Glen Tetley’s breakthrough dance piece was by all accounts a bracing slap across the chops for New York’s ballet fans when it premiered in 1962. With its atonal score, stark staging and muscular modern moves, it made Tetley’s name, especially in Europe. On the centenary of the choreographer’s birth, the Royal Ballet revisits his landmark piece. Three of the company’s brightest talents let rip – and though they can’t replicate the shock of the new, they do honour to a pioneer.
Only 40 minutes long, Pierrot Lunaire is a short tale of innocence getting whupped by experience. Pierrot is bullied and bamboozled by Columbine and swaggering Brighella: imagine Pinocchio being tricked by the unscrupulous fox and cat, and you get the idea. Schoenberg’s 1912 score is an atonal challenge: soprano Alexandra Lowe delivers its abrasive croon-shriek, while the sparse chamber orchestra sends out splinters of flute and strings. And on Rouben Ter-Arutunian’s scaffolding tower, sweetly naive Pierrot (Marcelino Sambé on opening night) perches to grab moonbeams from the air like a greedy toddler or curls upside down like a blanched crescent.
