Art and ballet: Titian transformed

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Titian Metamorphosis: Art, Music, Dance. A Collaboration between the Royal Ballet and the National Gallery

By Minna Moore Ede and Dame Monica Mason

Titian Metamorphosis: Art, Music, Dance is a record of a unique event that took place in London in the summer of 2012, the result of a collaboration between the Royal Ballet and the National Gallery (NG), to celebrate the paintings of Titian (c.1490–1576), Diana and Actaeon,   The Death of Actaeon, and Diana and Callisto, on display together for the first time since the 18th century. The book relates the story of this alliance of art, music and dance.

Two forces behind the collaboration were Dr Minna Moore Ede, assistant curator of Renaissance paintings at the National Gallery, the originator of the project, and curator of ‘Metamorphosis: Titian 2012’ (11 July–23 September 2012), a free exhibition at the Gallery, which was part of the Cultural Olympiad’s London 2012 Festival. The second was Dame Monica Mason DBE, the former director of the Royal Ballet. In July 2010 Dr Ede contacted Dame Monica to request a piece of choreography for a very special project. The plan was for ballet to be performed at the NG to accompany an exhibition of the Titian paintings with specially commissioned artworks from three British artists. Dame Monica saw the possibilities of a unique liaison between art and ballet, and asked if the artists could provide designs for three new ballets. The result was a special performance of three one-act ballets premiered on 14 July 2012 at the Royal Opera House, London.   

Crossing the borders between art and ballet were contemporary artists Chris Ofili, Conrad Shawcross   and Mark Wallinger.  For this project they were commissioned by the NG to work with The Royal Ballet and a team of international choreographers and composers, to create three one-act ballets: Trespass (Wallinger), Machina (Shawcross), and Diana and Actaeon (Ofili). Wallinger worked with choreographers Christopher Wheeldon and Alistair Marriott, and composer Mark-Anthony Turnage; Shawcross with choreographers Wayne McGregor and Kim Brandstrup and composer Nico Muhly; and Ofili with choreographers Will Tuckett, Liam Scarlett, and Jonathan Wilkins, the composer Jonathan Dove and librettist Alasdair Middleton. Ted Hughes’ 1997 translation of Ovid’s work was used to bind the language of the project together.

The artists were to design the sets and the costumes, in addition to the creation of a body of new works for the NG –Diana (Wallinger), Trophy (Shawcross) and Metamorphosis (Ofili) – relating to the Titian paintings at the heart of the exhibition. Titian’s masterpieces depict mythological events from Roman poet Ovid’s epic poem Metamorphosis (1st century BC). The artist painted them between 1551 and 1562 as part of a series of paintings for Philip II of Spain. Diana and Callisto and Diana and Actaeon were delivered as a pair to the Royal Court in Madrid in 1559.  At Court the paintings were covered whenever ladies were present. Titian’s subject matter, the lives and loves of the gods, depicted an erotic display of naked women. Mark Wallinger made the point that ‘these Titian paintings must have been profoundly shocking in their own time’. The Death of Actaeon remained unfinished in Titian’s studio at his death, aged 86, in 1576

The introduction to Titian Metamorphosis: Art, Music, Dance is written by Ede, an absorbing account of the project from its inception to conclusion. The book follows each artist through his meetings with choreographers, curators, composers and dancers, and a section is given to each to uncover more about the process of designing and creating such a diverse range of costumes and sets, in addition to his own art works. Conversations with the artists give exceptional insight into the difficulties and triumphs each encountered.

Shawcross, Wallinger and Ofili’s body of art created for the National Gallery – each had a gallery room – was linked to but independent of the ballet concepts. Shawcross created the robotic sculpture Trophy, a smaller version of the robot he created for ‘Machina’ on the Covent Garden stage. At the opening of ‘Metamorphosis: Titian 2012’, press attention focused on Wallinger’s contribution of Diana, a closet-like bathroom installation complete with a live naked model inside, ‘a living, breathing goddess Diana’. It was a response to Titian’s paintings about concealing and revealing, watching and being watched. Perhaps it was hardest for Ofili, being the only painter of the three, to relate to but not follow Titian’s exploration of Ovid. His initial reaction was of being ‘like a lamb to the slaughter’. Ede explains how Ofili’s working practice changed as a result of close examination of Titian as a painter and seven out of ten new works were chosen for his display, entitled Metamorphosis.

This book will give great pleasure to balletomanes and art lovers. Throughout, photographs – over 300 in colour – and drawings and sketches piece together the action over a two-year period and bring to life the collaboration including rehearsals, art installations, and Titian’s great paintings. The National Gallery and Royal Ballet’s unique partnership is a fitting swansong for Dame Monica Mason, former director of the Royal Ballet, and her team; and a stunning ovation for Dr Minna Moore Ede, Ofili, Wallinger and Shawcross at the National Gallery.

Titian Metamorphosis: Art, Music, Dance A Collaboration between The Royal Ballet and the National Gallery is published by Art/Books in association with The Royal Opera House, 2013. 182 pp., over 300 colour illus, £24.99 (hbk). ISBN: 978-1-908970-04-6

Special Edition A limited edition of 250 copies is presented with three original signed artists’ prints in a clothbound clamshell case, £750.00. ISBN: 978-1-908970-07-7