It was a ballet that shattered carefully polished ideas about what stories ballet should portray, and questioned how low a heroine of a story ballet should fall before our eyes. Kenneth Macmillan’s ballet Manon, at first perceived quite critically by national and international voices when it first premiered at The Royal Ballet in 1974, is now a beloved staple of the contemporary ballet repertory. Here across the pond it is only rarely seen on stages outside of New York City, but this season, San Francisco Ballet’s artistic director Tamara Rojo has brought the dramatic tragedy to the Bay Area for the first time. Clad in the original sets and costumes on loan from The Royal Ballet, it is a rare gift to see this production come to life in its original hues, with its palpable history trailing after it.
Borrowing a production from The Royal Ballet comes with an abundance of ballet heritage and lore woven into every seam, but it also comes with the responsibility to fill very big shoes. On opening night, the dancers of San Francisco Ballet flung themselves so fully and passionately into the rich world of Manon that I could have easily been convinced that it was The Royal Ballet before my eyes. Technically astonishing pas de deuxes, crisp corps de ballet work, delightfully bold acting, and exceptional emotional transparency were just some of the highlights of this much anticipated opening night.
Macmillan’s brilliance as a choreographer shines brightest in his pas de deuxes and at times it feels as though these gems are what hold the ballet together, acting as the continuing thread of hope for Manon and Des Grieux. Each pas de deux that they share is flooded with intoxicating passion, and a fluid lyricism that seems to flow beyond the bounds of what choreography is able to prescribe in most works. Jasmine Jimison and Max Cauthorn were from the start, so present in the depth of their characters’ desires that although I knew that the night would end in tragedy, I still held on to the belief that the love they instilled each breath with would be enough to let the program’s plot be wrong just this once. Macmillan’s fast-paced, technical partnering holds a certain magic in it that makes these intimate, richly beautiful pas de deuxes feel like freely flowing intuition instead of fifty one year old choreography. As guest artist Alban Lendorf said in the pre show discussion on opening night, “It’s technically challenging, but it’s not about the technique. Every arm, every leg is a sentence”.
A differentiating aspect between Manon and her fellow ballet heroines is that there are plenty of moments where Manon is not the most sympathetic character. As she chooses luxury again and again, even if it is a survival instinct, she becomes a puzzle to decipher amid the muddled world she inhabits. The young, innocent girl we meet at the top of Act One, is a world away from the willowy, withering creature who takes her last breath in the swamps of Louisiana. Watching her turn from a young sprite throwing herself upon the bed in glee, to her last achingly empty steps, she has a character arc not all too different from the likes of Giselle, and Jimison managed to make this shifting-image of a character burn with a real breath of life. Manon as a character remains a bit of a mystery even two and a half hours after the orchestra tuned, and yet, we follow her willingly until the very end, hoping. Des Griex, embodied so soulfully by Max Cauthorn on opening night, was right there with a Romeo-like heart, hoping too. The first time he danced for Manon, pure love flooded through every immaculately held balance and lush offering of beauty he bestowed to her. Even as they both lay amid the misted swamp, with an ingenious reel of Manon’s memories playing behind them, it seemed there must be more for the two of them, that there must be a way for their love to win in the end.
Even fifty one years after its premiere it still feels risky compared to other story ballet classics which fill the repertory. Manon herself is a character unlike any other ballet heroine. Consider Odette, Swanilda, Giselle, Aurora, Juliet, even Onegin’s Tatiana; whether a princess, a peasant, or some ethereal being, none are as incredibly complex, amoral, or as self-compromising as Manon is. While other tragic ballets often come to their end through means other than the heroine herself, in Manon, it is the choices that she feels she must make (and those that she makes willingly) that lead to her devastating end. It is perhaps also an intrinsic part of the work that some audiences will lean towards thinking Manon’s fate is all her own doing, while others will see the lack of choice, the extreme misogyny, and the sacrifices that Manon must make for her own survival.
As a choreographer, Macmillan aimed to steer away from the fairy and folktales that dominated earlier story ballets, and to tell stories of real, complicated, imperfect people in situations that reflect the reality of our world, both past and present. The story that he chose for this ballet is based on the 1731 novel by Antoine François Prévost, a tale which by 1974 had already been adapted into three operas, two dramas, one ballet, and six films. I can only imagine that audiences of the ‘70s, indulged by the ethereal tales of the ballet classics, found Manon to be a bit of a shock to the senses. Throughout history, most of the heroines in ballets have been identified by their good, pure natured intentions. Never were they portrayed in a light as harsh and painfully real as in Manon. In Apollo's Angels, Jennifer Homans declares that Macmillan “wanted ballet to be brutal and realistic, a theatrical art that could capture a generation’s disillusionment”. And for better or for worse, whether you adore or abhor his work, it’s clear to see that he certainly accomplished the task of testing what ballet as an art form, as well as its dancers and audiences, were capable of tolerating.
Manon is undoubtedly a beautiful and important ballet, and San Francisco Ballet brings it to life with a brilliant hunger that proves just what this company is capable of, and yet, Manon is also a ballet that asks many questions.
