Marie Antoinette, Ballet by T. Malandain
Based on the life of the infamous Queen of France, Marie Antoinette is a ballet by Thierry Malandain, the renowned and somewhat unconventional choreographer and artistic director of the Malandain Ballet Biarritz. The Volksoper Vienna opens its doors to the ballet, set in part to music by one of the most famous composers associated with the city, Joseph Haydn. As such, the venue constitutes a fitting place to witness a production that blends classical and contemporary choreography, given that Marie Antoinette was an Austrian archduchess born into Viennese high society before her move to Versailles.
Marie Antoinette premiered on 29 March 2019 at the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles, performed by the choreographer's own company, Malandain Ballet Biarritz. Malandain chose several works by Christoph Willibald Gluck for the ballet, including excerpts from Orphée et Eurydice, Don Juan and Alceste. Gluck was a contemporary of the queen who, like Haydn, rose to prominence under the patronage of the Habsburg court in Vienna. Blending contemporary touches with classical ballet, Malandain also fittingly chose excerpts of Haydn's Paris Symphonies for some of the ballet's scenes. Other Haydn music includes the great maestro's Symphony No. 85 in B-flat major, a work commonly referred to as 'La Reine' (The Queen) because it was a favourite piece of Marie Antoinette herself.
The ballet begins with a ball to celebrate the wedding of the Dauphin Louis Auguste to his bride Maria Antonia of Austria, as Marie Antoinette was then known. The story progresses through the young life of the title character in scenes that include one in which she attends a production of Persée by Jean-Baptiste Lully with a libretto by Philippe Quinault. In the story, Medusa is beheaded by the mythical Greek hero Perseus, foreshadowing events to come in the aristocrat's life. Time passes and Marie Antoinette becomes Queen of France, but not all is well at court or in her marriage to the king. Eventually, revolutionary fervour breaks out in Paris and the fate of the queen is soon sealed.
Malandain's vigorous and modern style, coupled with his use of Baroque gestures, combine to produce a distinctive look and feel in the ballet. The French choreographer uses theatricality to the full, an apt way of expressing the fated queen, given how she appeared to live her life as a theatre lover, someone who seemed to want to be the star of the show at court rather than the political operator she might have been. Audiences at the Volksoper Wien will witness her life depicted as someone who performed her role as Queen of France in the truest sense of the word, often with complete disregard for the consequences of such conspicuous extravagance.