Victor Hugo’s novel, Notre Dame de Paris, clocks in at 500-plus pages. And, ultimately, it’s much more than the beauty-and-beast story of a hunchbacked bell-ringer and gypsy dancer named Esmeralda. Its story is teeming with the tensions and conflicts of Parisian life (between peasant and noble, church and state), and full of the texture of 15th-century Paris.
Michael Pink’s Esmeralda, which he created for the Northern Ballet Theatre in 1998 and has brought back to the Milwaukee Ballet this weekend, is the kind of old-fashioned theatrical spectacle that might have been on Parisian stages during Hugo’s lifetime. Lez Brotherston’s set designs are majestically scaled, and allow for imaginative and fluid transitions between scenes. We move from the slums of Paris to the lofty quarters of noble ladies with the ease of modern cinematography. And David Grill’s lighting design (new for this production) at times imitates the old iris effect of silent film, closing down on a scene in one part of the stage as another scene materializes in the darkness.
The thrill of this new Esmeralda, which Pink called The Hunchback of Notre Dame in its earlier incarnations, is the way design and dance combines to capture the texture of Hugo’s world, and still manage to tell the story at the heart of the novel. Philip Feeney’s score uses guitar, chorus and soprano soloist as well as an orchestra to evoke the colors of the world surrounding the great cathedral. And Pink uses more than two dozen ensemble dancers to suggest the teeming life of Hugo’s medieval world.
Amidst the spectacle, the lead characters have a chance to sketch in their character through a solo, duet or two. Ryan Martin plays Quasimodo with angular fits and starts, as well as some dazzling athleticism. Julianne Kepley makes her Milwaukee Ballet debut as Esmeralda, giving her a feisty spirit. And Patrick Howell pulls out all the stops as the melodramatic Frollo, the man of the cloth torn by guilt and lust. And Marc Petrocci makes the most of a great character part, the poor poet Gringoire.
Overall, Pink’s handling of the story works. This is dance-theater – not necessarily ballet in the classical tradition – so most of the stage-time is devoted to telling the story rather than showcasing loft or dance prowess. Pink’s staging spins this yarn with both economy and richness; it only bogs down in Act Three, which seems like one rasslin’ match after another. As with last year’s Peter Pan, this is a great story, well told.
(Photo Credit: Mark Frohna)
