C’EST LA VIE
Whatever happened to singer Martha Wainwright’s promised ballet about Edith Piaf?
“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” the White Queen instructs the earnest young Alice in one of Lewis Carroll’s most inspired bits of witty lunacy.
Alice is on my mind this week, and the minds of many Toronto dance lovers, because on Saturday, the National Ballet of Canada is bringing back Christopher Wheeldon’s hugely enjoyable full-length ballet, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for a two-week run.
But I recently discovered that one of the impossible things I happily believed before breakfast turns out to be, well, impossible. And not entirely by coincidence, it involves both Wheeldon — currently one of the hottest names in the performing arts on both sides of the Atlantic — and the National Ballet of Canada.
The other day I called Jorn Weisbrodt, artistic director of the Luminato Festival, to ask whether it’s true that plans have been scrapped for a new ballet about the legendary singer Edith Piaf, created by Wheeldon with vocals by Martha Wainwright.
“I really can’t comment on something that we never announced in the first place,” said Weisbrodt, which made me feel as if I were seated at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, having it explained to me that even if I hadn’t had any tea, I could have more tea — but I couldn’t possibly have less tea.
Now for the flashback. Martha Wainwright, who sang at Massey Hall for Luminato’s roof-raising 2012 tribute to her late mother, Kate McGarrigle, said during an interview on Global TV that she planned to return to Luminato in a fulllength ballet about Piaf. Wainwright had already reincarnated the chanteuse known as the Little Sparrow on stage and in recordings. The choreographer, she added, would be Wheeldon — with whom she had collaborated on other projects.
I reported that exciting development in the Star. Here’s what I wrote two years ago: “Nothing has been announced but wouldn’t it be wonderful if at a future festival the National Ballet of Canada and Luminato could collaborate and copresent the world premiere of Piaf?”
Since then, Wheeldon has become one of the hottest names in showbiz. His Alice has proved a huge boxoffice winner for both co-producers, the Royal Ballet in London and the National Ballet of Canada. And now he’s becoming a name on Broadway, as the director of An American in Paris, which begins previews in New York this week.
But Piaf would have broken new ground. It would have been the first full-length Wheeldon work to have its world premiere in Toronto. And it would have been a landmark collaboration between Luminato and the National Ballet — ending the dark pas de deux they have engaged in for years.
The reason for that wariness: the ballet company, which normally occupies the Four Seasons Centre in June during Luminato, has feared that festival events, especially dance events, would hurt the National Ballet’s ticket sales.
As for Piaf, well, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the saga just gets “curiouser and curiouser.” It seems to have disappeared, like the Cheshire Cat, but in this case leaving not even its grin.
It’s true, I admit, that neither Luminato nor the National Ballet ever announced plans to produce it. But work was done, meetings were held, and board members of both organizations knew about it.
“All I can say,” adds Weisbrodt, “is that we do very much hope to collaborate with the National Ballet on a project in the future.”
Well, as the Duchess assures Alice at the conclusion of the Mock Turtle’s Tale: “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”
Perhaps officials at both institutions have developed a case of amnesia.
Consequently, we may never know what happened. Call me irresponsible, but my speculation would be that the demand for Wheeldon’s magic has escalated so spectacularly over the past few years that he can’t possibly do everything he’s offered.
Nevertheless, I have an idea for what could be a great project involving Wheeldon, Lumin) ato and the National Ballet.
Last week, I attended a perfor- mance of the company’s mixed program. Of the four pieces, the one I most enjoyed was a 16-minute piece by Wheeldon encapsulating bits of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. There were only hints of the storyline and main characters. But to my mind, the music in Carousel is the greatest Richard Rodgers ever wrote, and the story, with such elements as carnival barking and a flawed hero returning after death to make things right, is perfect for ballet.
So right at the top of my list of impossible things I plan to believe before breakfast, I’m putting a fulllength Wheeldon Carousel, coproduced by the National Ballet and Luminato, with a world premiere at the Four Seasons Centre in June 2018 or June 2019. mknelman@thestar.ca