ABSTRACT
Daphnis et Chloe was one of Maurice Ravel's grandest compositional undertakings and an undeniable musical chef d'œuvre: a one-act ballet in three scenes lasting more than 50 minutes and featuring a large orchestra with magnificent percussion, a chorus and lavish visual tableaux. Treatment of Greekness in Daphnis involves geographical and temporal distancing: an exotic far-away land of sun and sex on the very edge of Europe in a bygone age. A powerful sonic image of Greekness is heard in the slow opening mechanism of stacked bare fifths with a derived melodic fifth idea later to become closely associated with Daphnis and Chloe. Despite the innate challenges of the Daphnis myth and some charges of blandness, the production's essential success, marking Frederick Ashton's full maturity, has been attested to by revivals in 1964, 1972-1973, 1980-1981, 1994 and in Ashton's centenary year, 2004.
