European Companies – Landgraf on Dance

30. April 20261. June 2026

Congratulations

“Giselle”
Vienna State Ballet
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
April 26, 2026 (live stream)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

The Vienna State Ballet’s recent live stream of Giselle was one of those precious events where everything is perfect. Choreographed for Vienna in 1993 by Elena Tchernichova, the piece is the company’s “calling card.” Additionally, perhaps due to the new artistic director, Alessandra Ferri, who passed on her experience studying with Tchernichova herself, the dancers performed especially well. “Elena Tchernichova was the person who first taught me the role of Giselle when I was just twenty-one, dancing with American Ballet Theatre alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov,” Ferri revealed. Continue reading “Congratulations”

29. April 202630. April 2026

Retrospection

“Tribute to Tetley”
Stuttgart Ballet
Stuttgart State Opera
Stuttgart, Germany
April 25, 2026

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

In 1972, no one foresaw how fateful Glen Tetley’s (1926-2007) invitation to stage his 1965 piece, The Mythical Hunter, for Stuttgart’s junior company would be. He and the artistic director, John Cranko, got along, and Tetley was commissioned to create a new ballet for the main company. It was June 1973, and Voluntaries wasn’t yet finished when news of Cranko’s sudden death on a transatlantic flight reached Stuttgart. At the request of Marcia Haydée and Cranko’s heir, the late Dieter Graefe, Tetley subsequently took over as the company’s artistic director. But administrative work burdened him. After two seasons, he passed the reins to Haydée, relieved to renew his focus on choreography. Yet fate had something else in store. In 1986, just as Tetley agreed to become Erik Bruhn’s artistic associate at the National Ballet of Canada, Bruhn died. Tetley kept his word, took up the post, and stayed for five years. Continue reading “Retrospection”

24. April 202629. April 2026

Growing From Solid Roots

“Miniatures”
Les Ballets de Monte Carlo
Salle Garnier Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Monte-Carlo, Monaco
April 18, 2026

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo’s recent premiere, Miniatures, takes up the 2004 project of the same title. Back then, Bruno Mantovani, artistic director of the festival Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo and director of the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, challenged Le Ballets de Monte-Carlo’s artistic director, Jean-Christophe Maillot, with seven contemporary compositions. Each of them represented another mindscape; none was written for dance, and Maillot was tasked with choreographies. He was successful. Mantovani threw four new compositions commissioned for this year’s festival into the ring (and also played them with the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain during the run of the program), which former and current dancers of the company put into dance. Two of Maillot’s 2004 works complemented the ninety-minute program. Continue reading “Growing From Solid Roots”

25. March 202630. March 2026

Unrealistic

“Nureyev”
State Ballet Berlin
Deutsche Oper
Berlin, Germany
March 21, 2026

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Last weekend, Yuri Possokhov’s and Kirill Serebrennikov’s joint production Nureyev premiered with the State Ballet Berlin. I remember well the piece’s 2017 world premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre and the troubles preceding it. In 2022, Nureyev was removed from the Bolshoi’s repertory following new Russian anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that made it illegal to promote the success and power of queer personalities, per Serebrennikov’s explanation.

Bringing this ballet back to life could have been a tribute to not only Rudolf Nureyev but also Russian ballet as well as a gift to the Bolshoi, which celebrates its 250th anniversary this year. Continue reading “Unrealistic”

27. December 20253. May 2026

Flimsy

“Marie Antoinette”
Vienna State Ballet & Volksoper Wien
Volksoper Wien
Vienna, Austria
December 20, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

Thierry Malandain’s Marie Antoinette was the Vienna State Ballet’s second premiere under Alessandra Ferri’s directorship. The one-act piece, created for the Malandain Ballet Biarritz, received its premiere in 2019 at the Palace of Versailles’s Opéra Royal. Its stage was inaugurated in 1770 during Marie Antoinette’s lavish wedding to Louis Auguste, heir to the throne.
Marie Antoinette follows the life of the then only fourteen-year-old Dauphine of France until her execution by guillotine in 1793. That’s twenty-three years of life (nineteen of which Marie Antoinette was Queen consort) to narrate. But Malandain tells little, and the ninety minutes of Marie Antoinette dragged on. Continue reading “Flimsy”

25. December 202527. December 2025

Doing the Company Proud

“Gala pour les 50 ans de l’Académie Princess Grace”
L’Académie Princesse Grace
Salle Prince Pierre, Grimaldi Forum
Monte Carlo, Monaco
December 19, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo has much to celebrate this season: the company’s fortieth anniversary and the associated Academy Princess Grace’s fiftieth anniversary. The company will host a gala in July 2026, and the Academy’s gala took place last Friday. It combined a “best of” selection of works performed by the Academy during the past sixteen years. Princess Caroline of Hanover, president of Les Ballet de Monte-Carlo, attended the gala.

