The Leighton Lucas Orchestra
(Leader, Ronald Good)
Conductor, Leighton Lucas
The Spider's Banquet, one of the first works to establish the reputation of Roussel, was produced in Paris-in 1913. The scene of the ballet is a garden where a spider is sitting in her web watching for her prey. Some ants arrive on the scene and discover a fallen rose petal, which they carry away. Then a butterfly appears, and flutters about in the sunshine, but before long the spider invites the butterfly to come nearer to her web. Suddenly she finds herself entangled in its meshes and, after a struggle, the spider pounces on the butterfly and devours her. Next, a mayfly is hatched out, and after flying about for a while, soon suffers the same fate as the butterfly. The ants come back, and bury the mayfly, while a funeral march is played. At the end, night falls on the now deserted garden. Harold Rutland