S.F. BALLET'S NEW 'RAKU' SHAKES UP OPERA HOUSE
             Nerve-Wracking Tragedy, Drawn from Japanese Novel 
<>                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Feb. 6-13, 2011
                                                                  Vol. 13, No. 63
        A powerful tragedy out of Old Japan gained a rousing reception at a memorable San Francisco Ballet world premiere Feb. 3.
          Bolstered by a bracing new score by an unsung SFB pit musician, the story ballet “RakU” (sic) is a stunning, gut-wrenching piece of work that once again puts Choreographer Yuri Possokhov on the map as a highly imaginative creative artist. The collaborative elements---cast, sets, projections, costumes, music---interacted so expertly, in hand-in-glove fashion, you’d think the ballet had been around and taken through numerous reprises and revisions.
          The plot comes from a novel by Yukio Mishima, “Temple of the Gold Pavilion,” based in part on the historical burning of Kyoto’s Golden Temple in 1950. A samurai and his princess, deeply in love, are faced with his taking on the sword and departing for battle in heroic vintage-Japan days. That gives an aperture for a repulsive, snake-like monk to invade and assault her, leaving her half-dead and disheveled. He turns arsonist and burns down the temple while a funereal march plays.
          Possokhov alternates between ritual formality and all the contortions of energized, and often violent, modern ballet. The samurai’s four guards move in quasi-military formation, and all are into rituals suggesting Kurosawa historical films.
          Once again, the central figure is the ballerina in a dual role, dancing with the lover, and then with the rapist-monk finishing, like Giselle, half-crazed, with hair undone. The infinitely flexible Yuan Yuan Tan played it opening night, though her stiff-upper-lip role never demanded the broad emotional latitude of the former one. With the samurai (Damian Smith), she strives toward images of beauty on pointe; with the villain (Pascal Molat), she is twisted, contorted, tortured.   The stage ends up in flames.
          The three conjured up powerful scenes, even though drama is hardly the mainstay of ballet training.
          The emotion is masterfully underlined by the 35-minute symphonic score by the unsung bass player Shinji Eshima, who has toiled anonymously in the ballet pit for three decades. The Japanese elements are conveyed by gestures rather than by Japanese instruments. Eshima’s skilled score, forcefully underlying the action, is dark, brooding, and often heavily scored, of the sort sometimes used in movies. It is fast and rhythmic, with drumming recurring.  The drama is palpable.
          The production too is very effective, with the box towers of Alexander Nichols serving as the screen for projected moving images of old Kyoto temples.  It’s a work I want to see two or three times over. Since the SFB steadfastly has eliminated all the Michael Smuin works  of three decades ago, including his superb “Shinju” drama, “RakU” is a very effective addition to the SFB repertory, Japanese branch, certainly far more worthy than the tired and stiff Balanchine “Bugaku” wheeled out from time to time.
          The rest of the program was all-white, as pristine and perfect as a calm but giant snowfall. Frederick Ashton’s oldie “Symphonic Variations” showed a very formal approach to classical ballet, marred by the initial uneasiness of the opening-night leads. Faring better was Balanchine’s large-scale marvel using some 36 corps dancers, “Symphony in C,” with four well-chosen leading ladies: Vanessa Zahorian, Sofiane Sylve, Frances Chung and Sarah van Patten, and partners to match.
          Sitting out front on Feb. 3 was SFB balletmaster Betsy Erickson, whose total mastery of the latter's slow movement while dancing leading roles with American Ballet Theatre in the 1970s remains indelibly etched in my brain.
          As for composer Eshima, you can see him regularly playing his contrabass season-long in the pit, without fanfare (But he did get the night off for the “RakU” opening). Clearly he had risen to the occasion in a unique way and achieved a triumph that most blowhards can only dream about, by dint of hard work.
          “RakU” and other repertory, Program Two of the S.F. Ballet, through Feb. 11 at the Opera House, S.F. Casts rotate. For info: (415)  865-2000, or go online.
<>        ©Paul Hertelendy 2011
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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