Song of the Earth (ballet)

As staff choreographer with Ballet theatre (later American Ballet Theatre), Antony Tudor began creating a ballet set to Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. The six songs based on ancient Chinese poems, expressing the transience of human existence, had long interested him as a choreographic possibility. He explained their appeal: "Like the seasons, human experience is cyclical and has no sudden beginning or end."^[2] His ballet, entitled Shadow of the Wind, had its premiere on 14 April 1948 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Scenery, costumes, and lighting were designed by Jo Mielziner.^[3] The dancers were Igor Youskevitch, Hugh Laing, and Dimitri Romanoff (in "Six Idlers of the Bamboo Valley," set to song I); Alicia Alonso, John Kriza, and Mary Burr (in "The Abandoned Wife," set to song II); Ruth Ann Koesun and Crandall Diehl (in "My Lord Summons Me," set to song III); Diana Adams and Zachary Solov (in "The Lotus Gatherers," set to song IV); Hugh Laing (in "Conversation with Winepot and Bird," set to song V); and Nana Goldner, Hugh Laing, and Dimitri Romanoff (in "Poem for the Guitar," set to song VI).^[4][5] Photographs of the cast by Carl Van Vechten show elaborate costumes of flowing draperies in pseudo-Chinese style and the dancers in supposedly Oriental attitudes.^[6]

The ballet was not a success, receiving scarcely a positive word in the press. John Martin, writing in the New York Times, damned it with faint praise. "To this combination of ancient Chinese classic hedonism already screened through a process of Germanic Weltschmerz, Tudor has deliberately added the academic formation of the traditional ballet.^[7] The work had only three performances, the last of which played to a house that had dropped to 24 percent capacity.^[8]

In 1959, Kenneth MacMillan asked the directors of the Royal Opera House in London if he might use Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in a new commission for the Royal Ballet. He was refused because it was thought that such a major musical work was not suitable accompaniment for ballet. In 1965, however, MacMillan offered the idea to his friend John Cranko, director of the Stuttgart Ballet, who promptly accepted it.^[9] MacMillan summarized the scenario of his work in these words: "A man and a woman; death takes the man; they both return to her, and at the end of the ballet we find that in death there is the promise of renewal." With Marcia Haydée as Die Frau, Ray Barra as Der Mann, and Egon Madsen as Der Ewig (The Eternal One), it had its first performance on 7 November 1965 at the Württembergische Staatstheater in Stuttgart. Margarethe Bence, mezzo-soprano, and James Harper, tenor, sang the six "songs of the Earth." In MacMillan's choreography, the young woman is a figure of loneliness, isolated from the movements of her friends, and the man, like others in his group, is blissfully unaware of his mortality. The Eternal One is not a figure of evil but a gentle, ever-present companion to all in the ensemble.

The ballet was an instant success, widely admired by German audiences and critics alike. The Royal Ballet took the piece into its repertory only six months after its Stuttgart premiere. Presented under its English title, Song of the Earth, in May 1966 at the Royal Opera House in London, it starred guest artist Marcia Haydée as The Woman, Donald MacLeary as The Man, and Anthony Dowell as The Messenger of Death. Nicholas Georgiadis adapted his original costume designs for the Covent Garden production. The choreography is described as "earthbound, non-classical movements that morph seamlessly into modernist curves in a work of breathtaking beauty and power."^[10]

In 2007, the ballet was broadcast live on BBC Two, as Darcey Bussell's farewell performance, with The Man and The Messenger of Death danced by Gary Avis and Carlos Acosta respectively.^[11][12] In 2017, on the 25th anniversary of MacMillan's death, five ballet companies across the UK presented a mixed bill titled Kenneth MacMillan: a National Celebration at the Royal Opera House. Song of the Earth was performed by English National Ballet, with Erina Takahashi as The Woman, Isaac Hernández as The Man and Jeffrey Cirio (a guest principal) as The Messenger of Death.^[13] In 2020, the English National Ballet released video of Song of the Earth online in response to the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic on the performing arts. This performance was filmed in 2017 at Palace Theatre, Manchester, intended for internal archival, with Tamara Rojo as the Woman, Joseph Caley as The Man and Cirio as The Messenger of Death.^[14]