Ballet on the Air

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 432, 3 October 1947, Page 8

Ballet on the Air

HE inadequacy of verbal descriptions of ballet was brought home to me while listening to a radio presentation of Adam Zero. The Bliss music is a stimulating work of art which can take its place in the orchestral concert or radio’ programme on its own merits. Since this ballet hasn’t, to my knowledge, been included in the repertoire of any ballet (continced on next page) » Be 7

HESE notes are not written by the staff of "The Listener" or by any member of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service. They are independent comments for which "The "Listener" pays outside céntributors.

(continued from previous page) companies visiting New Zealand, the choreography of Robert Helpmann will mean little to any listeners unless they are students of the dance and have studied the technical descriptions of the ballet; likewise, descriptions of the theme, the costuming, and the action produce no authentic mental picture of what must be a striking and significant ballet when actually seen. All that can come to us by means of radio is. the music. It doesn’t help our appreciation of Bliss’s score to be told, for instance, that the chorus are at one place wearing replicas of Adam’s costume, or that in another place one of the dramatis personae "writhes on the floor in an agony of gestation, and the curtain falls’--we merely mutter, "And about time, tool" Operatic commentary, although necessary to enable listeners to follow what the singers are singing about, is a trial to the listener’s patience; how less than necessary, then, is a description of the antics of dancers we cannot even see! Until the day of television dawns, it is surely better to confine comment on ballet music to a mere statement of the ballet’s creators, and a very brief preliminary account of its general theme.