| Ashton’s impetus for creating Daphnis and Chloe was, not unusually for him, its score—in this case Ravel’s sensuous ‘choreographic symphony’ of the same name, originally commissioned for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes with choreography by Fokine. Ashton said that he found this music ‘so wonderful and so beautiful and so overwhelming sometimes that I felt that it was like waves that were going to submerge me’, but relished the challenge it presented. The resulting pastoral romance, which draws together classical ballet with elements from Greek folk dance and influences including Anna Pavlova, Isadora Duncan and Vaslav Nijinsky, shows a real maturity in its response to the music, and its portrayal of love and sexuality. |
MUSIC
Maurice Ravel (ballet, 1909 – 1912)
SCENERY & COSTUMES
Curtain by John Craxton
DANCERS
Chlöe, a shepherdess: Margot Fonteyn; Daphnis, a goat-herd: Michael Somes; Lykanion, a young married woman from the town: Violetta Elvin; Dorkon, a herdsman: John Field; Bryaxis, a pirate chief: Alexander Grant; Pan: Alfred Rodrigues; Nymphs of Pan: Rosemary Lindsay, Gillian Lynne, Julia Farron; Shepherdesses, Shepherds, Pirates, Pirate Women, Dryads*, Fauns*: corps de ballet
*omitted from 4 July 1951
FIRST PERFORMANCE
Sadler’s Wells Ballet, Royal Opera House, London, 3 April 1951
New Stagings / Productions
Royal Ballet, 1994
NEW PRODUCTION
Royal Ballet
SCENERY & COSTUMES
Martyn Bainbridge
DANCERS
Chlöe: Trinidad Sevillano; Daphnis: Stuart Casssidy; Lykanion: Benazir Hussein; Dorkon: Adam Cooper; Bryaxis: Matthew Hart
FIRST PERFORMANCE
Royal Opera House, London, 10 November 1994
Royal Ballet, 2004
NEW PRODUCTION
Royal Ballet
SCENERY & COSTUMES
Curtain by John Craxton
DANCERS
Chlöe: Jaimie Tapper; Daphnis: Federico Bonelli; Lykanion: Marianela Nuñez; Dorkon: Thiago Soares; Bryaxis: Bennet Gartside
FIRST PERFORMANCE
Royal Opera House, London, 8 May 2004
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