Review from: Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London; 23rd April 2025, 20.30
This orchestral and acrobatic troupe premiere of Daphnis and Chloé – for one night only but with two performances – is the opening offering in the Royal Festival Hall’s Multitudes festival, where we are invited to leave our expectations at the door for ‘orchestral music reimagined for all the senses by world-class orchestras, dancers, visual artists, poets and MCs.’ I saw the second performance with the 2700 seats substantially filled. The performances, conducted by Edward Gardner, were sold as being suitable for ages 12+ (with under 14s required to be accompanied by an adult) and the audience was almost exclusively adult.
Yaron Lifschitz, director of the Australian company Circa, has decided on an impressionistic rather than literal take on composer Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, a 1912 choreographic symphony commissioned by Diaghilev for his Ballets Russe. If one knows the narrative (a shepherdess Chloé falls for a goatherd, Daphnis, is abducted by pirates, rescued with Pan’s help and reunited with Daphnis whom she marries), glimpses of it can be seen in the performance. It is no hindrance, and perhaps better, to know nothing of the story to thoroughly enjoy Ravel’s lush music and the complementing acrobatic performance.
Before the start, the audience is asked, for the sake of the music and the musicians, not to clap during the performance but to wait until the end. In practice, it’s surprisingly difficult not to yield to temptation when, by design or chance, an acrobatic peak coincides with the climax of a crescendo.
With an orchestra comprising some 100 musicians on stage, there’s little room left for acrobatics even in as vast a venue as the Royal Festival Hall. The BBC Singers, a 40-strong wordless chorus, are placed to the side of the auditorium. They overlook the orchestra and the ten Circa acrobats who perform for the most part right in front of the orchestra – and practically on top of the front row – on a dark two-metre-deep strip that runs the full width of the stage. How daunting it must be for the ten acrobats to flip, spin, and stack three high in that sliver of space between the orchestra and the audience. The ability of the musicians to play, brilliantly, without flinching on the border of such perilous and distracting activity is admirable.
The ten acrobats, five male, five female, all in skintight lacy black costumes with matching moody lighting, perform a dozen or so sequences to Ravel’s 50-minute score, ranging from dramatic group acrobatics to intimate duos and aerial solos. So there’s plenty of visual variety. A second ten-minutes piece, Ravel’s Valse, follows.
Daphnis and Chloé opens with five acrobatic couples, spotlit overhead as one partner supports and balances the other. Sometimes the couples move in parallel, sometimes consecutively, other times each couple moves independently. A group sequence follows with rolling dives, then an arch of four acrobats and a three-high stack, with only the occasional landing thump compromising the relationship with the music. It is probably advantageous to be sat several rows back from the front.
There are three aerial sections, each over the acrobatic strip, all performed by women. The first, using webbing straps, ends with the aerialist suspended by her feet and making a headfirst drop to be caught by an acrobat on the ground.
A storm ensues, a light sweeping across the performers; following the turbulence, Chloé, captured in a loop of rope, is reeled in by an aspiring mate.
Next comes a languid and controlled swinging aerial pole sequence, to the voices of the chorus, during which the inverted performer somehow suspends herself in mid-air against the vertical pole attached by a single hand.
The action moves away from the acrobatic strip to the back of the orchestra where two Chinese poles stand on a raised dais. Two men spiral on the poles, leaping with one hand from bar to bar, and making the classic headfirst slide to the base against a frenetic score.
A sensuous aerial routine on velvet-like silks is followed by ensemble acrobatics with a controlled sideways fall from a three-high. At one point a base supports no fewer than six of his fellow acrobats.
Between the Chinese poles, two lovers standing on and shifting between handstand canes entwine as a flute is played. An impressionistic tug of war follows; Chloé wins and celebrates by standing on her vanquished partner’s shoulders.
Acrobats are flung across space, there’s a spot of banquine, and then two men face off in a fight, one attempting to kick the other down and crashing to the floor unsuccessfully each time until one last leaping kick into the chest brings both down as the music ends.
After the shortest of breaks, the acrobats return to the stage to accompany the orchestra’s playing of the 12-minutes Valse, starting again with five pairs, though this time the women carry their partners before taking it in turns to spin and balance each other in a waltz. Two men compete in a head-butting contest that ends with both collapsing exhausted. A woman walks on the heads of her compatriots as they stand in a line. After a last three-high sequence the final fling sees the ten acrobats, each in their own spotlight, flipping, splatting and pancaking.
The orchestra hardly receives a glance but, given how beautifully they play, I strongly suspect that many concert newcomers attracted by the acrobatics may return to hear Ravel’s music in a conventional orchestral performance. I’m not so certain that people would as happily return to see the acrobatic performance if it were removed from the music, as weaknesses in the choreography and repetition of moves might become apparent. Put together though, the combination of the acrobatic performance with the London Symphony Orchestra’s superb playing resulted in a heartfelt standing ovation.
Daphnis and Chloé (50 mins)
La Valse (The Waltz) (12 mins)
Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes with no interval
Composer: Maurice Ravel
CREATIVE TEAM
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner conductor
BBC Singers
Circa, Yaron Lifschitz director and stage/lighting designer, Libby McDonnell costume designer
Acrobats: Lachlan Sukroo, Asha Colless, Maya Davies, Oscar Morris, Kimberley Rossi, Tristan St John, Zachery Stephens, Anisa Monsour, Arabella Coghlan, Darby Sullivan, Gerhardt Mal
Commissioned by the Southbank Centre and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Circa acknowledges the assistance of the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body and the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
For ages 12+. Tickets priced between £17 and £72.
