Details

One of the UK's leading Ballet Companies. Kenneth MacMillan first heard Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in 1958. He immediately fell in love with Mahler's elegiac score and determined to set it for ballet. He created his Song of the Earth in 1965 for Stuttgart Ballet, on the invitation of his friend John Cranko. The ballet was instantly acclaimed and The Royal Ballet took the piece into its repertory only six months after the Stuttgart premiere. MacMillan introduced a narrative thread to the piece's six movements, drawing on imagery from Hans Bethge's translation of the six Tang dynasty-era poems used by Mahler. Marcia Hayd?e created the role of the woman, a figure of loneliness isolated from the movements of the corps de ballet around her. In MacMillan's hands Death becomes a gentle, ever-present companion. Earthbound, non-classical movements morph seamlessly into modernist curves in a work of breathtaking beauty and power. English National Ballet website.

Creatives/Company

Choreographer: Kenneth MacMillan
Music: Gustav Mahler
Design: Nicholas Georgiadis
Lighting: John B Read