BARTÓK EVENING

A ballet-pantomime in one act composed by Béla Bartók after a Chinese tale, The Marvellous Mandarin caused a scandal in 1926 because of its raw and erotic subject: in the slums of a city, a prostitute attracts passers-by to her accomplices who rob them. A rich mandarin is seduced by her lascivious dance and is assaulted. Despite his injuries, he finds the strength to satisfy his desire in the arms of the seductress. Invited for the second time by Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in 1987, Jean-Christophe Maillot delivers a version in which sensual eroticism already shines through, to be fully expressed in La Belle and Le Songe. His ballet opens with an "ideal portrait", as a preamble to the failed relationship of a man and a woman facing each other in daily monotony. Sketched out thereafter between desire and frustration is the portrait of a dream being who will push a desperate fantasy to excess. Having already presented here his ballet Wartime Elegy in 2025, Alexei Ratmansky returns to Monaco to imagine a creation around The Wooden Prince, another tale embellished by Bela Bartok where a fairy uses her spells to bring a wooden puppet to life, much to the great displeasure of a living Prince who sees the scarecrow he himself created steal away his beautiful friend. Here again it is about desire, against the backdrop of the nagging question: but how to give them substance?

SOIRÉE BARTÓK - LE MANDARIN MERVEILLEUX - News version : Choreography: Jean-Christophe Maillot | Music: Béla Bartók, Deux portraits (op 5), Le Mandarin merveilleux (op 19) | Sets and costumes: Jean Maillot | Duration: 40 min | Premiere: 19 April 1987, Salle Garnier de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo, new version : 27 April 2027, Grimaldi Forum Monaco. LE PRINCE DE BOIS - creation : Choreography: Alexei Ratmansky | Music: Béla Bartók, The Wooden Prince (Le Prince de Bois) | Premiere: 27 April 2027, Grimaldi Forum Monaco

With l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, direction: Elias Grandy