Yesterday the Royal Opera House launched a YouTube video serving as the Premiere stream of The Royal Ballet performing “The Cellist,” a one-hour one-act ballet, choreographed by Cathy Marston, based on the life of cellist Jacqueline du Pré. Du Pré was born about eighteen months earlier than I was, meaning that she was coming to public attention not long before I began my freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, by the time I was beginning my first job after having received my doctoral degree, du Pré was experiencing the first signs of multiple sclerosis. She was “officially” diagnosed with the debilitating disease in October of 1973. She lived for another fourteen years, dying at the age of 42, but was never able to play the cello after her last public concerts in February of 1973.
Those of generations later than mine may know this story through Anand Tucker’s 1998 film Hilary and Jackie. The screenplay by Frank Cottrell-Boyce was based on conversations with both du Pré’s sister Hilary and her brother Piers. The film did not go down well with many that were close to Jackie, but those less personally involved reacted far more positively. My own impressions were, for the most part, positive; but I was far from a “cult follower” of Jackie’s work. Indeed, to this day, I do not have any of her recordings. I feel that this allows me to approach “The Cellist” with an acceptable level of objectivity.
That said, I would argue that does who do not already know Jackie’s story may have trouble following Marston’s scenario. Indeed, no names are attached to the members of the cast. Dancing the title role, Lauren Cuthbertson is listed only as “The Cellist.” However, what makes the choreography particularly interesting is that the core of the narrative is organized around Jackie’s relationship with her instrument. As a result, the instrument is embodied in a male dancer (Marcelino Sambé); and Marston’s choreography of the relationship between performer and instrument may well be recognized as a landmark in the history of narrative ballet.
The Mother (Kristen McNally) giving her daughter (Emma Lucano) her first lesson on the cello (Marcelino Sambé)
The other members of the du Pré family are not given very much attention with the exception of Jackie’s mother (danced by Kristen McNally), who gave Jackie her first cello lessons. More interesting is how Marston deals with the rise of du Pré’s recognition. The core character here is “The Conductor,” danced by Mathew Ball. This is clearly Daniel Barenboim, who was primarily a pianist when he met Jackie and for most of her remaining life. (The Wikipedia page for Hilary and Jackie includes a Barenboim quote about the film taken from an article in The National Review: “Couldn’t they have waited until I was dead?”)
Jackie converted to Judaism to marry Barenboim, and the wedding took place at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. They became two-fifths of what was casually known as the “Kosher Nostra” (with absolutely no connotations of Jewish-American organized crime), the other three musicians being Itzhak Perlman (violin), Pinchas Zukerman (violist), and Zubin Mehta (conductor). There was a very famous concert in London when all five of them convened to play Franz Schubert’s D. 667 (“Trout”) quintet, with Mehta playing the double bass part. Like many “all-star” events, the performance served up more spectacle than musicianship; but the event found its way into Marston’s choreography. In the absence of names, there is never any attempt to align dancers Luca Acri, Paul Kay, and Joseph Sissens with Perlman, Zukerman, and Mehta. Nevertheless, the score by Marston’s composer, Philip Feeney, serves up a generous amount of quotation of music from D. 667; so those who know the basic biography will easily recognize what is being depicted.
Feeney’s quotations also include many excerpts from Edward Elgar’s Opus 85 cello concerto in E minor. This was what Jackie performed at her concerto debut on March 21, 1962, having given her recital debut about a year earlier in Wigmore Hall in London. That episode is actually “previewed” in Marston’s scenario when the young Jackie (danced by Emma Lucano) holds up the record album of Elgar’s concerto being performed by cellist Paul Tortelier with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult. (The image captured by the camera was impressively clear, but could anyone in the audience see those details?)
All in all, Marston did an impressive job of packing a generous amount of narrative detail into a one-hour ballet. I was a bit skeptical at the beginning, but she had won me over by the time the curtain descended. To be fair, however, I knew the “real-life” narrative from the very beginning, meaning that much of my observation had to do with which episodes would be included and how they would be represented. Clearly, I cannot speak for those less familiar with the life and works of Jacqueline de Pré.
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