THE TWO PIGEONS

Choreography: Sir Frederick Ashton
Music: Andre Messager

"An allegory in two acts and three scenes based on a fable by Jean de la Fontaine"
"There were two pigeons on a tree
Who loved each other tenderly
One, in his folly, tired of home,
Resolved in foreign lands to roam.
'Alas, what ails you?' said the other
'You would not leave me, gentle brother?
Sure, parting is the depth of woe,
Although to you, unkind! It seems not so.
At least bethink you of the risks and cares
That are the lot of travellers.'

… "Don't cry', said he,
'Three days at most will give my whim its run
And then I shall be back to tell
All my adventures one by one:
'Twill cheer you up and be the greatest fun'.

"With dragging wing and sagging head,
Cursing his curiosity, our friend
Crawled homeward by the nearest way
And after his eventful day
Sans further peril reached the Tree.
Our friends once more together! - you may guess
The joys paid them for their past distress."

(from The Fables of Jean de la Fontaine, translated by Sir Edward Marsh)

Les Deux Pigéons premiered at the Paris Opéra on 18 October 1886, in a choreography by Louis Mérante (a leading dancer and ballet master of the day, in the year before his death), to a new score by André Messager (1853-1929) and a commissioned libretto by Henri Régnier. The three-act ballet was based on one of the fables of the great French storyteller de la Fontaine, and the ballet remained popular in France for many years, although its first performance in the English-speaking world was at London's Royal Opera House in 1906.

The ballet's narrative frankly declares it a cousin of "The Prodigal Son", "The Wizard of Oz" or "The Fantasticks", with its erring protagonist and theme of the need for adventure, bitter experience, and a world-weary return to home values and forgiveness, although it is perhaps a gentler parable than the biblical story from which Balanchine made his classic ballet of the 1920s.

Sir Frederick Ashton's 1961 ballet, a twentieth-century classic in its own right, revisited the French classical tradition with respect (much as he had done with La Fille mal Gardée in the previous year), creating a two-act ballet for his stunning original cast of Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable, and since its Royal Ballet premiere (14 February 1961) at Covent Garden, this version has become a much-loved and much-revived staple of the international repertoire.

For his account, Ashton retained Messager's lovely score and rejected Regnier's three-act scenario, in favour of an allegorical treatment of the story, touching back to Fontaine's original fable, and adding the beautiful and memorable touch of symbolising his temporarily parted and ultimately reunited lovers, with two live birds, whose coming together immaculately expresses the journey of the lovers in the fable.

Ashton's essential lightness of touch, musicality and true understanding of the French Romantic ballet tradition makes his Two Pigeons a complete delight, its forgiving warmth and human understanding a balm to the more dramatic tale of a wandering lover adrift in a tough and bewildering world, and his ultimate return to true love, home and reconciliation.

©Tim Tubbs