Vicky Dies, from The Red Shoes Ballet Suite

Description

Vicky Dies, from The Red Shoes Ballet Suite

“Vicky Dies” is the seventh scene of The Red Shoes Ballet Suite – music by Craig Harris originally composed for the dance theater production The Red Shoes, by Minneapolis-based company Ballet of the Dolls.

The Red Shoes Ballet Suite is based on the 1948 movie The Red Shoes, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1948, which incorporates Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about a young girl’s love of dance. In Hans Christian Andersen’s tale a shoemaker presents her with a magic pair of dance shoes at a street festival, and dance takes control over her when she puts on the shoes. She continues to dance to exhaustion, and can only stop when her feet are chopped off.

In The Red Shoes movie authoritarian ballet company Director Boris Lermontov rules over his protégés, demanding complete submission to his rules, which includes not allowing personal relationships to interfere with their art. He brings a new dancer, Victoria Page, into the company, and cultivates her to play the leading role in their new ballet, The Red Shoes, composed by the company’s resident composer, Julian Craster. Victoria falls in love with Julian, creating a conflict of tragic proportions between Vicky, Julian, and Lermontov. Vicky’s internal conflict between her passion for dance and her love for Julian leads her to commit suicide.

Vicky reaches a state of complete distress and confusion, and throws herself in front of a train. The original production of Ballet of the Dolls’ The Red Shoes was produced at the Ritz Theater in Northeast Minneapolis in 2001, and it was re-envisioned and produced at Theatre de la Jeune Lune in 2002.

Learn more about The Red Shoes Ballet Suite here, including some video excerpts and details about the production.

“Vicky Dies” is one of several compositions from Craig Harris’ The Red Shoes Ballet Suite that is available for download in mp3 format (great for general music listening), or in wav format (high resolution listening and public presentation). The compilation of all music from The Red Shoes Ballet Suite is also available for download or on a CD that also includes the music from Craig Harris’ Sleeping Beauty Ballet Suite.

The music for The Red Shoes Ballet Suite includes “Ballet I Performance & Reception,” “Irina’s Swan Song,” “Vicky’s Matinee,” “Julian and Vicky pas de deux,” “Red Shoes Fairy Tale,” “Trio Triage,” “Vicky Dies,” and “Fairy Tale Returns.”

Performance Details

Composer: Craig Harris
Sound Design: Craig Harris
Piano: Tom Linker
Violin: Gary Schulte
Voices: Bradley Greenwald, Julie Tehven

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All rights of the producer and of the owner of the work reproduced reserved.
Unauthorized copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of this material prohibited.

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