Can you ballet-dance to words?

Can you ballet-dance to words? How can choreography make any seriously worthwhile addition to a piece of music like Mahler’s vocal symphony Das Lied von der Erde? Kenneth MacMillan’s 1965 ballet Song of the Earth, currently on at Covent Garden, is frequently hailed as a masterpiece, but just as often you read comments by people baffled by it, lost in its length and orchestral density, and in their incomprehension of the German/Chinese verses that provided both composer and choreographer with their narratives.

The Royal Opera House authorities believed the exercise shouldn’t be attempted at all, and MacMillan, fresh in 1965 from the huge success of his new Romeo and Juliet (premiered by Fonteyn and Nureyev), quit the Royal Ballet to make it in Germany. So powerful was Song of the Earth, when it premiered in Stuttgart nine months after Romeo, that the Royal Ballet apologized and asked for it to come home.