Tales of Apollo & Hercules

Shoreditch Town Hall London March 2025

If you mention “ballet” and “Apollo” to dedicated dance lovers, most of them will probably think of George Balanchine’s neoclassical masterpiece, which in 1928 launched his historic collaboration with Igor Stravinsky. The artistic impact of that work was so significant that other choreographers have steered well clear of the subject ever since.

When George Frideric Handel composed the short cantata Apollo e Dafne roughly 220 years earlier, he concerned himself only with the music, presenting the ancient myth without any staging at all. Writing in Italy for private performances in patrons’ grand homes, he heightened the score’s theatricality by setting the narrative for two voices instead of the standard one and composing evocative solos for violin, cello and oboe.

This year’s London Handel Festival, shaped by the collective title “Fantasy, Myth and Legend,” offered a rare opportunity to hear this work, paired with a much later oratorio The Choice of Hercules. The early music ensemble La Nuova Musica performed them both, seated before a raised platform that served as a makeshift stage for the singers and dancers.

In a brand-new partnership, La Nuova Musica and the New English Ballet Theatre converted a straightforward concert into a dramatic event. Conducting from the harpsichord, David Bates led the acclaimed musical ensemble and singers, among whom the Royal Ballet dancer Valentino Zucchetti, an associate choreographer of NEBT, wove six of the adventurous troupe’s dancers.

His previous experience stood him in good stead. The small-scale settings of these ancient Greek myths so thoroughly condense character and action that they don’t really need physical enactment. So Zucchetti didn’t insist on it, graciously arranging the dance sequences to enhance and support Handel without intruding on his invention.

Fledgling choreographers don’t often get such a chance, which is exactly why Karen Pilkington-Miksa established NEBT, “to develop the careers of emerging dancers, choreographers and young creative talents.” Since its first performance in 2012, it has commissioned new work from 19 choreographers. Some, like Zucchetti, continue dancing in one organization while making dances elsewhere; some have gone on to work for larger troupes or created their own.

Today Pilkington-Miksa says, “In producing Wayne Eagling’s Remembrance in 2018 for NEBT, which we set to Handel’s Ode to St Cecilia’s Day, I realized how inspiring sung baroque music can be when set to classical ballet.” Zucchetti has taken his inspiration from the lilting buoyancy and underlying emotional currents of these two pieces, and left dramatic interpretation to Thomas Guthrie, the evening’s director.

Apollo e Dafne pits a presumptuous god against a noble virgin in a battle for love that even a god cannot win. Shadows in sequined gray unitards, with the three women in pointe shoes, the dancers contributed a decorative silent subtext to the story. The women flirted teasingly with Apollo as he boasted of his own irresistible charm; puffing their chests and leaping angrily, the men reflected his frustration in her rejection of his passion.

Despite the small space and limited ballet vocabulary, the dancers’ engaging manner and technical polish lent unexpected texture to the cantata, and by standing everyone absolutely still when, by divine intervention, Dafne escaped Apollo’s pursuit by morphing into a tree, Zucchetti revealed a memorable gift for subtlety.

However, his skill went to waste in The Choice of Hercules. A debate between philosophical concepts, it depicts Pleasure and Virtue as they contend to influence the child Hercules’ maturity. Unfortunately, Hercules took the form of half a jointed puppet—chest, head and arms only—mobilized by three black-clad handlers.

An awkward ungainly presence, this dummy also hid the face of James Hall, the remarkable countertenor who sang the character while carrying it around. Trapped into partnering it, the dancers kept as stiff an upper lip as the puppet did. I hope they joined me in ignoring their immediate circumstances, listening happily to Handel, and looking forward to their next appearance.

NEBT dances Apollo e Dafne with different repertory on April 3 and 5. See nebt.co.uk for details

London Handel Festival continues until April 10. london-handel-festival.com