Jazz Calendar

Jazz Calendar is a ballet created in 1968 by Frederick Ashton to the music of Richard Rodney Bennett. The ballet was first performed on 9 January 1968 by The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with designs by Derek Jarman.^[1] The work was performed over 50 times up to 1979 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden but is not part of the current repertoire.^[2] It was also produced in October 1990 at the Birmingham Hippodrome by Birmingham Royal Ballet.^[3]

History

The production was arranged at short notice to replace a new production of Aida, and at the suggestion of Nigel Gosling, Ashton asked Derek Jarman to create the designs.^[4]

Richard Rodney Bennett's score had been commissioned by the BBC and composed between 1962 and 1964.^[5] It encompasses a variety of traditional jazz forms and devices, from twelve-bar blues (in Friday's Child) to a fast jazz waltz (in Thursday's Child). Written "for 12 instruments", the scoring is flute, alto-, tenor-, and baritone saxophone, horn, two trumpets, bassoon, trombone, drums, piano, bass.^[6] The music is dedicated to the singer Jean Hart.

The rehearsals for the ballet's premiere were filmed at the Royal Opera House involving many of the original principals.^[7] The full score was recorded in 1971 by the London Jazz Ensemble conducted by John Lanchbery (Philips 6500 301).

Original cast

• Monday : Vergie Derman
• Tuesday : Merle Park, Anthony Dowell, Robert Mead
• Wednesday : Vyvyan Lorrayne, Paul Brown, David Drew, Ian Hamilton, Derek Rencher
• Thursday : Alexander Grant, six girls
• Friday : Antoinette Sibley, Rudolf Nureyev
• Saturday : Michael Coleman, Desmond Doyle, Lambert Cox, Frank Freeman, Jonathan Kelly, Keith Martin, Peter O'Brien, Wayne Sleep
• Sunday : Marilyn Trouson and cast.^[8]

Story

The scenario, based on the children's poem Monday's Child^[1] follows the sequence of the poem. After Monday (a "hymn to narcissism"), Tuesday is a pas de trois in a style of Ashton's Monotones. Wednesday's woe is in the form of a "distortion of the Rose Adagio" from The Sleeping Beauty, Thursday depicts various forms of transport, Friday is a blues pas de deux. Saturday is a send-up of a male ballet class, while the finale mimicked the 'stage revolve' close of Sunday Night at the London Palladium.^[4]