Sarasota Ballet serves up a festive feast

In Sarasota, we’ve been hearing and seeing the old question, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” quite a bit lately because it’s lit up in neon above the stage at the Asolo Repertory Theatre’s production of “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.”

The answer, of course, is “Practice.”

Asked how one gets to be a Commander of the British Empire, aka a “knight,” Sir David Bintley says, “It’s the same answer as it is for Carnegie Hall — practice.”

Pressed further, Bintley (call him Sir David if you meet him) allows that receiving a tap on the shoulder from a sword held by Queen Elizabeth was a bit more complicated than that. “In terms of the knighthood, I was given it for services to dance,” says one of Britain’s leading classical choreographers.

“I’ve been around a long time. I was a dancer, I was a good character dancer, I became a principal and I directed the Birmingham Royal Ballet company for 24 years,” Bintley explained in a choppy Zoom interview that would have prompted most people to pull the plug. “If you stick around long enough, they’ve got to give you something.”

Bintley, and his former colleague and friend, Sarasota Ballet Director Iain Webb, are nothing but persistent. Neither has gone away over the decades and both have remained committed to bringing Bintley’s ballet, “The Spider’s Feast” to Sarasota, despite obstacles such as pandemic shutdowns and scheduling.

“I’ve lost track. Was it three or four times that it’s been postponed?” Bintley asked. In the end, it doesn’t matter because the long-awaited world premiere of “The Spider’s Feast” is finally happening.

It’s being served up Dec. 20-21 by Sarasota Ballet dancers and members of the Margaret Barbieri Conservatory. “The Spider’s Feast” is part of Program 3, “Fanciful Journey,” which also includes Sir Frederick Ashton’s “Les Patineurs” and George Balanchine’s “Rubies.”

Fans of Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker,” don’t fret: Sarasota Ballet will perform that holiday standard on Dec. 22-23. It will be a whirlwind four days for Sarasota balletomanes.

Bintley created the predecessor to “The Spider’s Feast” for the Royal Ballet School’s Golden Jubilee in 1997, which was attended by none other than founder Dame Vanette de Valois, who was 100 at the time.

Originally called “A Spider’s Banquet,” it was based on an earlier French ballet first performed at the turn of the century to the music of Albert Roussel. That production, about a spider accumulating insects in preparation for a giant meal, was a serious affair.

Image courtesy of Frank Atura

In his 1997 dance, Bintley decided to take a humorous approach. “When I thought about doing it, the idea was to make it comedic. In the original, the spider amasses enough food for his feast by killing other insects,” he said. “In my version, every time it looks like he’s going to make a kill, he’s deprived.”

Bintley had long toyed with the idea of adapting “The Spider’s Feast” for adult dancers. He has done that for the Sarasota rendition, which also features younger dancers in secondary roles.

“When I first made it, it was pretty challenging for the students (at the Royal Ballet School),” recalled Bintley. “It wasn’t so much the choreography as it was the way they did the steps. It’s a comedy. Young people are not really experienced enough to fully develop comedies, whereas professionals are.”

Bintley spent two weeks in Sarasota earlier in the season rehearsing with the Sarasota Ballet. He was due to return Dec. 7 to put the finishing touches on the production, which features design by Dick Bird and lighting design by Ethan Vail.

Commenting on the preparations for “The Spider’s Feast” and meeting members of the Sarasota Ballet for the first time, Bintley said, “I loved working with them. They are going to be really good. We had a good budget for the piece and my designer has done a wonderful job. It’s going to be very beautiful.”

Longstanding ties produce world premieres

Bintley’s decision to bring his new creation to the Sarasota Ballet is due to his longstanding relationship with Webb, whom he met when they both were dancing for the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet. At the time, Sadler’s Wells was touring company of the Royal Ballet based in London.

The company moved to Britain’s Midlands district in 1990, attracted by economic development money and a market with less cultural competition than London. It was then christened the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Five years later, Bintley succeeded Sir Peter Wright as director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, a post he held for 24 years. From 2010-14, he was concurrently artistic director of The National Ballet of Japan.

Image courtesy of Royal Birmingham Ballet

Viewers of Netflix’s series about Britain’s royal family, “The Crown,” may recall that Princess Margaret takes a drubbing from her normally composed sister, Queen Elizabeth, when she misses an opening night performance of the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet.

The mishap happened in the 1960s, before Bintley’s time. Did Netflix blow the incident out of proportion? Perhaps.

In any event, Bintley says the missed appearance was not representative of Princess Margaret’s behavior toward the Royal Ballet, of which she was the first president in 1957. She was later patron of the Sadler’s Wells Foundation. 

“I knew her very well,” Bintley says. “Princess Margaret was devoted to the Royal Ballet and visited us often.”

Like his friend Bintley, Webb has been around for a long time in the world of English ballet and has been at the helm of the Sarasota Ballet since 2007. He hasn’t been knighted yet, but this summer he did receive the 2024 British National Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement.

Webb was able to pick up De Valois Award in person. He and the Sarasota Ballet were in London for the Ashton Celebrated festival at the Royal Opera House, where they shared the program with the Royal Ballet from June 4-9.

Unfortunately, Bintley had to miss the tribute to Sir Frederick Ashton because he was in Japan at the time.

Asked to put Webb’s contribution to dance into perspective, along with those of his wife, Sarasota Ballet Assistant Director Margaret Barbieri, Bintley said, “They have a distinct artistic vision and they are devotees of Ashton, who typifies the British approach to dance.”

But Webb and Barbieri aren’t merely content to perform the classics of Ashton and Balanchine, he notes. 

“Somehow Iain manages to commission things. It’s really quite ... ” he said before technical difficulties on the Zoom call ate his words.

We’ll let Sarasota Ballet audiences finish the sentence.