Australia Dancing - Night is a Sorceress, The (1959

Night is a Sorceress, The (1959 - )

Stringer, Walter: Heather Macrae and Ken Tillson in Rex Reid's 'The Night is a Sorceress', Victorian Ballet Guild, 1959

Rex Reid's The Night is a Sorceress ('La Nuit est une Sorciere') premiered at the Melbourne Little Theatre on September 8, 1959, performed by the Victorian Ballet Guild. It was based on a storyline by Andre Coffrant that was first presented as a ballet in 1955, choreographed by Pierre Lacotte for his own company, Ballets de la Tour Eiffel. Lacotte's ballet was set to a jazz score by Sidney Bechet, orchestrated by James Toliver. Reid used the same score for his dance-drama which he set in two scenes, with costume and decor design by Ann Church.

The Victorian Ballet Guild program notes describe the work as follows:

This ballet can be summarized as follows, and the reader can attach any one of several possible psychological significances to the happenings and characters.
The scene is an old Victorian mansion in the Southern United States – Georgia or Carolina – at the turn of the century.
A white boy, a somnambulist, is constantly accompanied by his young negro servant, who seems fanatically attached to his master. The boy's parents have tried to convince him during his waking hours that he is a victim of somnambulism, but he has refused to believe them. One evening they decide to follow him and to awaken him from what they consider his folly.
His mother persuades his fiancee, wearing her bridal veil, to go with them. In the darkened attic of the house they discover the somnambulist dreamily occupied with his boyhood pastimes. First his parents, then the love-sick girl, make desperate attempts to awaken him, but through a series of disastrous accidents the young man kills them one after the other in a deathly silence of the moonlit night.
The negro has been watching this horrible scene in a stupefied state. Now he moves as in a trance, and copying the actions of his master, he finally leads the young man to the open window, steps back, and watches as the white boy meets the night and certain death.

In the premiere performance, the Somnambulist was performed by Laurence Bishop, his Parents by Alison Lee and Anthony Burke, his Fiancee by Ann Becher, and the Negro Servant by Jack Manuel. According to Edward Pask, Lee's 'intense and foreboding role as the Mother' was 'one of the finest dramatic portrayals on the ballet stage by a mature artiste to be given in Australia'. Other performances in the opening season featured John Bailey as the Somnambulist, Heather Macrae as the Fiancee and Kenneth Tillson as the servant.

Reid's The Night is a Sorceress was included in the inaugural repertoire of the Australian Ballet, opening at Her Majesty's Theatre Sydney on December 14, 1962. Dancers in the Australian Ballet production included Karl Welander and Garth Welsh as the Somnambulist, Rhyl Kennell, Leslie Sinclair, Suzanne Musitz and Kenneth Tillson as the Parents, Kathleen Gorham and Heather Macrae as the Fiancee, and Robert Olup and Colin Peasley as the Negro Servant.

The notated dance score to The Night is a Sorceress was commissioned by Meg Denton in 1986 and completed by Ray Cook in 2002. Denton's commission involved a revival, done purely for the purpose of notation rather than for performance. The cast consisted of David Roche as the Father, Simi Roche as the Mother, Sam Keany as the Somnambulist, Marie Laing as the Fiancee, and Paul Gazzola as the Negro.

Bibliography:

Edward H. Pask, Ballet in Australia: the second act 1940-1980 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 169.

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