Editorial: Big shows prove just tutu much

The Imperial Russian Ballet Company performing Don Quixote. Photo/Supplied

As a late-in-life ballet convert I've had the privilege of getting to almost every production in the province.

I was buoyed initially by the news dancers from The Imperial Russian Ballet Company were poised to descend on Napier this month. That enthusiasm was curbed after discovering they were to perform Don Quixote.

Is it just me, or are the performing arts' big tickets consistently overplayed here?

Giselle, Beauty and the Beast, Swan Lake, Miss Saigon, Mamma Mia, The Nutcracker, Phantom of the Opera, Chicago et al - rotated to the point of nausea.

"Timeless classics" rendered mortal by relentless top billing. I struggle to think of any other artistic pursuit that owes its existence to the remoulding of work from the same condensed ouevre.

Financial survival undoubtedly feeds the habit. Canonical works are proven hits and guarantee bums on seats. Art, after all, is what you can get away with.

But at the risk of sounding quixotic, these repetitive offerings are resoundingly un-artistic. Surely one of theatre's tenets, like all art, is to ignore the script.

On the current course, ballet companies and dramatic societies risk becoming little more than covers bands.

No offence to Cervantes, or the Russians, but I'll give Don Quixote a wide berth - as I will The Royal New Zealand Ballet Company's Coppelia later this year, as I will any moth-eaten Broadway blockbuster.

A colleague argued these modern day incarnations are a re-reading with new choreography, innovation, twists and interpretation. But I say such is the stuff of karaoke.

Our audiences, performers and "classics" deserve more than an industry hellbent on typecasting itself.