Dance

Casanova

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Mary Brennan

four stars

DECADENCE and intrigue flaunt their way through almost every scene in Kenneth Tindall’s new Casanova for Northern Ballet, and yet the image we finally take away of this legendary 18th century philanderer is of a man whose passions and talents were far loftier than lusting urges at crotch level. Not that there is any shortage of close couplings – a little troilism here, an orgiastic thresh of countless snaking limbs there – but what Tindall also does is fracture the surface gloss of Casanova’s reputation as an incorrigible womaniser. In those moments, it is the complex, conflicted intellectual behind the daily mask that emerges, thrown into wrenching solos of bleak despair because other 18th century thinkers, like Voltaire, won’t even listen to his ideas.

Casanova’s twelve books of memoirs chart a heady mix of experiences and careers, from trainee priest to enlightened polymath by way of gambler, musician, alchemist and prisoner. Tindall’s episodic structure (usefully detailed in the programme synopsis) compresses salient incidents into just two acts but nonetheless captures a real sense of the Venice and Versailles that were backdrops to Casanova’s adventures. On-stage, 18th century Venice is a place of secretive dark shadows, albeit bathed in a golden glow – both church and aristocratic salon are gilded with wealth and privilege. Social gatherings have an opulent elegance, even acts of religious devotion have an ostentatious flourish. Meanwhile, between the huge brooding columns of Christopher Oram’s interior design, the red-robed figure of the Inquisition forever lurks. Sex in the sanctuary might get you defrocked, but reading forbidden books (of new scientific theories) will get you incarcerated: Casanova embraces the risks, and suffers both fates.

Will he fare better in Versailles? where the glittering mirror-walls and colourful costumes – flirty mini-crinis for the women – seem more liberated than Venice and yet the same web of intrigue and masquerade prevails. Casanova’s serious amours – Bellino (Dreda Blow) and Henriette (Hannah Batemen) – are initially disguised as men: their reasons emerge in Tindall’s subtly nuanced duets that allow Casanova (the impressive Giuliano Contadini) to express tenderness and elicit trust in choreography where agile, inventive techniques are made meaningful through caressing eye contact or supportive touch. Sumptuous, exquisitely stylish, theatrical: this Casanova sets out to dazzle, and it does. Every element, from Kerry Muzzey’s superbly cinematic score, to Oram’s striking designs and Alastair West’s painterly lighting, dovetails beautifully into a perfect framework for Tindall’s vivid, richly textured dance-making – successfully showing us a Casanova beyond the age-old playboy cliches.