Product: The Penguin Cafe Orchestra [DVD Video] (1989)
Rating: 3.0
A rare ecological subject
I had seen but a single number of this ballet - the zebra - in a Royal Ballet Gala, together with other excerpts from various ballets and I remember I found the number very interesting. I later bought the VHS tape with the complete ballet. I honestly don't care very much for the music. It's simply adequate.. But the ballet is another matter. It begins with a group of people having fun in a cassino and slowly develops into a series of character numbers describing animals - and a South American rainforest family of natives - in the brink of extinction. The vocabulary is ecletic - ballet, folk, social dances - but the numbers are all very expertly choreographed and danced. The ballet ends with a huge rainfall, and we notice that they have all - humans and animals - taken refuge in an ark...Ballets with ecological subjects are rather uncommon, and this is one of only two I know, the other being "Plains daybreak" by Erik Hawkins, also a beautiful piece.If you're the kind who likes to take untrodden paths, why not try tis one?