“Robert Binet, Canada’s young wonder-choreographer, was 23 when he talked in-demand New York City-based composer Missy Mazzoli into creating something new for the National Ballet of Canada,” writes John Terauds in Thursday’s (11/7) Toronto Star (Canada). “Mazzoli has made a name for herself in art music and opera. But this is her first ballet score.… ‘Orpheus Alive,’ the resulting 75-minute ballet, gets its premiere on Nov. 15…. Binet, Mazzoli and playwright Rosamund Small reset the story in modern-day Toronto [with] the underworld as a place thousands of commuters use every day. ‘The opening is in the waiting room to the underworld,’ Mazzoli explains. ‘The dancers are waiting in line in a talent-show situation.’ … The audience gets to play the role of the gods…. Her favourite change is a gender switch for Orpheus and Eurydice…. ‘In this ballet the female Orpheus … is drawing the music out of the orchestra,’ Mazzoli says.… Her personal way of testing the music was to get up from the computer and move around her studio. ‘I felt like if it made me feel like I want to move around, then it would make the dancers want to move as well,’ she laughs.”
Posted November 11, 2019
