European Companies

Soul Food

June 1, 2024

“Coppélia”
Czech National Ballet
The State Opera
Prague, Czech Republic
May 26, 2024 (matinee)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Arthur Saint-Léon’s comic ballet Coppélia premiered on May 25, 1870, at the Théâtre Impérial de l’Opéra in Paris. Two months later, on July 19th, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia. The opening night featured a military dance portraying twelve Ottoman Janissaries fencing against twelve Austrian Hussars. It concluded with a ballerina holding an olive branch heralding peace. Times were anything but auspicious during the descent of the Second French Empire, but that wasn’t reflected in the ballet. To the contrary, Léo Delibes’s vibrant score infused the comedy with a buoyant joie de vivre. Might it be a stroke of fate that now of all times, as the political landscape darkens with mind-boggling speed and social cohesion is worn down (at least in my home country, Germany), the Czech National Ballet premiered Coppélia? The Prague audience’s warm reception proved that the ballet still conveys what people are yearning for in times of crisis: togetherness, good humor, generosity, and a romance with a happy ending. (more…)

Fifty-Fifty

May 11, 2024

“Maillot/León & Lightfoot”
Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg
State Theater
Nuremberg, Germany
May 04, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

The Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg’s new double bill combines Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Les Noces (2022 version) with Stop-Motion (2014) by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot. Both pieces have now entered the repertory of a German company for the first time. (more…)

Retrospects

May 1, 2024

“To the Point(e)” (“Within the Golden Hour”/“Autodance”/”Vers Un Pays Sage”)
Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo
Salle des Princes, Grimaldi Forum
Monte-Carlo, Monaco
April 27, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

The new triple bill of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo spans thirty or so years of ballet history. Its earliest ballet—Vers Un Pays Sage (1995)—is by the company’s artistic director, Jean-Christophe Maillot. Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour premiered in 2008 at the San Francisco Ballet. The most recent piece, Sharon Eyal’s and Gai Behar’s Autodance was created for the GöteborgsOperan in 2018.

Vers Un Pays Sage (“To a Wise Country”) is a tribute to Maillot’s father, Jean, a professor of the fine arts, painter, and set and costume designer who died prematurely. Pays Sage was the title of his last exhibition. He has been described as a workaholic with an excessive zest for life, and I conclude from the ballet that he must have had an upbeat, bright nature, brimming full of spirit. Six men and six women successfully conveyed the energy of this fireball of an artist on stage, driven by the pulse of John Adam’s Fearful Symmetries. (more…)

Incomprehensible

March 29, 2024

“The Lady of the Camellias”
Vienna State Ballet
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
March 24, 2024, (live stream)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Shouts of “Bravi!” mingled with enthusiastic applause after the curtain closed on John Neumeier’s The Lady of the Camellias last Sunday at the Vienna State Opera. I, who was following the performance on screen, was less happy. Being familiar with this piece as it was performed by other companies, I felt that this premiere left a lot to be desired.

To begin with, the choreography—almost forty-five years after its creation—suffers from the same mannerisms present in large parts of Neumeier’s oeuvre. The tools that he uses to express his protagonists’ inner life are repetitive. For example, books, confectionery, and bunches of flowers slipped from the dancers’ grip to signal astonishment or absent-mindedness. The number of people who stumbled, fell, barged into one another, and ran around precipitously was remarkable. As in other Neumeier-ballets, the buffoon (in this case, Count N., whom Géraud Wielick turned into an especially silly specimen of jealous lover) wore glasses. That Neumeier intertwined Marguerite and Armand’s fate with that of Manon Lescaut—a connection that is inherent in Alexandre Dumas’s novel—would be ingenious if the relevant scenes were less mawkish and didactic. (more…)

Half-Baked

March 21, 2024

“Faust”
Maribor Slovene National Theatre
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
March 16, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Goethe’s Faust: The Tragedy’s First Part wasn’t on Edward Clug’s agenda when choreographing a new piece for the Zurich Ballet in 2018. He wanted to tackle Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, but upon finding out that Zurich’s audience wasn’t familiar with the so-called “Soviet Faust,” he turned to his German representative. After its Zurich premiere, Clug’s Faust entered the repertory of other ballet companies, among them Clug’s home company in Maribor, Slovenia. Last weekend, this company performed the piece on their tour to Ludwigsburg.

Fate decided that Clug would indeed later adapt Master and Margarita for the ballet stage, but it was the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow where it premiered in 2021. Faust is a journeyman’s piece whereas Master and Margarita by comparison counts as a masterpiece. Faust assembles plenty of dance theater with group sequences, some of which are trenchant, while others are less convincing. At times, its acrid wit is close to horror. Although the ingredients are fine overall, they didn’t merge as a whole. (more…)

Spoiled

January 24, 2024

“Timekeepers” (“For Hedy”/”Rhapsodies”/”Les Noces”)
Ballet Zurich
Opernhaus Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland
January 20, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

The Ballet Zurich’s new triple bill Timekeepers is a testament to a wind of change that has swept through the company since Cathy Marston took the reins as artistic director last August. Twenty new faces joined the company, and many others left to follow the previous artistic director, Christian Spuck, to the State Ballet Berlin. I was told that, despite initial hesitation, the Ballet attracts large audiences to its performances. The premiere of Timekeepers was indeed very well attended. Its program combined two world premieres – Meryl Tankard’s For Hedy and Mthuthuzeli November’s Rhapsodies – with Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Noces (1923). Each of the three pieces comprises music that premiered almost exactly one-hundred years ago.

