Ballet Quad Cities' "The Firebird" and "La Creation du monde" at the Adler Theatre -- April 12 (pictured: "The Firebird" at the Adler Theatre in 2016)
Saturday, April 12, 2 & 7 p.m.
Adler Theatre, 136 East Third Street, Davenport IA
If you've been a longtime admirer of the Quad Cities' professional dance company Ballet Quad Cities and have eagerly attended its productions over the past decade, you may be familiar with the two ballets – both choreographed by Artistic Director Courtney Lyon – that collectively serve as the company's 2024-25 season closer. Yet even if you've previously seen Lyon's takes on The Firebird and La Création du monde, which will enjoy two stagings at Davenport's Adler Theatre on April 12, you won't have seen them quite the way you soon will.
Although The Firebird, with its score by legendary composer Igor Stravinsky, was staged at the Adler nine years ago as part of Ballet Quad Cities' Spring Is in the Air program, and Lyon states that this year's version is “exactly the same as in 2016,” this Russian fairytale is being enacted by none of the same dancers. As Lyon says, “The performers definitely bring different interpretations to it. The way they work as a group, in their individual approaches to particular movements, gives it a completely different feeling.”
And while La Création du monde (The Creation of the Earth) enjoyed a Davenport Outing Club presentation as part of the company's Ballet on the Lawn series, it should go without saying that a performance on a makeshift outdoor stage – in daylight, no less – is worlds removed from one in the darkened house of the expansive Adler.
“What's neat about Création du monde,” says Lyon, “is I did premiere it in Ballet on the Lawn in August of 2023, but it had a limited footprint. Meaning our stage for Ballet on the Lawn is small, and there's not even a formal stage – there are no wings, it's outside, and all that. So when you make something to fit on a small stage outside, you have choices you need to make based on the setting. And now we get to perform it on the Adler stage, fully fleshed out, with full lights and full theatrical elements.”
A roughly 16-minute opener before the Act II event of The Firebird, La Création du monde features the full Ballet Quad Cities company, with Jillian Van Cura, Madeleine Rhode, and Marcus Pei as the showcased dancers, and the ensemble completed by Eleanor Ambler, Sierra DeYoung, Julia Ellis, Christian Knopp, Madeline Kreszenz, Kira Roberts, Caitlin Sendlenski, and Mahalia Zellmer. Described as "a mythical journey from primordial soup and spontaneous generation to ancient origin stories to revolving celestial bodies and beyond," the piece boasts a score by French composer Darius Milhaud, with Lyon its choreographer.
Milhaud wrote the score between 1922 and '23, and as Lyon states, the composer "liked to travel a lot. At the time, it was a really big desire for people to go to other parts of the world, hear music, pick up the flavor of what was happening, and go home and be inspired by it, and then write things based off their travels. Milhaud was inspired by the jazz music he heard in Harlem, in New York City. So he came, he listened, he went back home to Paris, and he wrote his interpretation of what he heard. He called it Création du monde, and it has a lot of flavor of early jazz music in it."
In transitioning the ballet from its initially intimate Outing Club stage to the full proscenium of the Adler, Lyon says, “Basically, I took the bones of what I did before and I'm fleshing it out. The dancers have the ability to move a lot more on stage and utilize entrances and exits, and I get to think about what the lights will add … . It's really fun. I don't have to start from scratch; I can conserve my brain and make it all 'next-level.'”
Running 45-ish minutes, Stravisnky's The Firebird follows the April 12 program's intermission, and Lyon appears to know the perfect way to sell the ballet to kids of all ages: “It's kind of like in Harry Potter when Voldemort puts his soul into an object – to try to make it so you can't kill him.”
The work was originally composed in 1910, and as Lyon says, “When Stravinsky was commissioned to write The Firebird, it was commissioned for the Paris season for Ballets Russes. The Ballet Russes was a company primarily composed of Russian dancers who toured, bringing Russian artistry to other places of the world. And performing in Paris was a big deal, because Paris, at the time, was the heart of a lot of the art that was going on. The Ballet Russes liked to bring together young composers, young choreographers, young artists, and put together these spectacular productions. This was one of them.”
With its story inspired by Russian folklore, the firebird a variant on our own folkloric figure of the phoenix that rises from the ashes, Lyon says that Stavinsky's ballet is set in “an enchanted garden that Prince Ivan wants to hunt in, but the garden is protected by an evil sorcerer. There are also princesses who are being held captive in the garden. Prince Ivan sees the firebird and has the opportunity to hunt the firebird and kill it, but he decides to let that firebird go. And because of his choice, the firebird rewards him with a feather, and she says, 'If you're ever in trouble, wave this feather and I'll help you.' And then the princesses come into the garden, and he of course falls in love with one of them on sight.” Lyon Laughs. “That's how fairytales happen.”
Continuing, she says, “But the problem is that whenever a wanderer, an outside person, comes into the garden, the sorcerer has a bunch of trolls and monsters that come and turn everyone into stone. So Ivan waves his feather and the firebird comes to rescue him, and … .” (And the rest can't be revealed without a huge SPOILER ALERT! warning.)
In Ballet Quad Cities' rendition of The Firebird, the titular creature is danced by Madeline Kreszenz, Prince Ivan by Christian Knopp, and the prince's eventual love interest Princess Tsarevna by Caitlin Sendlenski, with the corps de ballet composed of Eleanor Ambler, Sierra DeYoung, Marcus Pei, Madeleine Rhode, Kira Roberts, Jillian Van Cura, and Mahalia Zellmer. And despite the busy storyline that's presented with no dialogue, Lyon says that audiences will have no problem following the narrative, as “it's pretty straightforward.
“The beauty of ballets like this,” she says, “is that the music was written alongside the creation of the production, so the music really does support the action and the story. When Stravinsky wrote this, he was a student of (Nikolai) Rimsky-Korsakov, and in 1909, music was still very Impressionistic, very Romantic … much like the French style of music. This was something Igor Stravinsky wrote that was very atmospheric. But you start hearing elements for what he's known for, which is his atonal sound and his really interesting use of the orchestra. As you listen to the music of The Firebird, it's kind of like you're on Stravinsky's journey with him after he's discovered himself.”
Regarding her decision to keep her original 2016 choreography intact for The Firebird's 2025 staging, Lyon says of her original take, “I had a very strict movement vocabulary, and I made very strong motifs for the people dancing it, and those motifs and leitmotifs really line up with Stravinsky's music. The choreography is very bound to the music. So it is a very thorough piece of specific art – it looks like its own ballet, if that makes sense – and with the costumes and the staging, it has a very strong look to it. So I didn't deviate from my original creation.”
Lyon continues, “The Firebird is so locked in. That music was such a guide for me. I really trusted Stravinsky's score to help me make choices in the movement. And it's difficult music, because it's irregular. It's complex. So the dancers are working really, really hard, and they are loving it and look amazing. I'm so excited to put them on stage. They really love taking on really difficult challenges like this.”
Ballet Quad Cities' presents The Firebird and its opener La Création du monde at Davenport's Adler Theatre on April 12, admission to the 2 and 7 p.m. performances is $15-35, and more information and tickets are available by visiting DavenportLive.com/the-adler-theatre and BalletQuadCities.com.
