Two New Ballets to Premiere with Carolina Ballet
Horror is the theme of Carolina Ballet’s second production of the new season with the Halloween double-bill of “Dracula” and Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” –the music for both specially-commissioned and composed by J. Mark Scearce. These represent the fifth and sixth ballets of Scearce’s performed by Carolina Ballet, after Tolstoy’s “ Kreutzer Sonata”, “Endymion’s Sleep,” “Guernica,” and Reverdy’s “Song of the Dead”.
Scearce’s approach was to begin first with the “sound world” of “Dracula”, something he found centered on the Eastern European cimbalom, one of the oldest instruments, dating back to 3500 BC, made popular among the Hungarian Gypsies of the late 19th century. Cimbalom is used only in “Dracula”. Other instruments for both ballets: oboe doubling English horn, clarinet doubling bass clarinet, French horn, percussion, harp, violin, viola, cello, and doublebass. Unique to “Masque” are two male voices. Some of the more colorful of the 24 percussion instruments the single percussionist is required to play include the Irish bodhran, Hawai’ian pu’ili sticks, and a Lion’s Roar.
“Dracula” will be choreographed by three-time Tony Award nominee Lynne Taylor-Corbett and “Masque” by company Artistic Director Robert Weiss.
http://www.carolinaballet.com/dracula.html
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