Aragón: Snow White (ballet)

Buy This Item Aragón: Snow White (ballet) by Deutsche Grammophon  Available from Amazon  $18.97  on 11-14-2008     Reader Reviews Snow White is a wonderful choice for a ballet story(I, myself have worked on choreographing and staging a Snow White ballet version). The story of Snow White was first popularized by the Brothers Grimm, but it(as well as several other famous stories) was told to them by two well-to-do sisters, Jeannette and Amalie Hassenpflug. The Grimms took the Hassenpflug version and varied and edited it to suit their own taste. But there are traces of the basic elements of this story dating back to the Sixteenth Century. It was Walt Disney that made it a household tale. There are many different versions of Snow White(not to be confused with Snow White And Rose Red, where that Snow White character is a totally different one). The version used in this ballet was chosen to be very similar to the Disney version so that it would be familiar to a wider audience. The quality of the dancing and choreography is absolutely fantastic! The choreographer, Ricardo Cue, said that he wanted to show off the talents of the dancers and he certainly succeeded in that. Tamara Rojo is an amazing dancer and she performs a few quadruple pirouettes in the first scene and does 48 fouette pirouettes in the last. The role of the Prince is danced by Inaki Urlezaga, and he is also very impressive, executing very difficult steps flawlessly. In fact, all the dancers displayed amazing ability and artistic maturity. Each of the seven dwarfs(played by young men who are not very tall, but not very short either!) also dance very interesting solos. The sets and costumes are also excellent. The role of the evil Queen is a pure character role, also contributing to the feel of a classical ballet. The entire ballet, in fact, except for the musical score, was conceived as a purely classical ballet, which is a very welcome concept. I have two criticisms of this ballet, however. First, the climax of the entire ballet comes with the entrance of the Prince and his discovery of Snow White. He is supposed to realize that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and fall in love with her. But this whole scene is very rushed. The entrance of the Prince is as if he were in a hurry for an appointment. He is also all alone. He very quickly takes a look at her, kisses her, and that is the end of the scene, more or less. This should have been a little more extensive, perhaps even giving him a solo adagio to ponder the situation. My other objection is more serious: it has to do with the nature of the musical score itself. Basically, the entire score is a theme and variation of only one melody! If you look at the great classcal ballet scores, you see that they consist of many very diverse melodies. This could have been done much more effectively here. Interestingly, this was Emilio Aragon's first attempt at composing a ballet score. He consulted Tamara Rojo to get an understanding of the tempo, sequence, and duration needs of classical dance, but somehow the idea of using different melodic ideas throughout the ballet got lost. (The style of the score can be described as neo-baroque.) But there are problems in every ballet, so these things don't spoil the overall result, which is truly wonderful. The DVD has state-of-the-art image and sound quality. We are also given a very generous supply of extras. There are no fewer than five included documentaries, showing most every aspect of the creation of this Snow White ballet. A good amount of rehearsal footage is included, as well. The documentaries are in Spanish with available English subtitles. This is the first classical ballet ever to be entirely created in Spain and it is a very welcome addition to the ballet repertoire.

Aragón: Snow White (ballet) Available from Amazon Price: $18.97 Updated on 11-14-2008.

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