Le Festin de l'araignée (The Spider's Feast)ballet in one actsymphonic excerpts
| Written: 1912-13 | Premiered: April 3, 1913 choreography by L. Staats conducted by Gabriel Grovlez |
| Length: ballet 32 minutes excerpts 17-18 min. |
One act |
| Publisher: Durand | Dedication: Jacque Rouche |
About this Work:|
A ballet based on an entomology book? Absurd!
Or perhaps not so absurd. Le festin de l'araignée (The Spider's Feast) is arguably Roussel's most popular work. It arose from the first commission he ever accepted — from Jacques Rouche, who had recently finished mounting Ravel's Ma mere l'oye (Mother Goose) as a ballet, and who later commissioned Roussel's great opera Padmavati. The Spider's Feast opened just a few weeks before Stravinsky's Jeux and Rite of Spring. It was immediately successful; yet Roussel, expecting the worst, had already adapted symphonic excerpts to "salvage" the work! The excerpts have since become a standard part of the symphonic repertoire. The ballet is set in a garden inhabited by a variety of insects, including ants, a butterfly (the spider's first victim), a praying mantis, a day-fly — and, of course, a spider. The day-fly hatches, dances, and is destined to survive not even its single-day's lifespan; for it stumbles into the spider's web. But a mantis the spider had wounded returns and kills the spider before it can enjoy its banquet. The ballet is divided into the following pieces. Those marked with an asterisk are omitted from the symphonic fragments:
Soon after receiving the libretto of the ballet, Roussel set to work on the ballet, starting with the opening theme, of which he wrote to his wife: "I do not know why, but the garden theme of the Spider's Feast clings in my mind; you know, the theme that opens the prelude, where the flute speaks so timidly over the murmur of the violins." |
How does it sound?|
The garden theme that haunted Roussel both opens and closes the work. Although this is a nod toward the cyclical format taught by his teacher d'Indy, it is also makes a very powerful statement: even after all the drama and bloodshed and killing, the garden is just the same, completely untouched and unaffected by the tragedies it witnesses. An allegory of humanity facing Nature's impassive sovereignty?
Here is the garden theme (115K WAV file) in a 1929 performance conducted by Roussel himself. The next selection, in a more modern recording, hints at both the rhythmic vitality and descriptive poetry of this score: the entry of the ants (63K), scurrying hither and yon. |
Other opinions:| A charming score different in sound from the usual hard-core neoclassicism of the composer. In this case Roussel's music is as delicate as brush work, its textures of lazy, dusted substances. Although not impressionistic in style, one realizes how intensely beautiful Debussy can be in the translated terms of Albert Roussel. [Arthur Cohn] |
| ...the orchestration subtly exploits all the ranges and gives each of the protagonists their individual and appropriate timbres. There is invention on every page. [Damien Top] |
| The entry of ants is accompanied by a miniature march on the horns and woodwinds, combined with a quick ostinato figure, high on the violins. Nothing could more aptly illustrate the organization and bustling energy of these tiny insects. [Basil Deane] |
| In a curious, but not unique, exploration of the symbolic parallels between the insect kingdom and our own, Roussel perfectly captures the physical movements of such creatures in a score that is at once intense, vibrant and highly coloured. [Richard Langham Smith] |
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...a bitingly ironical portrayal of the appetites, the passions and the destructive folly of mankind, to which is opposed the carefree happiness of the poet, who runs to meet his ineluctable destiny without time for reflection. [Robert Bernard]
Unfortunately, the orchestral suite contains less than half of the full score, whose most significant episodes it omits. A complete performance is absolutely indispensable in order to appreciate the full wealth of Roussel's inspiration. [Harry Halbreich]
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