Three years after Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published, Oscar Wilde, in his 1889 The Decay of Lying: An Observation, wrote, “the transformation of Dr. Jekyll reads dangerously like an experiment out of the Lancet [the famed British medical journal].” As English literature scholar Anne Stiles explained in a widely cited scholarly article published in 2006, Stevenson, who came from a family which was extensively familiar with the scientific method, accomplished more than loosely basing the story on psychiatric cases he had studied. Noting Stevenson’s creative use of the Gothic romance fiction genre, Stiles wrote that the “novella cleverly parodies the form of the case study” and “lays bare the limitations of scientific prose, particularly its inadequacy in light of the complex moral and social realities impossible to relate in purely empirical terms.” In the end, Stiles considers Stevenson’s novella as a “literary harbinger of crucial innovations in modern psychology.”
It is precisely in this spirit that choreographer Val Caniparoli’s adaptation of the story of Jekyll and Hyde liberates the narrative from the Gothic fiction form, one popularly associated with Halloween, while pushing classical ballet into a fully-fledged theatrical exploration of social and psychological issues that rarely have been part of narratives in the ballet canon.
Caniparoli’s full-length ballet will receive its Utah premiere later this week as the 61st season opener for Ballet West. The production will run Oct. 25 to Nov. 2 at the Capitol Theatre in downtown Salt Lake City. The Finnish National Ballet premiered the ballet in 2020 and Ballet West will be the third U.S. company to stage the work, which Caniparoli has continued to fine tune.
In a panel discussion earlier this month at Westminster University, Adam Sklute, Ballet West’s artistic director, said Caniparoli’s Jekyll and Hyde “is unlike any ballet we have performed,” which is “what I love about it as a complete theatrical piece that stretches the boundaries of what classical ballet has been.”
As Stevenson took the gothic romance fiction genre in his novella to a position that few authors would have dared to attempt, Caniparoli follows suit. He teases out underlying themes from Stevenson’s story including how social and sexual hierarchical roles are reversed, thereby amplifying the extreme inner turmoil Dr. Jekyll endures both in the world of science and in late Victorian Era society. There are, for instances, scenes portraying sexual violence and drug addiction.
and Andre McGregor II, Jekyll & Hyde, Val Caniparoli,
Ballet West. Photo Credit: Beau Pearson.
But, Caniparoli’s most consequential addition to the narrative is the character of the author Stevenson. It anchors artistic observations on the darker side of late Victorian Era society, with seemingly proper members of the bourgeois class willingly going behind closed doors and indulging their addictions for opioids and hallucinogenic drugs while turning into unfettered libertines. There is a damning but also tragic hypocrisy which manifests, where we wonder whom can we really trust unhesitatingly as sincere empathetic stewards in society, especially without leaping to snap judgments when someone is beset by deep psychological problems and trauma or seeks to escape the dangers of their addictions.
In fact, James Pope Hennessy, in his biography of the Scottish-born author, chronicles Stevenson’s freewheeling drug-fueled escapades he undertook with his cousin, especially when he was in twenties. Later, because of chronic illness, Stevenson, like many other Victorians, regularly took a tonic containing cocaine and cannabis, to treat his medical problems. The ballet opens with a prologue about the heavily medicated Stevenson lapsing into a dreamy state, during which he envisions the characters for his famous novella.
The ballet will certainly give audiences an elaborate cinematic feel. The theatrical demands for Jekyll and Hyde emphasize the unique place this production holds in contemporary ballet. Scenes include an insane asylum, where Dr. Jekyll is conducting experiments that his colleagues believe are “balderdash.” Another is set in the protagonist’s laboratory, where Stevenson’s presence is evident. There are street and tavern scenes as well as those in the elegant trappings of an estate dining room and ballroom. It is an unprecedented experience in ballet to portray society’s darker corridors without barely a let-up in the entire production, as Caniparoli’s Jekyll and Hyde has envisioned.
The greatest theatrical hurdle in Caniparoli’s rendering is the fact that two dancers will perform what traditionally has been a singular character role where the properly bourgeois Dr. Jekyll lapses into the criminal Mr. Hyde. A theory of the double brain prevailed during Stevenson’s era, which hypothesized that each hemisphere of the brain was occupied by different personalities and souls. For instance, in the novella, Jekyll talks of man not being “truly one, but two,” and later his lament that these “polar twins should be continuously struggling.”
For opening night and other performances, principal artists Jordan Veit and David Huffmire will portray, respectively, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. For four performances, Dominic Ballard, demi-soloist, and Adrian Fry, principal artist, will portray, respectively, Jekyll and Hyde. Many creative renderings of the story have often turned to makeup and special effects to portray Dr. Jekyll’s transformation but here the renderings with two individual performers primes us to think about our own complex human nature, which can bring empathy and sympathy on one hand and in moments of anger and disgust, the complete opposite. Tyler Gum, principal artist, and Jake Peerce, demi-soloist, individually will portray Stevenson in various performances.
Speaking at the same Westminster University panel, Caniparoli knew that he had to create a prominent female role as well as other female characters to fill gaps to round out his narrative treatment. In rotating performances, principal artists Katlyn Addison and Amy Potter will portray Nellie Carew, Dr. Jekyll’s fiancée.
There are 20 character roles in the Caniparoli production, with yet another intriguing addition being Allison Cunningham, Stevenson’s nurse and Dr. Jekyll’s maid (which will be performed by soloist Kristina Pool). Caniparoli was inspired in part by the 1996 gothic horror film, Mary Reilly, directed by Stephen Frears, which starred Julia Roberts and John Malkovich. Roberts played the maid whom Dr. Jekyll hired for his household and who eventually becomes his favored servant. While many critics panned the film, it was none other than Roger Ebert, one of the contemporary age’s most influential movie critics, who praised the film as “more faithful to the spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson’s original story than any of the earlier films based on it, because it’s true to the underlying horror.”
Caniparoli invested just as much creative effort in crafting the score, a mix of orchestrations, solo piano, and recordings from Frédéric Chopin, Henryk Górecki, Wojciech Kilar, Krzysztof Penderecki and Henryk Wieniawski. The Ballet West Orchestra, led by Jared Oaks, will perform during the run.
Caniparoli worked with Ramona Pansegrau, music director and conductor at Kansas City Ballet, to develop the score, in time for the Finnish National Ballet’s world premiere in 2020. It was an arduous process, given that it was created during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Much of it was accomplished through Zoom meetings and then there was the always rigorous challenges of securing musical rights and negotiating the royalties. In an interview published elsewhere last year, Pansegrau said “I think the biggest moment for me was sitting on the plane returning from Washington D.C. and reading the email that we got the rights and royalties quotes from the American contingent of the European companies saying, ‘we will cut this in half for you.’” She added, “I was literally in tears on the plane. It was the last cog in the wheel for us to bring this entire production to the United States. If that royalty quote had been where it was, every North American company that was interested, would have bowed out.”
Jekyll & Hyde is not recommended for audiences under the age of 15. Themes include psychological trauma, violence and sexual content. There is no nudity. For tickets and more information, ser the Ballet West website.