Adam Zero is a full-length allegorical ballet made in 1946 for the Sadler's Wells Ballet, with a score by Arthur Bliss and choreography by Robert Helpmann, who also danced the title role at the Covent Garden premiere. It belongs to the same Bliss–Helpmann–Michael Benthall partnership that had produced Miracle in the Gorbals, and it sits within the wave of narrative, symbol-laden British ballets Helpmann made in the 1940s rather than in the abstract or purely classical repertory of the period.
What is danced
The article does not describe the choreographic vocabulary in any technical detail — no steps, holds, partnering or named ballet forms are recorded, only the theatrical conceit and the musical structure. What can be established is the shape of the piece: a self-reflexive frame in which 'the world in which he lives is represented by a stage on which a ballet is being created', with Adam cast as the ballet's own principal dancer and abstract forces (Omnipotence, Adam's Fates) embodied by production-crew roles — the Stage Director, the Designer, the Wardrobe Mistress, the Dresser. The score's sixteen titled movements (Birth of Adam, Dance of Spring, Awakening of Love, Bridal Ceremony, Adam Achieves Power, Dance of Summer, Night Club Scene, Destruction of Adam's World, Dance with Death, and others) sketch a life-cycle structure — birth, courtship, marriage, worldly triumph, seasonal decline, dissolution, death — that a choreographer would set as a sequence of contrasted danced episodes, but the source gives none of the actual movement content for any of them.
Context
Bliss's engagement with ballet traced back to his encounter with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in London after the First World War, and by the mid-1940s he was one of a small group of British composers writing purpose-built ballet scores for the fledgling Sadler's Wells Ballet. Adam Zero came directly out of the working relationship between Bliss, Helpmann and Benthall established on Miracle in the Gorbals, part of a run of narrative, allegorical works Helpmann choreographed for the company in this period, staged at Covent Garden under conductor Constant Lambert with a score Bliss himself rated as his 'most varied and exciting ballet score.'
Staging history
The premiere cast at Covent Garden on 6 April 1946 included Helpmann as Adam, June Brae as the Ballerina/Choreographer figure, David Paltenghi as the Stage Director, Jean Bedells as the Designer, Julia Farron as the Wardrobe Mistress, Gillian Lynne as the Daughter, and Leslie Edwards as the Mime, among others. The work was later revived with new choreography by Sergei Vanaev, conducted by Marc Niemann, at the Stadttheater Bremerhaven in 2016, and Bliss himself reworked material from the Night Club Scene in 1970 as a two-piano concert piece, Fun and Games, premiered by Phyllis Sellick and Cyril Smith.
How to watch it
Watch for the frame device: production personnel (Stage Director, Designer, Wardrobe Mistress, Dresser) function as allegorical figures — Omnipotence and the Fates — rather than realistic theatre staff, so their stage business should read as symbolic rather than backstage incident. The piece is structured as a life-cycle in danced tableaux moving through the seasons (spring courtship, summer power, autumn and winter decline) toward a final confrontation with Death, so listen for the score's own scene-headings and tempo shifts as the main guide to where one episode ends and the next begins.
Structure
- Fanfare OvertureOpening fanfare establishing the theatrical frame.
- The StageIntroduces the stage-within-the-ballet conceit and the production-role figures.
- Birth of AdamAdam's birth into the world of the ballet.
- Adam's FatesThe Designer, Wardrobe Mistress and Dresser appear as Adam's governing Fates.
- Dance of SpringA seasonal episode marking early life.
- Awakening of LoveAdam falls in love.
- Bridal CeremonyAdam marries.
- Adam Achieves PowerAdam rises to worldly power and triumph.
- Re-entry of Adam's FatesThe Fates return as Adam's fortunes begin to turn.
- Dance of SummerA seasonal episode marking the height of Adam's power.
- Approach of AutumnDecline begins as his world starts to crumble.
- Night Club SceneAdam seeks distraction in dissipation after his fall.
- Destruction of Adam's WorldAdam's world and glory are destroyed and stripped from him.
- Approach of WinterFurther decline as everyone deserts him.
- Dance with DeathAdam, left alone, confronts Death.
- FinaleThe stage is reset for the next life-cycle, closing the frame.
Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.
Credits
- composer: Arthur Bliss