Ballet Without an Orchestra: A Crime Against Art
On what do we applaud when we see a ballet without an orchestra? The MP3 player? Ballet is not a choreography with playback; it is one of the few artistic media where time, the body, and music interact perfectly. The conductor, often invisible to the audience, is the center of that unseen mechanism, listening to the dancers’ breathing, leading the orchestra, and creating an instantaneous response to the scene unfolding before him. The absence of an orchestra is not merely a technical shortcoming; it is a crime against art. Recorded music has no ears. It has no heart. It does not respond to human energy. It cannot distinguish between emotional peaks and accidental errors. It is a flat line of time, while ballet requires breathing space.
Yes, ballet is expensive, and it should be.
Ballet is a living art with a complex structure: set design, costumes, choreography, dancers, instruments, and an orchestra, and yes, it costs money. Like opera, it is an art that cannot be easily simplified or adapted cheaply without losing its essence. Some Arts are expensive, not because they are elitist but because they require collective effort; an entire team creates them. An orchestra is not a luxury but a foundation in ballet. Ballet does not become “more art” if it is rationalized by costs; quite the opposite: without live music, the ballet form is reduced to emptiness. Art does not exist to follow earnings, it exists to create a common space for transcendence, and that sometimes is costly, and that is how it should be.
Giving up an orchestra is giving up art
What is concerning is the normalization of compromise. There is nothing “normal” about a ballerina dancing to recorded sound. It is a budget-driven compromise, not an art. If there are no funds, it is better to perform a chamber form, a contemporary miniature, or an experimental form, but not to simulate an orchestra with an MP3 player. It is a simulacrum of art, not art itself. Neither the best sound system can replace the live orchestra, nor the intuition of the conductor, nor the organic dialogue between sound and movement. The recording cannot follow the dancer; the dancer must follow the record. This is a twist on the natural logic of ballet. This practice cannot even be called a live rehearsal; in rehearsals, there is at least one live instrument, one live musician (répétiteur). This kind of performance is a profound humiliation of the ballet because ballet is a synthesis of body and music, gesture and tone, effort and ease.
On the breath of ballet
A ballet without an orchestra is a symbol of cultural collapse. It is not a question of taste but of values. Either we believe that art deserves the conditions to be alive, or we reduce it to a simulacrum. And yes, some arts are expensive, but the feeling we experience when they are realized in full force is priceless. Ballet without a live orchestra is not ballet; it is a simulation, аnd simulation never causes catharsis.
