Raymonda at the SF Ballet

Your chances of seeing a live production of the full-length, 1898 Russian ballet Raymonda, with choreography by Marius Petipa and music by Alexander Glazunov, are exceedingly slim. The SF Ballet is currently presenting a lavish production that was originally conceived and choreographed by Tamara Rojo for the English National Ballet in 2022, just before she arrived in San Francisco to become the company's new Artistic Director. It's easy to see why the ballet is so rarely performed anymore as it requires a huge cast and orchestra, and for the three principal roles, a level of dancing difficulty that ranks with some of the most demanding in the classical repertory. Plus, the characters are one-dimensional and the original storyline is casually Islamophobic, with the Saracen guest wanting to kidnap and rape the virginal heroine before being thwarted and killed by her Christian Crusader fiance. (All production photos are by Lindsay Thomas.)

Rojo changed the narrative for the better, though it sometimes doesn't make much sense. The time and setting was moved from medieval Hungary to 19th Century England and Sevastopol during the Crimean War. Instead of hanging out in a Hungarian castle for the first act, we watch Raymonda (Sasha De Sola) as she quickly leaves her upper-class British home and follows her soldier fiance John de Bryan to Crimea, where she joins a nursing unit a la Florence Nightingale.

The nurses and soldiers are given sensational dances, but the happy music did seem a bit odd in this context. As my companion Austin remarked, "Wow! I guess war is fun and there's lots of dancing."

The colorful musical score by Glazunov is considered one of his best works, and it's eminently danceable, but much of it sounded like second-rate Tchaikovsky to me. What was fabulous was the playing of the orchestra under conductor Martin West, not to mention the live cimbalom in the last act for Raymonda's final solo. (Pictured are horn players Logan Bryck and Brian McCarty in the orchestra pit.)

The hour-long first act tends to drag in any production (there are YouTube versions from the Bolshoi and La Scala), but things pick up considerably in Act Two when Abdur Rahman (an exuberant Fernando Carratalá Coloma), the exotic Ottoman officer, gives a party in a tent for the ailing soldiers and their attending nurses.

There are wonderful dances from various nations and quite a bit of seductive movement from Rahman and Raymonda. In other words, think of Rudolph Valentino as The Sheikh. As Rachel Howard points out in her SF Chronicle review, "like pretty much every full “Raymonda” production, it’s about sublimated sexual fantasies."

The final act, which is often performed as a separate chunk, is the wedding party with a lot of "character" dancing, which I am assuming means ballet versions of folk dancing. Cleverly, the revised libretto specifies "Hungarian Workers" at the English estate where Raymonda is to marry John de Bryan. However, in this version, Raymonda pulls a Nora in A Doll's House and abruptly exits at the end of the ballet, leaving her betrothed on the altar after dancing with him for 30 minutes. It doesn't really work but it doesn't matter.

Seemingly the entire company is dancing in this production, and they are looking great. Although the three principals on Saturday's opening were very good, there weren't any real superstar moments where the audience holds their breath and can hardly believe their own eyes. There are three other casts rotating into the roles and I am tempted to return to the opera house to check them out. (Click here for the SF Ballet casting site.)