The War Memorial Opera House roared with standing ovations Thursday night for Liam Scarlett’s choreographed interpretation of the gothic novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley.
The San Francisco Ballet has gone experimental, with this season’s program proving to be extremely innovative as Artistic Director Tamara Rojo pushes boundaries outside the norm of regular ballet.
Signs warning of pyrotechnic effects and flashing lights were posted at the entrance to the theater where one would be expected at an action movie. The production proceeded as an expert amalgam of special effects: students dancing on shattered glass, pregnant woman en pointe and maids leaping. I turned to my date and asked jokingly, “Are we at the ballet?”
Accessible to the newcomer, as well as being full of detailed layers for the trained eye, Wei Wang’s performance as “the Creature” was a visceral representation of the post-modern Prometheus.
The choreography exuded themes of Romanticism, with even the monster expressing nature in its vulnerability and tenderness alongside brutal struggle. In three acts, the company explored themes of alchemy, galvanism, death and 19th century Geneva, and they told this story not words but with dance.
Staged like a musical, the set design by John Macfarlane felt huge as he brought the audience into an old-fashioned dissection hall, the Swiss wilderness and Victor Frankenstein’s Geneva manor. From this perspective, the observer sees everything laid out. Inner and outer storylines are made bare and raw as Shelly’s word becomes flesh.
The light images of skulls and crimson musculature displayed throughout the ballet were the work of projection designer Finn Ross, which were reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” and truly put the viewer in the gothic setting.
This was a very cinematic ballet, with a score by Lowell Liebermann that sounds straight out of a Hitchcock horror movie. Conductor Martin West swung his baton like a pendulum bringing the pit from lightheartedness to tragedy seemingly effortlessly.
Multiple layered narratives are told through the three primary roles of Luca Ferrò playing Henry, Victor Frankenstein’s best friend, Frances Chung as Elizabeth, Victor’s love interest and Joseph Walsh dancing the titular character Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
The dancers’ technique was stunning. Even through tossing limbs and being murdered, Walsh, Chung and Ferrò displayed flawless skill that evoked feelings of the Bournonville method.
Perfect for the sci-fi or emo lover, the SF Ballet’s showing of Frankenstein will run until March 26 with an encore performance from April 26 to May 4.
