Jazz Calendar is a ballet created in 1968 with choreography by Frederick Ashton, to the score of Richard Rodney Bennett and based on the children’s poem Monday's Child.[1]
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The production was arranged at short notice to replace a new production of Aida, and at the suggestion of Nigel Gosling, Ashton asked Derek Jarman to create the designs.[2] Richard Rodney Bennett’s score had been commissioned by the BBC and was composed between 1962 and 1964.[3]
The ballet was first performed on 9 January 1968 by the company of The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Merle Park, Anthony Dowell, Robert Mead, Alexander Grant, Rudolf Nureyev, Antoinette Sibley, Michael Coleman, Wayne Sleep in the leading roles; designs were by Derek Jarman.[1] The work was performed over 50 times up to 1979 by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, but is not part of the current repertoire.[4]
The rehearsals for the ballet's premiere were filmed at the Royal Opera House involving many of the original principals.[5] The full score was recorded in 1971 by the London Jazz Ensemble conducted by John Lanchbery.
The scenario follows the sequence of the children's poem. After Monday (a "hymn to narcissim"), Tuesday is a pas de trois in a style of Ashton's Monotones. Wednesday’s woe is in the form of a "distortion of the Rose Adagio" from The Sleeping Beauty, Thursday depicts various forms of transport, Friday is a blues pas de deux. Saturday is a send-up of a male ballet class, while the finale mimicked the 'stage revolve' close of Sunday Night at the London Palladium.[2]
The music encompasses a variety of traditional jazz forms and devices, from twelve-bar blues in Friday's Child to a fast jazz waltz in Thursday's Child. The scoring is flute, alto- tenor- and baritone saxophone, horn, two trumpets, bassoon, trombone, drums, piano, bass.[6]
The work is dedicated to the singer Jean Hart.
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