THEATRE REVIEW: Casanova - The Lowry Theatre, Salford.

We all know the story of Casanova, right? Lothario and sex addict who boasted his sexual prowess? ... Well that is only a very small part of his story, which is vividly brought to life in this new work by Ian Kelly and Kenneth Tindall for Northern Ballet.

In this very thoughtful and atmospheric production, minimalism is the order of the day. A single set for act one (Venice), and a single set for the second act (Paris), which are imaginatively and cleverly used to represent the different scene locations; whilst the "star" of the show is most definitely the lighting design (Alastair West), who manages to create both beautiful and eerie in the same setting, stark and lush, mellow and forboding. The prison scene towards the end of the first act, using haze to mask the cast and the images created was just genius. 

There is minimalism in the choreography too. Kenneth Tindall uses repetitive gestures, especially arms, hands and fingers, pointing, slanting, signing, signalling, almost ritualistic in the approach; but when the dancers are given more fluidity, they relish it and wallow in it, and the forms are beautiful. The sexuality and sensuality of the piece being not overt, but instead cleverly nuanced, making us watch harder, and take more in.

A side of ballet which is often overlooked (perhaps because it is usually so well known) is the music. However, here we have an original score written by Kerry Muzzey, and again minimlaism is most certainly evidenced in this almost cinematic scoring. Small motifs are repeated and repeated for each scene, the orchestration is pared down to sometimes nothing more than a single instrument, and we truly have to engage all our senses to see the complete picture, rather than being bombarded endlessly with lush Wagnerian chords. I loved the use of piano in the scoring, this worked really well, and the timpani in the denouement was simply thrilling.

The one part of this whole which for me at least was the weakest link in this extremely strong chain, was the costuming. Again, there was a feeling of minimalism here, but there was certainly a tendency to under-costume, as well as the costumes given often not really being true to the period in which the production is set. 

However, this is a most interesting production, being both educational as well as visually and aurally satisfying. The dancing (I am hardly qualified to talk about that!) - suffice to say that their skills and agility seemingly know no bounds! There was a surprising amount of acting too this evening - something that does often let ballets down - they forget that the whole point of a ballet is to tell a story - and this evening, that story was easily understood and the dancers showed great emotion and chemistry on stage allowing the story to be more emotive. 

All in all a beautifully realised production. 

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 18.5.22