Balletic “Contract” opens

The National Ballet of Canada’s production of James Kubelka’s ballet The Contract opened this week in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Acutally, the piece really is about a contract–specifically, the one involving the Pied Piper of Hamelin, although 1930s evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson is also involved.  The story is about “a charismatic faith healer hired to rid a small town of a mysterious illness.”

Audiences in the Great White North apparently loved it, but initial critical reaction in the Big Apple is chilly.  “To make a story ballet,” sniffed the Times, which always excels at lines like this, “you have to tell a story.”