A BALLET FAR FROM BORING: MOZART AND SALIERI
There is huge buzz around Marc Goldberg’s Mozart and Salieri –a new ballet in two acts – which starts Cape Town City Ballet’s 2018 season at Artscape. Choreographer Marc Goldberg talks to Robyn Cohen about the project
WITH lavish costumes and visuals, we are in for an epic-scale ballet. The ballet has been made possible with production funding by Pieter Toerien. When Toerien funded Goldberg’s ballet, The Vortex, at Theatre on the Bay, he also kept his name out of the limelight.
Those of us who saw The Vortex – a sensual and electrifying ballet adaptation of Noël Coward’s play – know that we can expect Mozart and Salieri to confound our perceptions of ballet.
Goldberg does not do “boring”. Cape Town City Ballet is in fine form – as evidenced from its breathtaking double bill at Maynardville which finished this week.
Mozart and Salieri is an adaption of Peter Shaffer’s famous play, Amadeus – foregrounding the apparent rivalry between Mozart and court composer Antonio Salieri.
Goldberg has adapted Mozart and Salieri – the drama by Alexander Pushkin – written in 1830 and published in 1832. Schaffer, in writing Amadeus, was inspired by Pushkin’s play. In Goldberg’s ballet there are three intertwining narratives: the apparent rivalry between Mozart and Salieri – as represented in Amadeus; the relationship between Mozart and his wife Constanze and his creativity. By the time Mozart died at 35, he created extraordinary work.
Did Cape Town City Ballet commission Mozart and Salieri or was it your idea?
“It was my idea. After speaking to Mr Toerien a few years ago, I went to Elizabeth Triegaardt (of Cape Town City Ballet) with the concept and presented the funding. I’ve been wanting to shake up the ballet company’s repertoire, so I am happy to have received the opportunity. Mr Toerien has no artistic input. I often have no contact with him while in the creation process.
He is passionate about theatre and art and I am indebted to him for allowing me to cut my teeth, so to speak, on large, full-scale productions.
I am determined to present levels of dance productions that I feel a modern audience deserve. There’s nothing tired, stodgy, recycled or prissy in the dance that I present. I hope that a level of theatrical experience, design and sophistication will become the expectation on a production with my name on it. Ballet is still relevant. It can take on many forms. The only real limitations to ballet and its possibilities nowadays is imagination or lack thereof.”
There are no sets. You use 3D mapped projection. Moving images are beamed on to screens. It is a ballet, so there is no text but the viewer gets the story from the visuals, which features the Schonbrunn palace (in Vienna) and other locations which defined Mozart’s world. Can you talk about the visuals?
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a game-changer. I’ve seen use of projection here (in South Africa) but anyone can project an image. What makes this so important is that the sets are 3D constructions. They move.
“We can move in them and they are timed musically. It’s very time consuming and expensive to generate. I’m very excited to see the response. There’s little that I can say to prepare you for the experience.”
The music is an eclectic mix and not easy to orchestrate live. Are you using pre-recorded music?
“I’ve used everything from piano concertos to operas and choral works to generate what could be called a soundtrack to this adaptation.”
Tickets are R150-R270. Book at www.computicket.com or Artscape at 021 421 7695. For your chance to win one of three double sets of tickets, check out the Freebies column in ToTT. The ballet is at Artscape, Wednesday at 7.30pm; Saturday, February 10 at 2pm and 7.30pm; Sunday, February 11 at 3pm; Wednesday, February 14 7.30pm and Saturday, February 17 at 2pm and 7.30pm.