Elsewhere in the country, ballets are also pirouetting up from the page. In March, “Summer and Smoke,” a reimagining of the Tennessee Williams play by choreographer Cathy Marston, who often interprets great books, had a Houston Ballet world premiere, a production with American Ballet Theatre. Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s 2022 “Like Water for Chocolate,” an American Ballet Theatre and Royal Ballet production inspired by the Laura Esquivel novel, has its North American premiere in Costa Mesa, Calif., through April 2, before a New York run.
Ballet has, of course, long mined literature. The classic “Coppélia,” inspired by an E.T.A. Hoffmann story, and “Don Quixote,” based on Cervantes, are just two examples. The continuing interest of ballet artists in literary adaptation displays their conviction that their art form can convey substance as well as style. Honor the past, but also innovate.
“We in the world of dance and ballet have told the same stories for a long time: ‘Swan Lake.’ ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ ‘Giselle.’ ‘The Nutcracker,’” Joffrey artistic director Ashley Wheater said via email. “And I think there is a wealth of narrative out there — that the language of dance can speak words and volumes about who we are as people.”
Wheater says new literature-based ballets sell well, too. “Anna Karenina” has been the highest-grossing full-length work in the company’s history outside of “The Nutcracker.” An avid reader, Wheater was the motivating force behind this “Anna Karenina.” He reveres the Tolstoy novel, which he considers a timeless meditation on human foibles.
When he was dancing with the Australian Ballet, he performed in choreographer André Prokovsky’s 1979 “Anna Karenina” with music by Tchaikovsky. That version struck Wheater as unsatisfactory. “It was almost overladen. You could not really get to the essence of the book,” he recalls. As for the 1972 “Anna Karenina” that Maya Plisetskaya choreographed for the Bolshoi Ballet, Wheater did not care for its score, by Rodion Shchedrin.
As head of the Joffrey, Wheater wanted a new “Anna Karenina,” so he turned to San Francisco Ballet’s choreographer-in-residence Possokhov, whom he knew to be a fellow literature enthusiast: The two men had shared a dressing room when they were both dancing for the Bay Area company. Possokhov says Tolstoy’s novel is one of his all-time favorite books. His goal in tackling it choreographically was “to get away from old-fashioned approaches and breathe new life into this complex story.”
It is both complex and long. In book form, “Anna Karenina” can run more than 800 pages, and a count of its principal characters may clock in at nearly 50. Valeriy Pecheykin, a playwright who has worked with leading theaters in Russia, served as dramaturge, helping to winnow the story to its essence: a handful of protagonists, plus a Tolstoy character. Russian composer Ilya Demutsky wrote the score. In adapting literature, a choreographer needs a collaborative team that “feels the story in the same way,” and that is what he had in this case, Possokhov says.
The ballet was put together, and debuted, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Still, when the Joffrey reprised the piece this year in the company’s hometown of Chicago, protesters denounced what they saw as a celebration of Russian culture. Wheater says the Joffrey expresses support for Ukraine before every performance, with a statement and a piece of Ukrainian music. Also, he points out, “Tolstoy was a pacifist.”
Like Possokhov, Philadelphia-based choreographer Pickett is quick to credit her collaborators, including James Bonas, a director with international credits, who has worked with her on story treatments and other aspects of ballet creation. She raves about British composer Peter Salem, with whom she has often joined forces, including on “The Crucible” and “Camino Real,” a ballet channeling the Williams play. In Salem’s music, she says, “you can feel the narrative being forwarded.”
Pickett is a big believer in adapting ballets from literature, especially literature such as “The Crucible,” which depicts women “in positions of strength and great struggle and courage.” “I want women as human beings in these stories, not women that die for love or that are turned into animals,” she says, tactfully adding, “our historical canon in ballet is beautiful. I’m not saying anything against it. But this is what I want to contribute.”
Miller’s 1953 drama about the Salem witch trials depicts courageous women, as well as young girls exerting chilling power. With its portrait of “the finger pointing, the singling out, the putting of power in the hands of those who have no right to have that power” and “the fortification of superstition,” the narrative is as pertinent as ever, Pickett says.
She was able to choreographically depict backstory that is only alluded to in the play, for example, the consequential affair between farmer John Proctor and teenager Abigail Williams. “What is inferred in the play, you see it writ large and visceral in this production,” says Scottish Ballet artistic director Christopher Hampson. When adapting text, he says, dance “can inhabit the space between the words, the unspoken, and it can often delve into the predicaments the characters are in.”
Despite such leeway, Pickett appreciates the parameters that come with tapping into great writing. “I have the words that will always keep me on track. They don’t let me deviate,” she says. The key to translating literary narratives to dance, Pickett adds, is ensuring that the storytelling is clear and compelling to audiences who may not know the source material.
“You can’t expect people to read the plays or the books. One has to deliver something that can be provocative, seem spontaneous, have mystery, but still tell the story,” she says. “I like to make roller coasters. I like people on the edge of their seat.”
Ballet will continue rifling the pages of history’s must-reads. Later this year, Pickett’s “Emma Bovary,” which is not a straight adaptation but inspired by Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary,” with a Peter Salem score, gets a world premiere at the National Ballet of Canada. And the Joffrey’s Wheater says he wants his company to keep exploring great narratives, too. “Movement,” he says, “becomes the powerful word.”
Anna Karenina April 5 to 9 at the Kennedy Center. The Crucible May 24 to 28 at the Kennedy Center. www.kennedy-center.org.
