Rojo Fumbles Full-Length Ballet for SFB

Photograph of a scene from the original production of Raymonda at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in 1898 (public domain in the United States)

Last night saw the opening of the third production for the 2025 Repertory season of the San Francisco Ballet. Raymonda was the second full-length ballet of the season, following up on Manon, which began the season. The choreography was by Artistic Director Tamara Rojo, based on a version that she created in January of 2022 for the English National Ballet. “For the record” (as they say), I first encountered this ballet in its entirety when Mikhail Baryshnikov staged it for American Ballet Theatre in 1980.

The original narrative is set in Hungary, where the title character is the fiancé of the crusader knight Jean de Brienne. Wedding preparations are interrupted with the arrival of the Saracen knight Abderakhman. The narrative then wanders into the dream world in which Abderakhman woos Raymonda. This is where different productions vary in what happens next. However, ultimately, Abderakhman is slain by Jean de Brienne by the end of the second act (which may or may not take place in that dream world). The third act is then devoted entirely to Raymonda’s wedding ceremony.

Rojo decided to shift the narrative from a timeless fairy tale to the Crimean War. The extended episode in the dream world is significantly reduced, but the result is a muddled account of who is on which side of the brutal battle in Crimea. The serious balletomane would probably do well to set aside any effort to make sense of the story and just treat the entire program as a series of corps de ballet performances with interjections of solo and duo efforts. In that context the music by Alexander Glazunov provides little more than “background;” but in last night’s performance it was at least given a moderately engaging interpretation in the orchestra pit by conductor Martin West.

This then raises the obvious question from the viewer in the audience: Is it worth the time to muddle through all those episodes strung together by a flimsy excuse for a narrative? The good news is that, for the most part, last night performers were in fine form when it came to executing the choreography they had been taught. The scenery may have been ambiguous, but it certainly did not distract the viewer from the dancers. The only real question is whether or not an entire evening should be spent on a series of well-performed episodes in the context of an overall “concept” that never rose above the level of “muddled.”