Rafael Bonachela’s erotically charged choreography shines new light on Benjamin Britten.

Sydney Opera House, August 28, 2013

French bad-boy Arthur Rimbaud’s highly spiced poems took a hold of the young Benjamin Britten at an impressionable age, inspiring one of his first and greatest song cycles, Les Illuminations. It was almost certainly not just the poetry that got under Britten’s skin. Rimbaud’s scandalous homosexual affair with Paul Verlaine lies at the very heart of these poems and the composer was to dedicate two of his settings to his own lovers, Wulff Scherchen being the recipient of Antique and Peter Pears picking up one of the cycles most sexually charged songs, Being Beauteous.

So full of imagery are the poems themselves it’s amazing that no one has thought of dancing them before, and in Rafael Bonachela’s miraculous dance piece he shows just how much further sensitively considered movement can take our appreciation of important musical works.

For the first part of the evening Bonachela sets Britten’s charming early work for string orchestra, the naively titled Simple Symphony. In four movements and with two pairs of dancers Bonachela examines the playful side of love in a series of sparkling duets and one ingenious quartet.

Boisterous...