| Ashton created this 1978 male solo to the famous passage for solo flute and strings from Gluck’s opera Orphée et Euridice (1774). He had, in fact, choreographed two earlier versions (both now lost) of this musical excerpt in the 1950s – for the ballerinas Svetlana Beriosova and Carla Fracci – and made this final setting for Anthony Dowell to perform at an English National Opera gala. The piece is a sublime intermingling of the sorrowful song of Orpheus with the beatitude of the blessed spirit. Yearning and searching for Euridice, but in a state of acceptance and heavenly peace, each gesture flows seamlessly from the last, while the simplest of movements are employed to powerful effect. The work was, for a time, rarely performed – vanishing for about 30 years before Dowell revived it in 2010 for American dancer David Hallberg. He later taught it at a 2015 Ashton Rediscovered masterclass to Vadim Muntagirov (The Royal Ballet) – who gave a moving performance of the solo as part of the Royal Opera House’s first live stream during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown. |
MUSIC
Christoph Willibald Gluck
DANCERS
Anthony Dowell
FIRST PERFORMANCE
English National Opera Gala, Coliseum, London, 21 March 1978
New Stagings / Productions
Makarova and Company, 1980
STAGING
Makarova and Company; under the title Solo
DANCERS
Anthony Dowell
FIRST PERFORMANCE
Uris Theater, New York NY, 10 October 1980
Copyright © 2004 by David Vaughan. ‘Work note’ © Frederick Ashton Foundation.
This listing is part of a chronology that was originally published in Vaughan’s Frederick Ashton and His Ballets (Alfred E Knopf 1976; 2nd ed., London: Dance Books, 1999) and includes new productions added since then, and up until 2007