New Elizabethans

Before the world premiere of a new ballet last week, Lincoln Kirstein, general director of the New York City Ballet, came out of the wings and made a little hands-across-the-sea speech. Picnic at Tintagel, he explained, is something very special. It is not only an all-English affair, with choreography by Frederick Ashton of Sadler's Wells, scenery and costumes by Cecil Beaton and music by Sir Arnold Bax. It might even be called "the first fruits of the new Elizabethan age."

On sampling, the new age proved to have a strong flavor of the past: Choreographer Ashton chose as his subject the legend of Tristram and Iseult. But he gave it a twist, and the audience found it all fresh and pleasant.

A party of "trippers," costumed in 1916-style dusters, derbies and veils, comes to picnic in the ruins of the Cornish Castle of Tintagel. It soon develops that the romantic young man is in love with the beautiful young girl, even though she is married and her husband is along. About the time this situation has begun to look hopeless, both romantically and dance-wise, the indiscreet lovers drink to each other, and go into a magic-potion trance. The stage darkens, the ruins of Tintagel fly up, the dusters, derbies and veils come off, and in a flash the trippers have turned into Tristram, Iseult, King Mark & Co., all revealed in brilliant medieval array.

The legendary story works itself out in a lyrical dance duet by the lovers (Diana Adams, Jacques d'Amboise), a sword fight between Tristram and the cuckolded king (Francisco Moncion). Then, as Tristram and Iseult lie adying, the stage darkens again, the ruins of Tintagel descend, and the dancers don their dusters, derbies and veils. They wander off, wondering whether it was a dream or not.

Ashton produced little that was new in ballet movement. But he proved again how well he can handle character, mime and storytelling. For an audience whose principal fare is George Balanchine's classical abstractions, Ashton's little trip to Tintagel made a picnic indeed.

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