The Australian Tankard took on the challenge to choreograph George Antheil’s composition Ballet Mécanique, a medley of noises made by mechanical instruments, such as electric bells, propellers, a siren, and sixteen self-playing pianos (or pianolas). It couldn’t be realized in 1926, as synchronizing so many pianolas turned out to be impossible back then. (more…)

An Empty Packaging

January 16, 2024 0 Comments

“Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève” (“Noetic”/“VÏA”)
Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
January 12, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Nothing in last weekend’s tour of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève reflected the name of the company. It did not present ballet, and the two pieces that they performed did not represent in any way the significance that the theater claims. The first – Noetic (2014) – was choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, former artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders, who has held the same position at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Switzerland, since 2022. VÏA is a 2023 creation, which the Morocco-born Fouad Boussouf choreographed for the company.

Noetic (from the Greek noēsis, meaning inner wisdom, direct knowing, intuition, or implicit understanding) opened promisingly as Shogo Yoshii silently stepped behind his Japanese Taiko drums and hammered out a forceful staccato. It called the dancers – ten men and ten women, one of whom was clad like the men – into the light-gray box that the stage had been turned into. As they assembled in groups of three, standing motionless back to back, they reminded me of the triple formations of German federal police when securing the train station against traveling football fans. Noetic’s dancers weren’t uniformed though. (more…)

Additional Thoughts

January 6, 2024 0 Comments

“Coppélia”
Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala
Teatro alla Scala
Milan, Italy
December 17, 2023 (online broadcast)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Alexei Ratmansky’s latest piece is a new version of Coppélia for the Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala. A recording of its premiere on December 17^th can be watched on Medici TV. In her review on December 18^th, the New York Times dance critic, Roslyn Sulcas, praised the “wealth and detail of nuance” that Ratmansky brought alive. “He has infused [Coppélia] with new life,” she wrote, “as if a carapace of formulaic presentation and interpretation has been cracked open.”

She’s right, it’s an ambitious production in many respects – an asset for the company. At times though, Ratmansky’s wealth of detail feels like a continuous bombardment, as if he is overeager in combining an abundance of steps with plenty of flourish and excessive acting. His unconventional, fresh approach suffers from his striving for exceptionalism. And though I understand that as many dancers as possible should be involved, I’d have preferred a less crowded village square to better show off the pas de deux of the leading couple – Nicoletta Manni (Swanilda) and Timofej Andrijashenko (Franz). (more…)

A Showpiece

January 5, 2024 0 Comments

“A Swan Lake”
Semperoper Ballet
Semperoper
Dresden, Germany
December 17, 2023 (online since December 28, 2023)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Do not expect the Semperoper Ballet’s new A Swan Lake to be the well-known classical swan story. True, it’s still danced to Tchaikovsky’s score, but it eschews the greatest part of its traditional personage. Vladimir Begichev’s original libretto of Swan Lake (1877) wasn’t what the Swedish choreographer Johan Inger had in mind. He took inspiration from the German author Johann Karl August Musäus’s folk tale The Stolen Veil (1784), which is considered to be one of several possible sources that Begichev used.

For those familiar with a traditional Swan Lake, a few names of the characters, Inger included, ring a bell. One of them is Benno, the original Prince Siegfried’s friend. Dresden’s version has no Prince Siegfried, and Benno is the lover of Queen Zoe, the unhappy spouse of King Zeno. Thanks to a magic veil, she’s able to transform into a swan and fly to a faraway lake. There, she takes a rejuvenating bath once a year and lives out her secret love affair with Benno. Zeno, however, finds out about it and, tearing up the veil, puts an end to further escapes for Queen Zoe. Act II features Zoe twenty years later. (more…)

Rekindled

January 4, 2024

“Shifting Symmetries” (“Concertante”/”Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet”)
Vienna State Ballet
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
December 23, 2023, (online: December 27, 2023)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

The Vienna State Ballet’s newest triple bill combines pieces by Hans van Manen, William Forsythe, and George Balanchine. As Forsythe doesn’t allow video streaming of his works, his In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated wasn’t part of the online broadcast on December 27^th (which showed a recording of the premiere on December 23^rd).
I’ve often been unhappy about the Viennese performances, but what’s to expect when the choreographies given to them are mediocre? This time though, a meaty dance-diet was on the menu, and the company rose splendidly to the occasion.

