Go back
LADY JANE
A dance performance to the music of John Robertson
Libretto by John Robertson based on a work by Oscar Wilde
Elena Platon as Lady Jane
THE DANCES OF SALOME
Ballet to music by John Robertson
Libretto John Robertson on motives from Oscar Wilde's play Salome
Choreography by Kaito Takahashi, Akari Morimatsu
Conductor Anthony Armoré
Scenography by Ventsislav Petrov
Costumes Teodora Dzhambazova
Soloists, cordeballet and orchestra of State Opera Stara Zagora
Coincidentally, both Lady Jane and Salome's Dance were inspired by the work of Irish writer and playwright Oscar Wilde, although the latter story was originally a biblical tale that Wilde turned into a play. "Lady Jane" is a story he made up to entertain a friend's mother.
"Salome's Dance" illustrates the "dance of the seven veils" performed by Salome for her second father, King Herod, the reward for which would be the severed head of John the Baptist presented to her on a silver platter. The piece was written as an orchestral work in its own right.
"Lady Jane was conceived as a companion piece to John Robertson's opera-masque Orpheus, which premiered in Rousse in June 2015 (it was also performed in Stara Zagora in February 2016) and with the same orchestra. The composer is the author of the text and the libretto. In the first half of the work, Lady Jane looks back on her life with various dances (waltz, Charleston, tango) characteristic of the different years of her narrative, while the second half is set around 1980, when she is an elderly woman.
