Companies

A Treat

December 24, 2024

“Don Quixote” (1973 film)
The Australian Ballet
Melbourne, Australia
December 2024 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

A couple of days ago, medici.tv re-released Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote as part of its Christmas ballet program. Although fifty-two years old, the film is hot. Nureyev adapted it from his 1970 stage production for the Australian Ballet and co-directed it with Robert Helpmann (then artistic director of the Australian Ballet). Both starred in leading roles—Helpmann as the Don, and Nureyev as Basilio—alongside dancers of the Australian Ballet.
Nureyev was a notorious daredevil, but the fireworks that his steps set off from the moment he reached Barcelona’s port (set design by Barry Kay) until he finally married Kitri (Lucette Aldous) were beyond imagination.

Sure, the camera work was smart, and each scene repeated until it met his expectations, but the force of his performance was matchless—especially as his Basilio was imbued with a commedia dell’arte humor that made his feats look easy.
Remarkably, the company lived up to Nureyev’s standards, or rather—as two dancers of the cast, Francis Croese and Marilyn Rowe (street dancers), remembered—Rudi drove the company toward the highest peak of performance. The tour de force was exacerbated by a sweltering heat wave that turned the site of the film (an unused airport hanger near Melbourne) into a sauna. It also caused the fresh food props in the port scene (fruits, eggs, and seafood) to quickly rot, tainting the air with an intense stench of foul fish.
These hardships however were not perceptible in the film. On the contrary, the Spanish youth, Romani, and dryads (led by Marilyn Rowe’s Queen) danced fabulously. Even half a century later, their passion and verve are infectious.

Links:		Website of the Australian Ballet
		Website of medici.tv
Editing:		Kayla Kauffman

Comforting

December 18, 2024

“The Nutcracker”
The Australian Ballet
Sydney Opera House/Joan Sutherland Theatre
Sydney, Australia
December 12, 2024 (live stream)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

This year, getting in a happy Christmas mood isn’t easy in my home country, Germany. We’re in troubled waters, and prospects for the new year are dismal. Even our major ballet stages abandoned a festive program. The State Ballet Berlin scheduled Christian Spuck’s Bovary and Swan Lake for the holiday season; the Bavarian State Ballet is presenting a mixed bill (Duato/Skeels/Eyal) and Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet. At least audiences in Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Dresden can attend performances of The Nutcracker, but Stuttgart’s rendering is screwed up, and Dresden’s is saccharine. The bright spot is Hamburg Ballet, which kept Neumeier’s much-lauded version in its repertory.

The Australian Ballet’s live stream of The Nutcracker was therefore a welcome addition, especially as the company presented Peter Wright’s traditional version, which was staged for the Royal Ballet in 1984 and later adapted for Birmingham Royal Ballet. (more…)

Coming Out

November 27, 2024

“Oscar©”
The Australian Ballet
Sydney Opera House/Joan Sutherland Theatre
Sydney, Australia
November 19, 2024 (live stream)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

One long year has passed since The Australian Ballet’s last live stream, and it was uncertain if the company would dance again for an online audience. But after moving from Melbourne’s State Theatre (which is closed for major renovations) to their temporary home at the nearby Regent Theatre, they are back online. Christopher Wheeldon’s Oscar^© was the first ballet streamed live from the Sydney Opera House. Moreover, it is the first full-length commission by artistic director, David Hallberg, who has been friends with Wheeldon for twenty years. As a choreographer, Wheeldon is “hot property,” Hallberg stated. Oscar^© combines biographical aspects of the well-known, yet divisive, Irish author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) with two pieces of his oeuvre.

As usual, Hallberg and presenter Catherine Murphy co-hosted the live stream, conducting backstage interviews and chatting about the piece. Hallberg quickly made clear that when approaching Wheeldon, he had a bold, unapologetic story in mind that wouldn’t shy away from telling uncomfortable realities, such as Wilde’s homosexuality for which he was persecuted and sentenced to two years in prison. (more…)

