Job: A Masque for Dancing
Job: A Masque for Dancing | |
---|---|
Choreographer | Ninette de Valois |
Music | Ralph Vaughan Williams |
Libretto | Geoffrey Keynes |
Based on | Book of Job, illustrated by William Blake |
Premiere | 5 July 1931 Cambridge Theatre, London |
Original ballet company | Carmago Society |
Design | Gwen Raverat |
Job: A Masque for Dancing is a one-act ballet produced in 1931. The scenario is by
Background
In 1927, the centenary of the death of William Blake, Geoffrey Keynes, a leading Blake scholar and also a dance enthusiast, wrote the scenario for "a ballet of a kind which would be new to the English stage",[1] based on Blake's illustrations for the Book of Job, published in 1826.[2] Helped by his wife’s sister, the designer Gwen Raverat, Keynes selected eight of Blake's 21 illustrations as suitable for stage adaptation. They then approached Raverat’s cousin Ralph Vaughan Williams to write the music. He agreed, and was so enthusiastic about the idea that he pressed ahead with composition before Keynes and Raverat completed their work.[3]
Meanwhile, Keynes offered the scenario to the impresario Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes, who turned it down as "too English and too old-fashioned".[3] Vaughan Williams was not displeased by this. He had a low opinion of classical ballet, detested dance en pointe, and regarded Diaghilev's troupe as "decadent and frivolous".[3] He felt they would have made "an unholy mess" of the piece.[3] He so disliked ballet that he insisted that the work should be labelled "a masque for dancing", although the critic Frank Howes, who admired the composer greatly, pointed out that the essence of a masque is that it is a combination of all the arts of the theatre, and "without songs and dialogues a masque is not a masque but a pantomime".[4]
After Diaghilev's rejection of the piece, the Keynes brothers – Geoffrey and
Premiere
On Sunday 5 July 1931 the ballet was performed at the Cambridge Theatre, London, conducted by Lambert. The cast comprised:
Role | Dancer |
---|---|
Job | John MacNair |
His Wife | Margery Stewart |
His Three Daughters | Marie Nelson, Ursula Moreton, Doreen Adams |
His Seven Sons | William Chappell, Hedley Briggs, Walter Gore, Claude Newman, Robert Stuart, Travers Kemp, Stanley Judson |
The Three Messengers | Robert Stuart, Claude Newman, Travers Kemp |
The Three Comforters | William Chappell, Walter Gore, Hedley Briggs |
War, Pestilence and Famine | William Chappell, Walter Gore, Hedley Briggs |
Elihu | Stanley Judson |
Satan | Anton Dolin |
- Source: Michael Kennedy.[6]
The production was repeated the next day and again on 24 July at Oxford as part of the ninth festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music. It was well received. The critic A. K. Holland, reporting "a tumultuous reception", called the work "a triumph for Vaughan Williams ... the most important recent contribution to English ballet".[8] Another reviewer wrote:
According to The Times, "here was that rare thing, a completely satisfying synthesis of the arts".[10]
Music
The full orchestral version is scored for three
Lambert's instrumentation for theatre orchestra comprises: 2 flutes (second doubling piccolo), 1 oboe, 2 clarinets, E♭ saxophone (played by second clarinet), 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 1 trombone, timpani, percussion (3 players: cymbals, bass drum, xylophone, glockenspiel, tam-tam), 1 harp, strings.[6]
Vaughan Williams dedicated the score to the conductor
Performance history
The ballet was given on 22 September 1931 at the Old Vic. An adapted version was performed in New York at the
Sections
The ballet comprises nine scenes, loosely based upon the sequence of Blake's illustrations and each including in the synopsis a quotation from the Bible. Vaughan Williams headed his score with 18 section headings.
- Scene I: "Saraband of the Sons of God" ("Hast thou considered my servant Job?")
- Introduction
- Pastoral Dance
- Satan's Appeal to God
- Saraband of the Sons of God
- Scene II: "Satan's Dance of Triumph" ("So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.")
- Satan's Dance
- Scene III: "Minuet of the Sons of Job and Their Wives" ("There came a great wind and smote the four corners of the house and it fell upon the young men and they are dead.")
- Minuet of the Sons and Daughters of Job
- Scene IV: "Job's Dream" ("In thoughts from the visions of the night ... fear came upon me and trembling.")
- Job's Dream
- Dance of Plague, Pestilence, Famine and Battle
- Scene V: "Dance of the Three Messengers" ("There came a messenger.")
- Dance of the Messengers
- Scene VI: "Dance of Job's Comforters" ("Behold happy is the man whom God correcteth.")
- Dance of Job's Comforters
- Job's Curse
- A Vision of Satan
- Scene VII: "Elihu's Dance of Youth and Beauty" ("Ye are old and I am very young.")
- Elihu's Dance of Youth and Beauty
- Pavane of the Heavenly Host
- Scene VIII: "Pavane of the Sons of the Morning" ("All the Sons of God shouted for joy.")
- Galliard of the Sons of the Morning
- Altar Dance and Heavenly Pavane
- Scene IX: "Epilogue" ("So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.")
References
- ^ Keynes, p. 189
- ^ Keynes, p. 182
- ^ a b c d Kennedy (1980), p. 202
- ^ Howes, pp. 48–49
- ^ a b Kennedy (1980), p. 227
- ^ a b c d e Kennedy (1996), pp. 130–131
- JSTOR 1290777.
- ^ Holland, A. K. "Satan in a Ballet", Liverpool Daily Post, 25 July 1931, p. 6
- ^ "The Camargo Society", Truth, 8 July 1931, p. 58
- ^ "Vaughan Williams's 'Job'", The Times, 6 July 1931, p. 10
- ^ Kennedy (1980), pp. 176 and 307
- ^ Simeone and Mundy, p. 94
- ^ Kennedy (1980), pp. 228–229
- ^ Kennedy (1980), p. 229
- ^ "New 'Job' is memorable ballet", Daily News, 21 May 1948, p. 3
- ^ "Job", Royal Opera House performance database. Retrieved 25 February 2024
- ^ "Triple bill", The Stage, 19 August 1993, p. 19
- ^ "Coventry celebrates with Job", The Stage, 11 November 1993, p. 5
Sources
- OCLC 13495322.
- ISBN 978-0-19-315410-0.
- Kennedy, Michael (1996). A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816584-2.
- ISBN 978-0-19-812003-2.
- Simeone, Nigel; Simon Mundy (1980). Sir Adrian Boult: Companion of Honour. London: Midas Books. ISBN 978-0-85-936212-2.