Domy Reiter-Soffer

February 22, 2010, 1:30 am
Filed under: Review by Robin McNeil 
I truly hope that everyone who reads this will have a chance to go see the Colorado Ballet’s production of “Beauty and The Beast.” It is one of the most original productions of the ballet that I have seen for several years. It has a marvelous and modern musical score by the gifted Hong Kong composer, Seen-yee Lam, and absolutely stunning choreography by the gifted Israeli artist, Domy Reiter-Soffer.
Do not expect a traditional ballet where members of the corps de ballet stand upstage in pastel tutus in the first position while the lead dancers perform a grand Pas de deux downstage. Beauty and The Beast is a fairy tale of the first order. It is a meaty ballet of great substance. It was written by Charles Perrault in 1697. Perrault also wrote Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, and Cinderella. What could I possibly mean by a fairy tale of the first order? I stress that Beauty and The Beast is not all that frightening, and I certainly think that young children should go see it. But it is darker, and certainly more emotional than any production of Beauty and The Beast that I have seen. This is because of the amazing and wonderful choreography by Domy Reiter-Soffer. And we certainly need to thank Gil Boggs, the Artistic Director of the Colorado Ballet, for inviting him to stage the choreography. The New York Times said “Domy Reiter-Soffer is particularly noted for his brilliant translation of words into movement, dealing with the very essence of the subject creating sheer theatre”. I have never seen a ballet, except for those choreographed by the late Merce Cunningham, where the dancing and intense personal expression of the dancers truly tell the story.
Domy Reiter-Soffer is a kind of modern Renaissance man, with a great range of interests and achievements which to date have included dance, drama, music and the graphic arts as well as teaching.
His production of Equus for Dance Theatre of Harlem at the Met. New York won him the Best Ballet of the Year Award from New York Daily News. Lady of the Camellias was voted Best production at the Finland festival 1990. His play Mary Makebelieve for the Abbey Theatre, Dublin was nominated as one of the Best Plays in the Dublin Theatre Festival. He has created a large repertory of successful works, among others the deeply moving Yerma for La Scala Milan and Irish National Ballet, and House of Bernarda Alba, both based on Lorca. The full length Paradise Gained about the French woman of letters Colette won him a special award for the best creation of 1991. Chariots of Fire (Phaedra), The Turn Of The Screw, the pop Time Trip Orpheus, Medea, La Mer, La Valse, Oscar (on the life of Oscar Wilde) and a multi-media production of A Time to Remember for the commemoration of the 2nd World war and the Holocaust won him great acclaim using over 300 performers on the stage. These productions have been successfully staged for American and European companies, including Dance Theatre of Harlem, The Australian Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Pittsburg Ballet Theatre, Ohio Ballet Louisville Ballet, La Scala and Bat-Dor Dance Company with which he has created over twenty-five ballets.
For the last three years he has created three full-length works for the Hong Kong Ballet, The Emperor and The Nightingale, which toured Germany, Switzerland then closing the Salzburg Festival in Austria, with critical success, also Beauty and the Beast and the multi media production of White Snake, which is based on a Chinese legend. He also restaged his award winning ballet Lady of the Camellias with great success. He was Artistic Advisor of Irish National Ballet from 1975 to 1989.
He has created many multimedia productions using different facets of the arts, involving singers, dancers and actors. As well as dance he has directed theatre productions, plays, musicals and opera. Domy Reiter-Soffer is a serious painter with seventeen one-man shows and has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art’s summer exhibition in London.
He has created over thirty designs for a wide range of dance and drama productions with much success. Reiter-Soffer has had a long dancing career, he has directed many plays and musicals, has been a staged rector for opera, and has designed more than 30 productions for both dance and drama at theatres including La Scala Milan, Australian Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Carmiel Dance Festival, the Finnish National, Bat-Dor Dance Company and Hong Kong Ballet, and the Ohio Ballet.
As I mentioned above, the score for this Ballet was written by Hong Kong composer Seen-yee Lam. She is a very gifted composer who has won many awards for her film scores, her popular music scores, her television drama scores, and her scores for ballet. Beauty and The Beast was scored for orchestra and tape.
The scenery for Beauty and The Beast was designed by Ivan Cheng and the costumes were designed by Domy Reiter-Soffer.
I am quite sure that everyone is familiar with the plot of this story, so I will not dwell too much on that. From the outset, Igor Vassine, who danced Belle’s father, and Belle herself, danced by Sharon Wehner, were absolutely incredible. This also applies to Ruby and Opal, Belle’s sisters, danced by Maria Mosina, and Sayaka Karasugi respectively. I had the great good fortune of being invited to a rehearsal, and I was struck, then, by the intensity of these dancers, and I wondered if this intensity would be transmitted to the audience at the performance. It certainly was. Again, I must point out, that I have never seen such intense dancing with all of its powerful emotions in any ballet. The dance movements, even though it was classical ballet, were so descriptive that one could understand the story without ever having heard of it before. When Alexi Tyukov entered the stage as Belle’s egotistical admirer, one immediately knew his personality because of the way he danced.
Even the costumes reflected the attention to detail by Reiter-Soffer. For example, Janelle Cook, who danced two roles, that of the Sorceress, and that of the Goddess of the Forest, had, of course, two different costumes. Her costume for the Sorceress was all black except for two red slashes on the top of each long sleeve. The stage was relatively dark as she danced, but the lighting emphasized the red slashes, so that when she changed the handsome prince into the Beast, it seemed that the red slashes were producing the energy. Her dance movements emphasized the evilness of her character. When she was the Goddess of the Forest, her costume was light and airy, and that is precisely how she danced that role.
It truly seemed to me that everyone in the Colorado Ballet was totally infected by their own imagination. And after watching them at the rehearsal, it is clear that they had the highest respect for Domy Reiter-Soffer and Gil Boggs, as well as Ballet Mistresses Lorita Travaglia, and Sandra Brown. It truly seemed as if the entire company was anxious to try something new and that they found this avant-garde music and demanding choreography truly exhilarating and exciting.
One of the most poignant duets I have ever seen danced in any ballet was in the second act when Belle, the Beauty, realizes that the Beast, danced by the remarkable and expressive Dimitry Trubchanov, is not so evil after all. They danced with their hands only inches apart, but they never touched each other. It was clear that the Beast was falling in love with her, as it was equally clear that she was beginning and yearning to understand him. As I stated above, this was classical ballet, but it was like nothing I have ever seen, because the movements were so very subtly different. Domy Reiter-Soffer told me that he referred to this duet as the “No Touch Duet.”
I must also point out that the Colorado Ballet Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Adam Flatt performed superlatively. There are only three violins and three violas, two cellos, two bass, one flute, one oboe, one bassoon, one clarinet, and one French horn. They are never out of tune, and they are always exciting to listen to. Since this production was for orchestra and tape recording, I don’t know for sure if Maestro Flatt also ran the tape (really a CD). I would imagine that he had to be responsible for that, though I forgot to ask him when I spoke to him after the performance.
I might also add that I had the opportunity to speak briefly with two of the dancers after the performance; Janelle Cook and Dmitry Trubchanov. It was almost a shock because they were normal human beings without any magic whatsoever. Such was their amazing dramatic ability on stage and their tremendous gift to their art. But I must say that the entire company is that way, because once they took the floor at the rehearsal, all of them transformed themselves into magical beings.