Exhausting

November 16, 2024

“Dragons”
Eun-Me Ahn Company
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
November 09, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Two years ago, the South Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn’s company toured the Forum Ludwigsburg with North Korea Dance. Last weekend, it presented the 2021 piece, Dragons. Ahn handpicked five dancers from Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Malaysia to participate in the production who couldn’t join rehearsals due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Instead, their dance parts were captured on video and then animated into 3-D digital avatars of superhuman size and abilities. They shared the stage with the seventy-year-old (and usually shaved bald) Ahn and her company. Because the five dancers from abroad were all born in 2000, which, according to the Chinese zodiac, was the Year of the Dragon, Ahn called the piece Dragons. The current year also marks the Year of the Dragon (the Chinese zodiac is a repeating twelve-year cycle), which may be the reason for touring Dragons in Europe and the UK right now. (more…)

Unstoppable

November 10, 2024

“Spartacus”
Ballet of the Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Krasnoyarsk, Russia
October 18, 2024 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

This October, the Krasnoyarsk Ballet revived Yuri Grigorovich’s epic Spartacus, which had been absent from their stage for seventeen years. The production was therefore announced as a premiere. As Spartacus has rarely been danced by Western companies (the Bavarian State Ballet performed it in 2017, and the Ballet of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma in 2018), I was glad to view a video of the opening night in Krasnoyarsk.

Spartacus is an icon of Russian ballet culture. Its title character, the captive King of Thrace, leads the slave uprising in the Third Servile War (73-71 BC) against the Roman consul Crassus. A man of honor and principles, Spartacus fights for freedom no matter what. But female intrigue undermines the strength of his army and leads to his execution in an unjust one-against-many showdown. Spartacus’s unfaltering—and ultimately self-sacrificial—courage resonates with Russians who have great esteem for their war heroes. (more…)

Battling Self-Doubt

November 2, 2024

“Cyrano de Bergerac”
Ballet NdB (Národní divadlo Brno)
National Theatre Brno
Brno, Czech Republic
October 27, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Ten years ago, I watched one of Jiří Bubeníček’s early ballets—The Picture of Dorian Gray—which he created and danced with his twin brother, Otto. Since then, the Bubeníčeks regularly cooperated on many productions, with Jiří usually contributing the choreography and Otto the design. Their latest ballet, Cyrano de Bergerac for the Ballet of the National Theatre Brno in the Czech Republic, is also a product of family cooperation, especially given that Jiří’s wife and longstanding artistic collaborator, Nadina Cojocaru, joined the team as costume designer.

Cyrano de Bergerac is based on the eponymous 1897 romantic-comedy verse drama by the French dramatist Edmond Rostand (1868-1918). Rostand modeled the hero after Hector-Savinien de Cyrano (1619-1655), nicknamed Cyrano de Bergerac. A fabulously heroic swordsman, he served in various regiments before quitting the cadet’s life and dedicating himself exclusively to writing prose and love poetry. The prominent nose that affected the love life of his literary representative also graced the real de Cyrano, though it was more moderately sized. (more…)

The Abuse of Women

October 19, 2024

“Troja” (“Troy”)
State Ballet of the Gärtnerplatztheater, Munich
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
October 12, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

As in previous years, the Forum Ludwigsburg has made an effort to invite a wide range of dance companies to Ludwigsburg (which is about seven and a half miles north of Stuttgart) during this season. Munich’s State Ballet of the Gärtnerplatztheater was the first troupe to pay a visit. They presented their recently premiered one-act piece Troja (Troy) by Andonis Foniadakis. The Greek-born Foniadakis danced with the Béjart Ballet and the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon during which time he also began to choreograph. In 2003 he founded his own company, Apotosoma, and from 2016 to 2018 he was the artistic director of the Greek National Opera.
Troja is based on Euripides’s tragedy, The Trojan Women, the intricate plot of which Foniadakis distilled to two overarching themes: the aftermath of war in general and the fate of the women—on the loser’s side in particular. (more…)

Fighting Evil

October 15, 2024

“The Sun, the Moon and the Wind”
Czech National Ballet
The Estates Theatre
Prague, Czech Republic
October 10, 2024 (matinee)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

“It has been written that the shrewdest thing Evil can do is to trick us into believing that it does not exist,” warned Štěpán Benyovszký who, together with Viktor Konvalinka, wrote the libretto and directed the Czech National Ballet’s new ballet, The Sun, the Moon and the Wind. It is based on a fairy tale that was first recorded in 1845 in the Czech Collection National Tales and Legends by Božena Němcová who later incorporated elements of Slavik versions. Although the ballet is meant to attract a young audience, it is entertaining for adults as well.