Namely, is ballet an art form that should show all? Act Three’s scene of sexual violence is unlike anything I’ve seen laid so blatantly upon the ballet stage. The ethereal, beautiful foundation of ballet seemed to be so far out of reach as that scene unfolded its horror before me. That doesn’t mean of course that ballet is only intended to show the appetizing parts of life, but in past years, there has been much discussion about whether violence of such nature belongs in literature, and the same should apply to the performing arts. When a novel from the 1700s is taken from the page and brought to life, that is a question that must be raised, even if we are the ones to face it ourselves on behalf of Macmillan. Were Macmillan to choreograph this in 2025, I wonder if he would make the same choice.
In 2017, Siobhan Burke, writing for the New York Times, criticized the sexual violence portrayed in Alexei Ratmansky’s Odessa, saying “Must works of art only depict people behaving correctly? The answer, of course, is no. If artists want to deal with rape… they should, as they should grapple with any difficult issue. But they must really deal with it: Say something. Don’t just toss it in as one more incidental plot twist, one more exquisite thing to behold. Acknowledge its urgency, its complexity and the fact that to many in the audience, it may not be so abstract.” In Manon, at the end of a long, intensely emotional and dramatic ballet, the nature of this scene felt like a constructed piece of plot, that yes, made one ache for Manon, but also threatened to pull us away from the story due to the blinding cruelty and literal depiction of the scene before us.
I will point out that were this ballet to have been staged, say, a century earlier, it may not have made it to the stage at all. Consider the fact that Petipa’s 1890 The Sleeping Beauty is based on Charles Perrault’s fairytale, but that other renditions of the tale that could just as easily have been used for the ballet involve the prince raping the princess when she fails to wake. Even Perrault’s tale involves the princess bearing two children whom the wife of the prince attempts to eat for supper. The choice to present the story in an edited and polished manner is undoubtedly the reason why we still have the ballet in the repertory today.
That doesn’t mean that ballet can’t show the reality of our world, but the way that these scenes are presented is detrimental to feeling like they seamlessly exist as part of the ballet world, and not something trying to flee towards more confrontational art forms. There are ways to evoke the essence of such an event while keeping it more suggestive, veiled, or abstract, (contemporary ballets such as Crystal Pite’s The Seasons’ Canon offers such blurred indications, yet leaves room for personal interpretation). Even within Manon itself, there are scenes that address misogynistic control in artistically creative ways, such as the very unconventional pas de trois between Monsier G.M., Lescaut, and Manon, in which the two men twine and carve her body while she moves between their hands, completely surrendered to the power of their will. But by Act Three, that inclination towards artistic expression is gone, and Macmillan’s choice to show such violence plaintively and without much weight placed upon it, seemed to let the air out of the room. Yes, the perpetrator is killed for his actions, but Manon withers away before our eyes in the scenes that follow, so his retribution doesn’t seem to make much difference by the end. Unfortunately, the story of Manon appears to use this event as a plot point to further desolate her, and in many ways, to gather sympathy, or rectify her choices by overloading her with tragedy.
What stories ballets should show is a question that dominated the 20th century and was answered in many contrasting ways. George Balanchine veered away from everything that distracted from pure dancing, and famously declared that “there are no step mothers in ballet”, meanwhile, choreographers elsewhere like Frederick Ashton, Macmillan, and John Cranko, found new stories for ballet to inhabit. These 20th century European story ballets are told without the choreographic staples of classical ballets–no fish dives, or codas, or whimsical beings arising from the mist– but instead, through wild, sweeping pas de deuxes which defy all expectations of how two bodies can move together, and are often characterized by an ability to show inner complexity, and raise deeper moral and philosophical issues.
Some ballets send you home talking about the dancing, others about the plot. Aside from the brilliance displayed in Macmillan’s pas de deuxes, it was the latter that occupied my post-performance discussions. Long gone are the days when ballet audiences would purchase librettos ahead of time and come to the theater fully prepared for the story that would be greeting them. Today’s audience expects to be able to sit down, and without even glancing through the program, be able to follow the story. That’s all well and good with ballets like The Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, or Romeo and Juliet, but Manon is a ballet that requires some reading to keep track of the wild plot and numerous characters. Perhaps, like most pieces of art, it’s something you must see many times to let its underlying cohesion and purpose reach you.
Manon is at times a glorious dream, like the first moonlit pas de deux between Manon and Des Grieux that seemed to steal the air from each lip, and at times, a chaotic, feverish rush of drama. It’s a complicated rendering of a controversial story, one that reflects our current social issues and economic disparities hidden beneath lush historical costumes and silken choreography. With our contemporary eyes, I believe that not only can we acknowledge its thorns while simultaneously seeing its beauty, but that indeed we must do so in order to appreciate its ever-present duality that begs us to contemplate what ballet is, and should be capable of today.
San Francisco Ballet presents Manon at the War Memorial Opera House through February 1st