Ballet Season Ends on High Note

Varied training enriches dramatic roles in 'Carmen'

INTERVIEW BY KATHY VALIN

On opening night this weekend, Ellen Kent will appear as the volatile and seductive Carmen to Christopher Maraval's don Jose in Cincinnati Ballet's version of the Merimee tale to Bizet's music. Kent, a frequently featured member of the corps, and Maraval, a soloist, will bring their training and their passion to their most recent roles here.

"I really love working here," says the dark-haired, vivacious Kent of her two-year tenure in Cincinnati, during which she's danced in works like Three Preludes, Jewels and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. "I've had a great time in a short time."

Kent credits her varied training -- "typical American: a little School of American Ballet, a little Cecchetti, a very Russian-oriented teacher" -- with her success here. Previously she danced with companies in Alabama, Spokane and Miami.

"I love new roles, and rather than just doing set things, this company's repertory is always changing," she says.

She especially relished having choreographer Kirk Peterson set Carmen "on us in January," she remembered last week during lunch break. "A lot of the pas de deux work in the ballet is very physical, very stylistically distinct," she says. "And he's returned several times since, so we've had the time to get really comfortable with it."

Maraval agrees. After training at the Paris Opera Ballet School and the Paris Conservatory and performing classic and current roles in France, he arrived in Cincinnati a year ago. Already he's appeared in ballets ranging from The Nutcracker and Beauty and the Beast to Carmina Burana, Divertimento and Three Preludes.

"Additionally, you need passion to do this ballet," he says of Carmen and his role as the obsessed Basque corporal, "because the story is about passion."

Maraval also values Peterson's choreographic talent in giving dancers good moves. "It's not like you just have a step and you have to make something of it," he says. "The step means something in itself, and so all we need to do as partners is make it happen. It's a bit interesting for Carmen and for Ellen, too. It's a challenge to bring a lot of things from inside her character out."

Both dancers are also inspired by Bizet's music. "The music is definitely amazing," says Kent. "For instance, in the pas de deux with the matador the mood is right there for us. You can hear what's going to happen later, and you have that musical foreshadowing Carmen's fortune, the fate in what is going to happen."

Both dancers are clearly excited by the chance to perform such "meaty" roles. "There's a lot in there," says Kent. "Carmen is full of life. In a moment she can stop being charming and fight with another woman. The movement itself makes me feel like a gypsy."

After the curtain falls on Carmen, will they miss dancing until next season?

"When it's done, it's done," say Maraval, with a shrug. "But sometimes you're thinking, 'If I could just have another hour with it.' "

CINCINNATI BALLET presents Carmen Friday and Saturday at the Aronoff Center's Procter & Gamble Hall.

CityBeat, Vol. 4, Issue 24; May 7-13, 1998