Benyovszký’s and Konvalinka’s adaption tells of the star of creation that illuminated primeval darkness. It split into four parts from which the sun, the moon, the wind, and Zora, the dawn princess, arose. Yet Zora’s part was stolen by Triglav, the vicious Dragon Lord of Time, who kidnapped and bewitched her. Determined to get ahold of the other three quarters of the star and thereby seize world power, Triglav regularly had to suck the souls of young men to stay young and strong. He singled out Prince Jan as a victim, but Jan’s three sisters, Rufflette, Sparkette, and Pallidette set off to rescue their brother. (more…)

Deeper than Thought

October 11, 2024

“Land of Body”
Laterna magika
The New Stage
Prague, Czech Republic
October 05, 2024

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

The sharp sound of wind and a blaze of Arctic white on eleven video screens of various sizes scattered across the stage opened Laterna magika’s 2022 production, Land of Body. Radim Vizváry, artistic director of Laterna magika, was in charge of the theme, choreography, and staging. As the title suggests, Land of Body considers the body as a metaphor for landscapes. Artists of three generations and different genres portrayed a body’s formations and cycles of nature and life.
Some dancers lay motionless on the twilit ground when a senior dancer (Josef Kotěšovský), with an elderly, insecure gait, flipped a mobile phone camera open. Perhaps the solemn voiceover, which seemed to convey a mystical message, belonged to the video he watched on the small camera screen. In any case, a fog of dry ice suddenly wafted across the video screens and seemed to spread onto stage. Drum rolls followed by atmospheric sounds (music by Robert Jíša, sound design by Jan Brambůrek) accompanied a gray-haired man (Matěj Petrák) who moved on old fours like a primordial human. Brawny and nimble, he carried the lifeless bodies of a man and a woman onto the stage. (more…)

Tangled

September 23, 2024

“Tales of Perrault”
Ural Opera Ballet
Ekaterinburg State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre
Ekaterinburg, Russia
April/September 2024 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

Last week, the Ural Opera Ballet’s joint production, Tales of Perrault, returned to the stage. It combines four fairy tales by Perrault—Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, and Little Thumb—that are newly interpreted by three choreographers. Two of them, Konstantin Khlebnikov and Alexandr Merkushev, are junior choreographers from the company’s ranks of dancers; the third, Maksim Petrov, choreographed for the Mariinsky Ballet before succeeding the Ural Opera Ballet’s then-artistic director, Vyacheslav Samodurov, in August 2023.
Perrault’s fairy tales are often dark and scary (which is why Tales of Perrault is reserved for an adult audience and children aged twelve and older) but with a poetic note. From their wide range of meanings, the choreographers distilled a core message that combines all four fairy tales: regardless of one’s physicality, conduct, and wit, everyone deserves love and sympathy. (more…)

An Opening Salute

September 10, 2024

“The Sleeping Beauty”
Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre
Moscow, Russia
September 07, 2024 (live stream)

The Bolshoi Ballet opened its 249th season with a revival of Yuri Grigorovich’s The Sleeping Beauty, which has been absent from the stage for four years. Because of the thorough change of décor, the production was announced as a premiere. It swapped the opulent (and often criticized) sets and costumes that Ezio Frigerio and Franca Squarciapino designed for the 2011 revival (celebrating the reopening of the theater’s Historic Stage after six years of refurbishment) for the restrained décor that Simon Virsaladze (1909–1989) created for Grigorovich’s second version of the ballet in 1973. The subdued hues and aquarelle-ish style of its courtly surroundings direct the gaze toward the colorful costumes (recalling French court fashion from King Louis XIII’s to the Sun King, Louis XIV’s, reign), beautiful flower garlands and bouquets at Aurora’s birthday party, and, most importantly, the dancers and their performances. Raising the curtain didn’t elicit oohs and aahs from the audience as, for example, Jürgen Rose’s décor for Marcia Haydée’s Sleeping Beauty regularly has done on Western stages. (more…)

