Royal’s Ravel Rousers

Few people would deny that Tchaikovsky is one of the greatest composers of music for dance. But what about Maurice Ravel? He’s better known for his concert works, but Ravel wrote “Daphnis et Chloe” for the Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev on a scenario by Mikhail Fokine, who choreographed it in 1912.

Ravel turned two of his piano works--”Ma Mere l’Oye” and “Valse Nobles et Sentimentales”--into ballet scores. His famous (or infamous) “Bolero” was composed as a dance for Ida Rubinstein. Nijinska, sister of Nijinsky, choreographed it for her. Nijinska also choreographed Ravel’s “La Valse” for Rubinstein.

Later choreographers have found Ravel’s music suitable for dance too, and not only the scores already mentioned.

A sampling of these later works will be seen in a Ravel-based program danced by the Royal Ballet on Thursday and Friday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

The program will include Frederick Ashton’s “Daphnis and Chloe” (rarely performed here because it requires a chorus as well as an orchestra) and “La Valse”; Kenneth MacMillan’s “La Fin du Jour” (set to the Piano Concerto in G), and Christopher Wheeldon’s recent “Pavane Pour une Infante Defunte.”

“Programs come together for different reasons,” Royal Ballet artistic director Anthony Dowell said from London before he and the company arrived in Costa Mesa for this week’s performances. “We wanted to revise ‘Daphnis’ [created in 1951] and also Kenneth’s [1979] work. Both use music by Ravel. So we turned it into a theme program. ‘La Valse’ [1959] being rather short, we needed one more element for that section. So we added a new pas de deux by Christopher Wheeldon, one of our dancers who is now in New York City Ballet.”

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There was no problem in reviving the older works, Dowell said, because “they’re well documented, either by film or notation. But the [set and costume] designs [for ‘Daphnis’] are new.” The revival was done in 1994.

“ ‘La Valse’ is a pure dance piece. Mr. Balanchine’s [version] has a darker side. But Sir Frederick has done it in a purely romantic and glamorous style. It has great allure.”

Based on a Greek myth, “Daphnis” is a narrative piece, Dowell said. “It’s a love story. Some of the imagery is based on Greek friezes, and the movement loosely is based on Greek dance.”

MacMillan’s “La Fin du Jour” is “a really wicked period piece about the rather frivolous life of the ‘20s and ‘30s. There’s no implied plot. The slow movement suggests different forms of passion, but the signature poses happen throughout the ballet.”

Dowell called Wheeldon, who left the Royal to join City Ballet in 1973, “a talented choreographer. This is really his first work for the company.” It received its premiere in October.

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Wheeldon is by no means the only dancer to have left the Royal to join another company. Recently, Adam Cooper, a Royal principal, resigned to join Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures company.

Cooper had been on leave from the Royal to create the male white Swan/black Swan role in Bourne’s arresting new version of “Swan Lake” in London. But when Bourne brought the production to Los Angeles last month, where it continues at the Ahmanson Theatre, Cooper couldn’t extend his leave from the Royal. So he quit.

Another Royal dancer, Sarah Wildor (Cooper’s partner in real life), plans a leave of a few months to work with Bourne in his next ballet, “Cinderella.”

“Adam was going to leave the company at the end of the season,” Dowell said. “He wanted to explore acting, singing, whatever. He has an agent behind him. I never stand in anyone’s way when one wants to leave the nest.

“If Adam wants to come back, in these difficult times, with finances and everything, I can’t necessarily keep the place warm. We’ll see where the company is. But I never shut doors.

“Sarah will indeed be released,” he added. “I don’t keep them with ball and chains. . . . Of course it’s a gamble. If she wants to fly the nest too, I can’t stop that.

“They’ve got to find their way. If someone really wants to do that, I can’t stop it. I’m just very flattered that I’m supplying AMP.”

Dowell called the Bourne production “very interesting. It’s always fascinating to see, when you grow up with a wonderful and familiar piece, to see it interpreted in a new way.”

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But Dowell ruled out any immediate collaboration with him.

“Matthew has his own thing going. We’re a classical company, and we use the classics to create classical dancers. At the moment, he’s very much into his own company, getting his own personalities together.”

Dowell doesn’t regard the leave-takings as any sign that the company in trouble, but he does acknowledge that financial strains have increased.

“Every season, everything gets squeezed and cut back more. In the last three or four years of being a director, one has noticed a cold draft of financial problems creeping in.”

On top of money woes, the ballet and the Royal Opera are being kicked out of the London opera house while it undergoes a two-year restoration.

“They already started pulling it down around our ears,” Dowell said. “We have to be out of the building by July 14, which will be our last performance. Then we move out for two years.

“Of course, we are used to touring. It’s always been part of our diet. The unusual thing will be that we’ll be in four different venues in London, apart from our touring activities. I see it as quite an exciting time. There is quite a large amount of the public that is still afraid of coming into an opera house because of the plush and the gilt and all that. I hope we can attract new audiences.”

If the company does so, it won’t be due to many big new productions.

“We do have new ballets and new work in the later part of the year. . . . My main aim has been to keep to keep the company at full strength and intact,” Dowell said. “I wanted to do full ballets. It would be ludicrous to do new productions that wouldn’t have fit into the new house.

“In fact, the opera has more problems than we do. The opera has lost part of the chorus. The ballet has remained intact. It hasn’t been cut back, whereas the opera has.”

Neither company knows whether the recent return to power by the Labor Party will mean greater subsidies to the arts.

“It’s such early days, I really don’t know how they’re going to favor the arts or not,” Dowell said. “No one assumes anything about what’s going to happen to the arts.”

* The Royal Ballet will dance the Ravel program Thursday) and Friday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. $20 to $75. (714) 740-7878.