羅蘭·佩蒂選擇他的畫家

01-26

題記：羅蘭·佩蒂（Roland Petit，1924/01/13-2011/01/10）是當代最偉大的芭蕾編導之一，一生創作的了無數的舞蹈作品。他的《卡門》、《巴黎聖母院》、《失樂園》、《年輕人與死亡》等舞劇成為了法國二十世紀芭蕾的典範，並由許多著名芭蕾舞團在世界各地上演。 1949年，《卡門》一炮打響，成為最轟動的劇目之一。 1972年11月，羅蘭·佩蒂大師與世界著名的搖滾樂隊——平克·弗洛伊德樂隊聯手為法國馬賽國家芭蕾舞團創作了一台別具風格的平克·弗洛伊德芭蕾（Pink Floyd Ballet,俗稱「搖滾芭蕾」）。這篇文章是一本研究其美學書，《Roland Petit Chooses His Painters》的評論，大致勾勒了大師的舞颱風格和其合作的藝術家，值得一看。

標題：Review: Roland Petit Chooses His Painters

作者： Marie-FranQoise Christout

Among the most illustrious French choreographers, Roland Petit has distinguished himself for more than four decades by the judicious choice of artists with whom he has collaborated. He has always wed eclecticism with an absolutely infallible judgment. Just as Noverre vigorously advocated, Petit recognizes the importance of that visual harmony on which successful spectacle, especially ballet, is based. His originality lies in always having found the precise designer to match each of his works, keeping interest fresh thanks to his cleverly diverse approach.

Whereas Diaghilev early in the century unleashed a prodigious assemblage of collaborative talents, from Bakst to Rouault, Leonide Massine and Serge Lifar, whom he had groomed, added to their choreographic gifts the intelligence to call upon a single artist—Masson or Pedro Pruna, Cassandra or Brayer—who could best accomplish their creations. Early on, Petit found for each of his ballets an atmosphere of intimate partnership among the artists of the day, and he renews the experience according to his inspiration, encounters, and of the moment. These alliances, fleeting or durable, have always been based on mutual understanding of and respect for individual freedom of choice, but with a single imperative: the success of the stage picture. The richly varied journey he has taken is thus revealed in the total effect, which is as engaging to the idly curious as to the expert.

Gerard Manoni, in his beautiful, long-awaited book, combines a cautious critical judgment of both dance and painting/scene design with a rigor and clarity of perception that is most enriching for the researcher. Petit, bypassing fashion which is often the precedent, has made magic by soliciting collaborations with Clave, Buffet, Tinguely, Saint-Phalle, Martial

Raysse, Svoboda, Saint Laurent, Carzou, Hockney, Versace, and others. Throughout this volume—well documented, well edited, and written in a flowing and pictorial style, one relives the great days of a brilliant career, that of one of ballets, and even eventually of music-halls, most prolific creators.

Petits early years at the Paris Opera (1940-44) had quickly put him in contact with the wizard Jean Cocteau. Like Cocteau, Petit found in Christian Berard the illusionist who, right after the war, could conjure up out of nothing the delicate feerie Les Forains (1945). As director of his own Ballets des Champs-Elysees and then Ballets de Paris, Petit commissioned work in turn from Marie Laurencin, Lucien Coutaud, the photographer Brassai, Jean-Denis Malcles, and George Wakhevitch. With Jean Hugo he depicted Les Amours de Jupiter (1946); with Christian Dior he dressed Treize danses (1947), lighted by Berards fairy lamps. Stanislas Lepri spread out the sheets for Bal des blanchisseuses (1946), Leonor Fini masked the cats of Demoiselles de la nuit (1948), while Antoni Clave conjured out of darkness an unforgettable and unforgotten Carmen ［卡門］ (1949) that still maintains its innovative and shocking violence. Le Loup (1953), another masterpiece that is still performed—which was clothed in a thousand colors by Jean Carzou—is in no way outdated. Cine-bijou (1953) owed to Andre Beaurepaire its cleverly "retro" charm: a parade of femme fatale dresses by the fashion designer and poster artist Gruau, most Parisian of Italians.

卡門劇照

巴黎聖母院劇照

After the brisk vivacity of Les Belles damnees (1955), scantily clad by Tom Keogh, came La Chambre (1955), in which Bernard Buffet could expand on the angular anguish and sordidness of this danced Simenon detective story. In the years following Cyrano de Bergerac (1959), Yves Saint Laurent also dressed Zizi Jeanmaires revues and conceived the medieval stained-glass-colored costumes for Notre Dame de Paris [巴黎聖母院] (1965). For this ballet, Rene Allio evoked the cathedrals towers on the Opera stage and later was inspired by Van Gogh for LArlesienne [阿萊城的姑娘] (1974). For the Ballets de Marseille, Petit gave free rein to his innovative curiosity by commissioning Tinguely, Niki de Saint -Phalle, and Martial Raysse to design LEloge de lafolie (1966). He drew in artists who were dedicated to the stage, but strangers to it——Ernst, Vasarely, De Chirico; then the revolutionary designer Josef Svoboda and the collaborative producers Giorgio Strehler, Franca Squarciapino, Giulio Costellacci, Ezio Frigerio; and finally Versace, whose very personal style could be compared with that of Erte at the peak of his powers.Based entirely on Roland Petits personal collection, this beautiful picture book is also a reference work and a portrait of a man perpetually in quest of new harmonies among gesture, costume, and décor to enhance the scene, be it poetic, cruel, humorous, elegant, or dramatic. This is an indispensable book for lovers of fine spectacle.