Royal opera House: A winter’s Tale.

Royal Opera House performance: A winter’s tale.

I’ve never been to a ballet. I may have gone to some abbreviation in school when I was too young for it. I doubt it. I remember we went to see Desmond Recorded, which, given how once in a lifetime that was, wins the culture wars.
But this was the time, place and good fortune. I want to expand, yes.

I think it’s hard to spoil the story of A Winter’s Tale, given how old it is, if you want to know, but suffice it to say, the idea of taking Shakespeare and making it a nonverbal story may seem like releasing an album of music by the Mona Lisa. I stress not inspired or based on, but literally by. It was a grand spectacle that really brought me into a tale and a new-found joy of an art form I have shied from for many years.

With that, I’ll relate what I saw as best I can with my limited ballet skills.

Broken into three acts, A Winter’s Tale does fall into some classic Shakespearean tropes: two frenemy kings fall out and avoid their commitments. One falling into such irrational jealousy leads to the destruction of his own family. His daughter-to-be is taken and absconded to a land far away. As with classic tropes of Shakespeare, this is all about innuendo and misunderstandings escalating to hysterical delights, but not in comic form. As the fierce patterns are allied, love is renewed, and friendship is restored. Nobility finds itself naturally, and the kingdoms are reunited through the prince and princess slumming it and responding to each other’s noble kinship. Yeah…good question. I find that icky, too.

But this is a play—of a time—modernised through art. I realised how much comes from music, the body’s form, and the staging’s beauty. 

The first act is the heaviest going; it’s a staccato kingdom of expressionism and repression. Our green king moves within an id-infested turmoil, part Slytherin and part Caligaris Cesare, not accountable to anyone but his shadow ascendant. It’s a gothic Burtonesque land of stories and darkness, and it does draw you in

Our second act of residence of sensuality and colour abound, though. This is the spring. The passion may be erratic, but their movements are enthused with youth, so one can not help but plead for our young lovers against the orange king.

And this third act. After two intervals. And for many lots of wine. It is an overture to the rest. In one sitting, it may seem lopsided that the first act is the weightiest, and the sudden contrast can be pretty dizzying, but as a whole, it adds a dreamlike ephemeral quality that can only be shown on the stage. And the heavy lifting. I can’t stress this: the sheer physicality of movement and body is almost a bridge from which dialogue would have detracted.

Rich, sumptuous and a fusion of mediums make me want to enjoy more like this.

We often go to the cinema to escape, but there is a value to be adorned for being infused. These ROH forms, with their backstory and context, left me invigorated for more. So be fleetfoot and firmly stride against your concerns and anxieties. I know I had to embrace ballet. You won’t regret it.