The legs of seven girls flew high to George Gershwin’s I’ve got Rhythm, and the joy and confidence in their faces, as well as the freedom, dash, and buoyancy of their movements, left no doubt that this would be a pleasant evening. Michel Rahn’s 2011 neoclassical choreography of almost the same title, We’ve Got Rhythm!, looked Balanchine-esque and employed a large group of male and female students. Continue reading “Doing the Company Proud”

2. December 202512. December 2025

Adventurous

“Peter Pan”
Vienna State Ballet & Volksoper Wien
Volksoper Wien
Vienna, Austria
November 22, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

Vienna’s Volksoper buzzed with excitement shortly before the performance of Vesna Orlić’s dance adaptation of Peter Pan. The great many children in the auditorium fell into eager silence when a rousing fanfare opened the ballet.

Orlić, leading ballet master of the Volksoper ensemble, began choreographing in 2006. For her 2019 Peter Pan, she was justifiably awarded Austria’s music theater prize. The production, which is based on James Matthew Barrie’s 1911 novel Peter and Wendy (known as Peter Pan), is witty, gripping, and great entertainment for the young and the old. I don’t know why the company’s former artistic director, Martin Schläpfer, shelved it. His successor, Alessandra Ferri, instantly decided on a revival. Continue reading “Adventurous”

26. November 20252. December 2025

Mockery

“Die Fledermaus” (“The Bat”)
Vienna State Ballet
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
November 21, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

For Johann Strauss II’s bicentennial, the Vienna State Ballet revived Roland Petit’s 1979 ballet adaptation of Strauss’s famous operetta, Die Fledermaus (The Bat). It’s accompanied by a “best of” selection of compositions by Johann Strauss II, his father, Johann Strauss I, and his brother, Josef. The score’s oomph and gaiety are infectious. Strauss’ music, particularly the Viennese waltzes (of which Die Fledermaus has plenty), is part of the DNA of the Vienna State Opera’s orchestra, and under Luciano Di Martino’s baton, it fizzed like champagne. Melodies rose boisterously to a tipping point, balanced provocatively on the edge, and rippled down with relish as if on a rollercoaster ride. Continue reading “Mockery”

14. November 202526. November 2025

Applied Faith

“Romeo and Juliet”
Hungarian National Ballet
Hungarian State Opera
Budapest, Hungary
November 8-9, 2025 (evening performance and matinee)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

Most ballet companies have a version of Romeo and Juliet. The Hungarian National Ballet’s version, by László Seregi (1929-2012), has been on the program regularly since its premiere in 1985. A crowd puller, the opera house was sold out at both performances I watched.

Seregi’s name is well known to Hungarian ballet lovers. Initially trained as a folk dancer, he joined the opera’s corps de ballet when it was short on artists during the 1956 revolution. In 1977, he became the company’s director but, feeling burdened by his duties, suffered from an enduring artistic crisis. Continue reading “Applied Faith”

27. October 202514. November 2025

Reborn

“Callirhoe”
Vienna State Ballet
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
October 19, 2025 (live stream)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

The title of Martin Schläpfer’s farewell choreography, Pathétique, summarized the condition of the Vienna State Ballet he left behind after five years as its artistic director. His successor, Alessandra Ferri, restructured the company. Some dancers left, and others joined, some of whom were returnees. Last weekend, she presented the first premiere under her reign, Alexei Ratmansky’s Callirhoe (which he choreographed for ABT in 2020 under the title Of Love and Rage). It felt like the rebirth of the company. I cannot remember when I last saw the Vienna State Ballet perform with such force. Congratulations! Continue reading “Reborn”

5. August 202525. August 2025

The Art of Embarrassing Oneself

“Stravinsky in Paris” (“Farewell in Paris”/“Le Sacre du Printemps”)
State Ballet of the Gärtnerplatztheater, Munich
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
July 30, 2025

Since 1932, the city of Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg has hosted an annual summer festival featuring various cultural genres. Many events are held at the Ludwigsburg Palace, a vast complex that served as the Duke of Württemberg’s residence after its completion in 1733. Munich’s State Ballet of the Gärtnerplatztheater, whose Stravinsky in Paris marked the festival’s final dance event, performed at the Ludwigsburg Forum near the palace. Last October, the Gärtnerplatztheater showed Troja (“Troy”) by the Greek-born Andonis Foniadakis on its tour to Ludwigsburg. Its display of sexist abuse was annoying. As the press praised Stravinsky in Paris as a “confetti rocket,” I was curious about its “sophisticated dance and music.”
Stravinsky in Paris, a co-production of the Gärtenerplatztheater and the Ludwigsburg Festival, recently premiered in Munich. The double bill combines Jeroen Verbruggen’s Farewell in Paris and Marco Goecke’s Le Sacre du Printemps.
The nonchalant steps of the straw-hatted men who opened Farewell to Paris seemed inspired by a blend of Broadway style and Parisian savoir vivre. In their pale pink of their blazers and pants, they seemed to belong in a little girl’s dream (costumes by Emmanuel Maria). Continue reading “The Art of Embarrassing Oneself”

