s Sam Wills and Spain’s Clownic at the Esplanade’s annual “Flipside: The Lighter Side of the Arts” from tomorrow to Sunday. Find out more at www.Esplanade.com/Flipside.