"Dracula" presented by Texas Ballet Theater

Carl Coomer
as
DRACULA

The Travelling Toe and 2 other friends attended the Sunday afternoon performance of "Dracula" presented by Texas Ballet Theater.

The story of Dracula is told in 3 acts in the ballet choreographed by Artistic Director of the TBT, Ben Stevenson.  The ballet is performed to music by Franz Liszt.

Ben Stevenson
choreography

Franz Liszt

The first scene opens in Dracula's castle crypt.  He and his numerous brides are awakened and are hungry for blood.  Just at that time Dracula's henchman Renfield, arrives driving a coach pulled by 2 "ballet"horses.  Inside the coach is a young girl Flora who Renfield has kidnapped to present to his master.  After Dracula has his fill, the brides then converge on Flora.

The second act takes place in the castle village.  A young girl, Svetlana is celebrating her 18th birthday with her parents and all the villagers.  One of the guests is a young man, Frederick who is in love with  Svetlana and they want to marry.  But he is almost afraid to ask her father, the innkeeper, for her hand in marriage.  Just after the father has given his blessing, a strange coach arrives and Renfield jumps off the coach and abducts Svetlana to tale to his master.

The curtain opens on the third act that takes place back at  the castle.  The brides along with Flora are waiting for the Count.  He enters with Svetlana.  She is to be the next bride.  As the Count begins to mesmerize her, she tries to resist him.  But as she losing the battle with Dracula, her father, Frederick and the Priest storm into the castle to rescue Svetlana.  Using a Cross to repeal the brides, the Priest helps Frederick find Svetlana.  Then Frederick starts pulling the drapes and curtains down bathing the castle in sunlight.  Dracula flies to a perch in the ceiling and with a loud explosion he is killed.


Wow!!  We all 3 agreed that this was a wonderful production.  All the costumes were just lovely.  There were about 12 brides and they all wore white filmy dresses and each one was styled differently to denote various time periods.  During the village scene, once again the dresses were of similar colors but designed differently.  So too were the men's vests and sashes.  But of course one of the most interesting and dazzling costume pieces was Dracula's cape which was reported to weight 30 pounds.

The main dancers for the matinee performance that we saw were:

Alexander Kotelenets
                                            Dracula

Angela Kenny
                                            Flora

Emmanuel Velazquez
                                            Renfield

Carolyn Judson
                                            Svetlana

Jiyan Dai
                                            Frederick


And they were all excellent in their roles!

Taking this production up even a further notch was that the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra provided excellent musical accompaniment for the ballet.  Michael Moricz was guest conductor.




Texas Ballet Theater

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra

TBT Photo