27. July 20255. August 2025

Something Is Going On

“Twilight”/“Bronia”
Les Ballets de Monte Carlo
Salle Garnier Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Monte Carlo, Monaco
July 18, 2025

Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo closed the season with two new creations: Twilight by Lukáš Timulak and Bronia by Mattia Russo and Antonio de Rosa. So far, all productions I’ve seen in Monaco have been performed at the Grimaldi Forum, a modern glass and steel complex whose Salle des Princes lies below sea level. The new double bill was, however, presented at the Salle Garnier at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, which is next door to the famous casino. A miniature replica of the Paris Opera, the Salle Garnier is a red and gold Italian theater built in the Second Empire style. It was here that Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes took up residence in 1911. Until the First World War, Diaghilev’s company rehearsed, prepared new productions, and stored sets and props in Monte-Carlo. On April 9, 1911, the Ballets Russes gave its first performance, which featured Scheherazade and Giselle. On April 19th, Nijinsky and Karsavina gave their debut in Fokine’s Le Spectre de la Rose. This history was significant in the context of the recent premiere. Continue reading “Something Is Going On”

15. July 202522. July 2025

A Recap

“Malditos Benditos”
Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg
State Theater
Nuremberg, Germany
July 10, 2025

Malditos Benditos (“Damned Blessed Ones”) is Goyo Montero’s farewell piece to Nuremberg. After seventeen years as artistic director of the State Theater’s ballet company, the Spaniard will leave for the State Ballet Hanover this autumn to take up the reins Marco Goecke was forced to give up in 2023. Richard Siegal, director of the Cologne-based Ballet of Difference, will succeed Montero in Nuremberg and bring his dancers along. They will merge with their Nuremberg colleagues into the State Theater Nuremberg Ballet of Difference.
Malditos Benditos is the counterpart to Benditos Malditos, Montero’s first creation in Nuremberg in 2008. Many of the intervening twenty-five productions are reflected in Malditos Benditos. Applause blended into the medley of musical snippets and electronic noise as the black curtain rose. The black-suited dancers (costumes by Goyo Montero and Margaux Manns) bowed to the applause of an imaginary audience at the rear stage, framed by a bright red curtain. Continue reading “A Recap”

29. June 202515. July 2025

Too Bad

“Scheherazade”
Czech National Ballet
National Theatre
Prague, Czech Republic
June 21, 2025 (matinee)

To be upfront, Mauro Bigonzetti’s new Scheherazade for the Czech National Ballet is no asset to its repertory. Its choreography is meager and the plot thin; the characters lack depth, and the digital set design is unconvincing.
Bigonzetti takes up the narrative thread where Fokine’s 1910 Scheherazade for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes ends. Zobeida, the favorite but unfaithful wife of Shahryar, the king of Persia, had died. Enraged about womanhood in general, Shahryar took revenge by killing every woman he slept with the morning after their first night together. Scheherazade, the clever daughter of his vizier, put a stop to the slaughter. The tales she narrated to the king each night (collected in the Middle Eastern folk tale, One Thousand and One Nights) softened him.
Bigonzetti portrayed the women in line for Shahryar, among them Scheherazade (Nana Nakagawa), who was ready to sacrifice herself. Continue reading “Too Bad”

26. June 202529. June 2025

Eerie

“Valerie and Her Week of Wonders”
Laterna magika
The New Stage
Prague, Czech Republic
June 20, 2025

The Czech avant-garde author Vítězlav Nezval’s gothic novel, Valery and Her Week of Wonders, written in 1935 and published in 1945, has experienced a revival at home. It was first adapted for the stage in 1967, and a new production was shown in Prague only forty years later in 2008. In 2023, two Czech companies simultaneously presented stage versions of Valeria and Her Week of Wonders; the West Bohemian Theatre in Cheb (located between Karlovy Vary and the Czech/German border) and Laterna magika in Prague. I saw Laterna magika’s production.

The wonders that Nezval’s teenage heroine, Valerie, experiences during the span of one week are far from wonderful and are rather a sexually laden horror trip that torpedoes her into womanhood. Events unfold with a dream Valerie has on the night of her first menstruation. Only late in the novel does this dream verge into the realm of reality, which it soon forsakes for a Garden of Eden-like happy ending. Continue reading “Eerie”