Reassuring

August 7, 2024

Sochi Olympics 2014
Sochi, Russia
August 2024

Given the nauseating freak show at the opening of the Paris Olympics last week, re-watching the ceremony held ten years ago at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi helps to restore belief in culture. It included the mini-ballet Natasha Rostov’s First Ball (choreographed by Radu Poklitaru, Andriy Musorin, and Oleksandr Leshchenko), which was based on Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Russia’s finest dancers were featured next to the two hundred couples waltzing to Eugen Doga’s film music for A Hunting Accident (Russian title: Мой ласковый и нежный зверь, meaning, My Sweet and Tender Beast). The Bolshoi Ballet’s Svetlana Zakharova danced the young, romantic beauty, Natasha Rostova; ballet legend Vladimir Vasiliev played her father, Count Rostov.

The Mariinsky Ballet’s Danila Korsuntsev performed the role of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky; Alexander Petukhov portrayed Pierre Bezukhov; as the dashing hussar, Anatoly Kuragin, Ivan Vasiliev delivered breathtaking jumps that made the audience cheer. The ball came to an abrupt end when Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 ushered in the dark times that subsequently swept over Russia. (more…)

Present-day Perspectives

August 3, 2024

“Snow Maiden. Myth and Reality” (“Another Light”/“Refraction”)
Ballet of the Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Krasnoyarsk, Russia
July 2024 (video)

In March last year, the Russian playwright Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-1886) would have celebrated his bicentenary. Around one hundred and fifty years ago, in September 1873, he published The Snow Maiden, a work of narrative poetry about a fairy-tale, fantasy tsardom in prehistoric times for which Tchaikovsky wrote the music. A few years later, it was adapted into an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The Snow Maiden deals with the opposition between eternal forces of nature (represented by the mythological characters of Grandfather Frost, Spring Beauty, the Sun God Yarilo, and a wood sprite), humans (a merchant and citizens), and those in-between (half-real, half-mythological characters, like Snow Maiden and the shepherd boy, Lel). The title character, daughter of Grandfather Frost and Spring Beauty, decides to live among the people, whom her beauty enchants. She is, however, unable to feel love, which complicates her interactions with humans. After her mother grants her the ability to love, Snow Maiden’s passion for the merchant, Mizgir, is ignited. As her hearts warms and she declares her love, a bright ray of sunlight hits her and she melts. Her demise conciliates the Sun God, Yarilo, who, angered by her sheer existence, had withheld sun and warmth. Consequently, the forces of nature become rebalanced. (more…)

Tempestuous

July 24, 2024

“Le Corsaire”
Ballet of the Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Krasnoyarsk, Russia
July 2024 (video)

This July, the Ballet of the Krasnoyarsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre traveled 2.400 miles eastward to tour their Catharsis Dante at the Helikon Theatre in Moscow. I wasn’t able to fly to Moscow but, by chance, I had the opportunity to watch videos of two of their recent premieres. One of them was a new Le Corsaire by Yuliana Malkhasyants, which premiered on May 19th. It’s based on Petipa’s 1858 version for the Mariinsky Theatre from which Malkhasyants kept seven of the most famous fragments, such as the Pas d’Esclave and the Le Corsaire Pas de Deux for Medora and Conrad. The Jardin animé was refashioned, and the libretto was pruned for better understanding. Malkhasyants dropped the figure of Conrad’s young, faithful slave, Ali, and streamlined Medora’s and Conrad’s escape from Seyd Pasha’s harem. (more…)

Ambivalent

July 13, 2024

“Manon”
Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala
Teatro alla Scala
Milan, Italy
July 08, 2024 (live stream)

Given the mind-boggling speed with which Western culture is changing, La Scala’s live stream of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon felt like a relic from the good old days of ballet. Unlike other staples of the classical repertory—Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, or The Nutcracker, for example—with a spiritual dimension that serves as a source of inspiration in difficult times, Manon has the opposite effect. Based on Abbé Prévost’s novel Manon Lescaut (1731), it dives deeply into the social swamp of early-18th-century France and in the real swamps near the then-French colony of Louisiana. Rabble and the poor crowd the streets and the upper class’s silk and satin façade barely hides their rotten morals. Sex, money, and power reign in everyday life, and, for women, alluring men is the only way to secure an existence. Not a single soul remains untainted in the sex-and-crime-ridden love tragedy of Manon. (more…)