CityMusic Columbus
INDIANOLA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 1970 WALDECK AVE.
www.citymusic columbus.org
To support the organization’s Music Opportunities Reward Everyone (M.O.R.E.) program, pianist Orlay Alonso and cellist Cora Kuyvenhoven will perform. 2 p.m. Sunday donations accepted
In its recent productions, the Columbus Dance Theatre has been in a serious state of mind.
In March, the company performed “Courage,” a dance dealing with racism and hate speech in contemporary America; the next month, the troupe premiered “Moving Words,” in which poetry by Margaret Veach (daughter of Artistic Director Tim Veach) provided inspiration to choreographers.
“‘Courage’ was a very intense production — that’s in-your-face theatre,” said Tim Veach. “‘Moving Words’ was very beautiful but also quite intellectual.”
To conclude the company’s 2016-17 season, however, Veach opted for a ballet with a decidedly lighter tone: “The Three Musketeers.” Adapted from the 1844 novel by French author Alexandre Dumas, the ballet will be performed Friday and Saturday in the Lincoln Theatre.
“I really wanted something upbeat and fun at the end of the season,” said Veach, who also served as choreographer.
The trio of the title — Aramis, Athos and Porthos — will be played by Seth Wilson, Terrence Meadows and Luke Ciminillo-Delamotte, respectively. Christian Broomhall will portray D’Artagnan, the candidate champing at the bit to join the musketeers. The ballet, like the book, unfolds in 1600s-era France.
The cast appreciates the production’s exuberant spirit.
“‘Rollicking’ is a really good word for it,” said Ciminillo-Delamotte, a 16-year-old student in the school of the Columbus Dance Theatre. “There are tons of swordfights, and it’s just got this energy to it that’s really appealing.”
Veach condensed a novel rife with incident into a twoact, 90-minute ballet.
“Working on it the other day, I said to the dancers, ‘This is the most complicated plot I’ve ever had to illustrate in movement,’” Veach said. “Really, I’m packing in the whole story.”
Villainous figures include Cardinal Richelieu (danced by Owen Burnham) and Milady de Winter (Stefani Repola), who conspire to undercut King Louis XIII (Scott Brown) and Queen Anne (Kerri Riccardi).
Veach deploys dramatic devices — such as pausing the action in mid-scene — to express the subtleties of the plot.
“There will be a moment where the people in the court are all out there, and they freeze — it’s like we go out of time,” Veach said. “We get to see the plotting of the various nefarious evil characters against Queen Anne, with Anne frozen there, and we see them skulking around her.”
In keeping with the book — which made popular the phrase “all for one and one for all” — the musketeers have camaraderie off-stage, too.
“Even in the rehearsal process, we play around,” said Broomhall, 36. “It’s very similar to what the musketeers do in the book, except we do it in a balletic way. We’re always joking around, and it’s just weird how it resembles the story.”
Ciminillo-Delamotte has known Wilson, 35, and Meadows, 21, for nearly a decade.
“Seth has been my teacher since my second year here, so I’ve known him forever,” said Ciminillo-Delamotte, who has been studying at the school since 2007. “When I first started, (Terrence) was a student also. ... The three musketeers (have) obviously known each other for a long time, and I think it’s very similar here with us three.”
Fight scenes add to the production’s action: 14 swords, originally purchased for the company’s 2016 version of “Romeo and Juliet,” are used in the show.
“The sword-fighting is always fun,” Broomhall said. “Luckily, no one’s been hurt, so that’s a good thing.”
Eighty student dancers appear in the cast. In addition to town and village scenes, the children are featured in a segment depicting a life-size chess match between Richelieu and Louis XIII.
“The younger children are the chess pieces,” Veach said. “It’s really fun and it’s also a little macabre. ... They kill the chess pieces; then the chess pieces come back to life.”
An eight-piece string ensemble will perform a new score composed by Charles Wetherbee, the former Columbus Symphony concertmaster and a current member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet. Jason Hiester will conduct.
“I couldn’t help but think of the sort of swashbuckling scores of the 1950s-era films with Errol Flynn, composers like (Erich Wolfgang) Korngold and Franz Waxman,” Wetherbee said. “When it’s the four musketeers galloping across the screen, so to speak, I wanted music that was heroic — that was epic, swashbuckling.”
Like the ballet, the score is meant to be accessible.
“This ballet is really for folks with their families,” Veach said. “People might actually walk out humming the tunes from ‘The Three Musketeers.’”