The Ballets of Maurice Ravel: Creation and Interpretation (review)

It is not often that we come across a scholarly study of ballet, let alone one devoted to Maurice Ravel's musical accomplishments. In her second contribution to scholarship on Ravel within six years, Deborah Mawer manages to achieve both within a single volume. Since Arbie Orenstein's landmark biography (1975) and translation of Ravel's correspondence, articles, and interviews (1990), this is among the first English-language publications to undertake a thorough investigation of original sources pertaining to Ravel's creative life. Readers will undoubtedly relish the variety of primary documents uncovered here, including several that are typically held under lock and key in the Ravel Estate. Photographs, reviews, anecdotes, letters, programmes, scenarios, sketches, set designs, musical analyses, discussions of productions: these all come together to rescue ballet from its subdued image as opera's poorer cousin. Another image rescued here is that of Ravel as a composer of ballet, an association that we take for granted—grâce au Boléro—and yet, as always with this elusive figure, one that we know little about. Mawer's study highlights Ravel's contributions to modern ballet by exploring the creative networks that he nourished; we witness the full range of artistic personalities that were involved in each collaborative endeavour, as well as the passion and aesthetic conviction that marked the intensity of their encounters.

Mawer argues for an integrative approach to understanding ballet, one that resists the tendency to isolate music from the scenario, choreography, and design, as demonstrated in her focus on Ravel's main works for the stage: Ma Mère l'Oye, Daphnis et Chloé, Adélaïde ou le langage des fleurs (based on his piano composition Valses nobles et sentimentales), La Valse , Le Tombeau de Couperin, Boléro; passing attention is given to the opera-ballet hybrid, L'Enfant et les sortilèges, and to the Fanfare for L'Eventail de Jeanne. Her aim to restore Ravel's holistic vision of ballet is facilitated by Jean-Jacques Nattiez's categories of poesis (creation/production) and esthesis (reception/interpretation). This conceptual framework allows Mawer to structure the inner core of her book, chapters 2-7, according to an identical format: she documents a ballet's genesis before detailing the dynamics of each collaboration; the evolution of the scenario; readings of the music in view of the design and choreography; critical reception; and subsequent productions. Despite her diverse range of sources and fluency of writing, Mawer's decision to organize each chapter along the lines of a'basic formula'(p. 125) sometimes makes for tedious reading. She guards against this risk by weaving her narrative around distinctly Ravelian themes: childhood fantasy, exoticism, Greekness, myth, the waltz, neoclassicism, and mechanism illuminate the poesic/esthesic dimensions of a work from unique perspectives.

In chapter 2, for example, Mawer traces Ma Mère's transformation from the piano four-hand score for children to its orchestrated version for ballet, an evolution that is enriched through her attention to Ravel's multiple sources for the scenario. Her discussion of Ravel's harmonious collaboration with Rouché(the theatre director) and Drésa (the designer) is well served by colourful anecdotes and letter exchanges. This amicable encounter stands in stark contrast to the less rosy picture that Mawer paints of Ravel's relationship with Colette (the librettist) in L'Enfant. Continuing with the theme of failed collaboration in chapter 3, Mawer investigates how differing conceptions of Greekness and myth marred Ravel's Ballets Russes experience. Her coverage of the Fokine-Ravel conflict is engrossing, especially in respect of their opposed approaches to portraying Longus's underlying themes of violence and sexuality in the finale. A highlight of this chapter is her analysis of Ravel's opening portrayal of ancient Greece, which intersects deeply with Bakst's visualization and Fokine's choreography while skilfully integrating Daniel Albright's ideas of 'verticality' and 'transme-diating chords'.

The subsequent chapters (4 and 5...