Concertante (1994) has the punchy elegance that van Manen is known for. It’s sophisticated (but without frills) and so densely energetic that my eyes stayed glued on the dancers. Van Manen doesn’t choreograph pretty steps. His dancers prance cooly and strongly, throw challenging glances, and are forcefully present on stage. (more…)

Homage to Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

December 29, 2023 0 Comments

“Soirée Maurice Ravel” (“La Valse”/“L’Enfant et les Sortilèges”)
Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo
Salle des Princes, Grimaldi Forum
Monte-Carlo, Monaco
December 23, 2023

This year, Monaco celebrated the centenary anniversary of Prince Rainier III (1923–2005), the Principality’s monarch and head of state for almost 56 years. One highlight among the numerous events and exhibitions was a new double bill of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, featuring Balanchine’s La Valse and the company’s artistic director, Jean-Christophe Maillot’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (The Child and the Spell). Both pieces are set to music by Maurice Ravel. L’Enfant et les Sortilèges is a one-act opera with a libretto by Colette whose 150^th anniversary happens to be celebrated this year. World War I delayed its premiere at the Monte-Carlo Opera until 1925. Back then, Balanchine choreographed the dance sequences. In 1992, Maillot created his adaption. As a tribute to Prince Rainier – who is said to have loved Ravel’s music in general and especially L’Enfant et les Sortilèges – he presented a new version this year. There were only four performances scheduled at the Grimaldi Forum, and I saw the last one on December 23^rd. It was attended by Prince Albert II, Princess Caroline, and Princess Stéphanie and opened with Monaco’s anthem. (more…)

Lacking Punch (and more)

December 22, 2023 0 Comments

“The Nutcracker”
Stuttgart Ballet
Stuttgart State Opera
Stuttgart, Germany
December 19, 2023

After half a century without a family-friendly “Nutcracker”, the Stuttgart Ballet decided last year to fill the vacuum with a new version by Edward Clug. Clug, artistic director of the Maribor Ballet/Slovenia, had already contributed several short pieces to the Stuttgart company’s repertory, but “The Nutcracker” was his first full-evening story ballet for them. Stuttgart Ballet’s artistic director, Tamas Detrich, took the set and costume design choices into his own hands and commissioned a longstanding collaborator of the troupe – Jürgen Rose – to team up with Clug.

Rose’s design for the Stahlbaums’ Christmas celebration and their daughter Clara’s dream journey into a magical realm is a medley of old and new styles. The costumes and Clara’s bed are Biedermeier-ish, and the Stahlbaums’ mansion is ultra-modern. Its plain, washy-brown walls create a claustrophobic atmosphere. Walnuts of different sizes connect the scenes like a visual leitmotiv. (more…)

Customized

December 15, 2023 0 Comments

“Jane Eyre”
Hamburg Ballet – John Neumeier
Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg, Germany
December 09, 2023

Last December, John Neumeier announced that his then-new “Dona Nobis Pacem” would be his last choreography for the Hamburg Ballet. I was rightfully doubtful because the eighty-four-year-old did indeed schedule the premiere of yet another new creation – Epilogue” – for July 2024. With very few exceptions, the Hamburg Ballet’s purpose has been to present its artistic director’s oeuvre. In his farewell season, he at least allocated the other premiere to a foreign choreographer, the Zurich Ballet’s new artistic director, Cathy Marston. Her “Jane Eyre” received its Hamburg debut earlier this December. It’s an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s eponymous 1847 novel and was created for Northern Ballet in 2016 and later developed into a big-scale production for American Ballet Theatre and the Joffrey Ballet.

In an interview printed in the program booklet, Marston reports having been surprised about the unexpected assignment by Neumeier and also hints as to why Neumeier might have chosen “Jane Eyre”. (more…)

An Own Goal

October 20, 2023 0 Comments

Wiebke Hüster / Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)

Some days ago, an article by Wiebke Hüster, leading dance critic of Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, caught my attention (FAZ, October 07, 2023). Hüster wrote on the upcoming premiere of “Last Work” at the Hessian State Ballet. “Last Work” is by the Israeli Ohad Naharin – and he was the one Hüster objected. (more…)

Twice as Tragic

October 2, 2023 0 Comments

“Swan Lake”
Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala
Teatro alla Scala
Milan, Italy
September 27, 2023 (livestream)

Last Wednesday’s livestream of “Swan Lake” was the third such event since Manuel Legris took over the artistic reins of the Teatro alla Scala’s ballet company in December 2020. What a pity that I missed the previous livestreams – “Le Corsaire” and “Romeo and Juliet”!

La Scala dances a version of Rudolf Nureyev’s “Swan Lake” that, if I’m not mistaken, is the one he created for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1984. As all of his ballets, this one has jam-packed choreography. Last time it was shown in Milan in 2014 under the directorship of Makhar Vaziev. After Vaziev left to the Bolshoi Ballet in 2015, La Scala’s company entered unsteady waters. Legris’s guidance seems to be returning the company to its previous standards. Olga Smirnova and Jacopo Tissi (former colleagues at the Bolshoi and meanwhile at Dutch National Ballet) guested in the leading roles twice. The livestream was given to in-house soloists – Maria Celeste Losa (Odette / Odile) and Navrin Turnbull (Prince Siegfried). (more…)