Le Bœuf sur le toit
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| Le Bœuf sur le toit | |
|---|---|
| Choreographed by | Jean Cocteau |
| Composed by | Darius Milhaud |
| Date of premiere | February 1920 |
| Place of premiere | Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris |
| Set designed by | Raoul Dufy |
| Setting | Brazil |
| Genre | surrealist ballet |
| Type | classical ballet |
Le Boeuf sur le toit, op. 58 (English title, The Ox on the Roof: The Nothing-Doing Bar) is a surrealist ballet made on a score composed by Darius Milhaud which was in turn strongly influenced by Brazilian popular music. The title is that of an old Brazilian tango, one of close to 30 Brazilian tunes quoted in the composition. The piece was originally to have been the score of a silent Charlie Chaplin film (Cinéma-fantaisie for violin and piano.)
Its transformation into a ballet (Pantomime Farce) was the making of the piece, with a scenario by Jean Cocteau, stage designs by Raoul Dufy, and costumes by Guy-Pierre Fauconnet. There is no real story to speak of, but a sequence of scenes based on music inspired by Brazil, a country in which the composer spent two years during World War I. The stage set is that of a bar frequented by a number of characters: a bookmaker, a dwarf, a boxer, a woman dressed in man's clothing, a policeman who is decapitated by the blades of an overhead fan before he is revived, and a number of others. The first actors were in fact clowns from the Medrano circus, the Fratellini. The choreography was deliberately very slow, in marked contrast to the lively and joyful spirit of the music.
The premiere was given in February 1920 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and comprised, besides the ballet, Adieu New York by Georges Auric, Cocardes by Francis Poulenc and Trois petites pièces montées by Erik Satie.
The version for chamber orchestra was followed by another for piano duet, subtitled Cinema Symphony on South American Airs (its performance lasts about a quarter of an hour.)
The ballet (Pantomime Farce) gave its name to a celebrated Parisian cabaret-bar opened in 1921 which became a meeting-place for Cocteau and his associates.
[edit] Other Stagings
Milhaud's piece became a staple of the classical repertoire, but curiously there haven't been many stagings of the ballet itself. A TV staging was created by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and directed by Adrian Marthaler.
This Pantomime Farce was first staged by a Mime Company in 2004 when T. Daniel Productions (T. Daniel and Laurie Willets) produced, and directed, Jean Cocteau’s Le Boeuf sur le toit as part of the first Contemporary French Theatre Festival, "Playing French", in Chicago organized by The French Cultural Services of the Consulate General of France in Chicago. In this production, Darius Milhaud’s Four Hand Piano Version of the music accompanied the pantomime.
Another staging took place in Montreal on February 25, 2009 as part of the Montreal Highlights Festival whose theme was the city of Paris. Unlike Cocteau's plot director Alexandre Marine shifted the action to a brothel, with the bawdy house transforming to a "hospital" with the arrival of the Policeman. The production featured Montreal's I Musici de Montréal Chamber Orchestra and featured students of Montreal's École nationale de cirque.
[edit] External links
- The Boeuf chronicles—How the ox got on the roof: Darius Milhaud and the Brazilian sources of "Le Boeuf sur le Toit" by Daniella Thompson.
- T. Daniel Productions' (T. Daniel and Laurie Willets) production of "Le Boeuf sur le toit" with Darius Milhaud's Music
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