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A Silver Lining

March 9, 2023

John Cranko School
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
March 04, 2023

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

It is no secret that Germany has been heading towards multiple calamities for some time. This has inevitably left its mark on theaters in many ways – and I’ve come to expect less-than-excellence when watching German performances of ballet. The performance by Stuttgart’s John Cranko School as guests in nearby Ludwigsburg, however, made me sigh with relief. Within minutes, it became clear that Tadeusz Matacz, the school’s longtime director, has kept the standard high. He chose to present a tasteful, primarily classical program devoid of the insipid vulgarity that I’ve encountered elsewhere. By sidelining the trends of today, Matacz takes an approach that some might discount as reactionary and outdated – but the results speak otherwise. His students seemed fabulously comfortable onstage – focused, technically strong, and convincing as actors. The sold-out auditorium cheered them on enthusiastically. (more…)

Dismissed → Celebrated: Béla Bartók

February 18, 2023

“The Wooden Prince” / “Bluebeard’s Castle”
Hungarian National Ballet / Hungarian National Opera
Hungarian State Opera
Budapest, Hungary
February 11, 2023

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

“Young Béla, you have no business composing music.”

Such was the spirit and style of the reviews that had been pre-fabricated by the Budapest press prior to the premiere of Béla Bartók’s pantomime ballet “The Wooden Prince” in May 1917. Instead, the piece was an enormous success – prompting a busy night of rewrites for the journalists. It marked Bartók’s Hungarian breakthrough – a shift in the attitude of his home audience towards his work. As a result, the opera house finally agreed to stage Bartók’s Symbolist opera “Bluebeard’s Castle” in 1918 after seven years’ waiting for a premiere. Over the last century, versions of both works have remained in constant rotation in the repertoire of the Hungarian National Opera. I saw the premiere of a new work – Velekei’s “Wooden Prince” – presented in a double bill alongside a 2018 staging of “Bluebeard’s Castle”. (more…)

Smart & From the Heart

February 16, 2023

“Little Swan Lake”
Hungarian National Ballet Institute / Hungarian National Ballet
Eiffel Art Studios
Budapest, Hungary
February 11, 2023 (matinee)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

Excitement buzzed through Budapest’s Eiffel Art Studios as the curtain rose on “Little Swan Lake” – an adaption of one of the most classic of classical ballets. This past Saturday at noon, little ones – accompanied by parents and relatives – flocked into the Miklós Bánffy auditorium in great numbers to see Swan Lake for tots.
The Hungarian National Ballet puts a great deal of effort into reaching out to young audiences. “Little Swan Lake” is in its third season and tickets are still in high demand. The production not only nurtures a future generation of theater-lovers, but also has the potential to encourage hesitant children to take the leap into dance lessons themselves. Most of the dancers were as old as their audience, and it’s easy to find one’s passion for the art form stoked after watching them perform. This is all the more so true because “Little Swan Lake” traces the steady growth of a little swan to a mature one (the latter role was – as with the other leading roles – danced by a member of the main company). (more…)

A Fake Cosmos

February 7, 2023

“Hakanaï”
Adrien M & Claire B
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden, Germany
February 04, 2023

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

The survival of theaters and opera houses depends upon the survival of the audience. In an effort to lure the younger generation into their houses, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden launched the Takeover Festival last year. Its three days of programming include concerts, dance, and workshops, as well as fun after-parties and a relaxed private lounge. Last weekend, the festival launched into its second round. I watched “Hakanaï” (Japanese for impermanent, fragile, evanescent, transitory, fleeting), a dance performance by the French-based troupe Adrien M & Claire B (short for Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne) that fuses movement with digital arts. The artistic team behind “Hakanaï” includes – among others – a computer designer, two sound designers, a light designer, two set designers, digital interpreters, sound interpreters – and one dancer: Akiko Kajihara. (more…)

Trashy

January 27, 2023

“Triple”
Richard Siegal – Ballet of Difference
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
January 21, 2023

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

Last weekend, the Cologne-based troupe Richard Siegal – Ballet of Difference toured the Forum Ludwigsburg. The American-born Siegal founded the company in 2016 in Munich. He also serves as its artistic director and has choreographed nearly all of their repertoire. The triple bill in Ludwigsburg combined twenty-or-so minute-long pieces created between 2014 – 2021.

In a recent interview, Siegal revealed that “All For One” is a “reaction to the modes of digital spectatorship that emerged during the beginning of the pandemic.” The piece premiered online in fall 2021 with a set (an organ made from tall tubes of light arranged in a cylindrical semicircle) designed, perhaps, to appeal to an online audience. In Ludwigsburg, the murky illumination often hid the eleven dancers in twilight that obscured their pants, skirts, and bustiers (decorated with bulky silver folds that resembled supersized shreds of paper). (more…)

Neumeier’s Call for Peace

January 12, 2023

“Dona Nobis Pacem”
Hamburg Ballet – John Neumeier
Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg, Germany
January 05, 2023

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

John Neumeier’s latest choreography for the Hamburg Ballet, “Dona Nobis Pacem” (“Give Us Peace”), is meant to be the crown jewel of his fiftieth season as artistic director of the company. The eighty-three-year-old Neumeier had originally intended to resign in July 2023, but chose to extend his contract for another year in order to ensure the smooth transition of his named successor Demis Volpi, currently the artistic director of the Ballett am Rhein. There are one and a half long years until then – and perhaps Neumeier will renounce his statement that “Dona Nobis Pacem” is to be his last new creation. (more…)

Frothy

January 10, 2023

“The Nutcracker”
Ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre
Moscow, Russia
December 30, 2022 (matinee)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

This winter, the Stanislavsky Ballet replaced Vasily Vainonen’s 1995 “Nutcracker” with Yuri Possokhov’s – not a brand-new rendering, but an adaption of the “Nutcracker” that Possokhov created for the Atlanta Ballet in 2018 (new designs included). Since its premiere in Moscow at the end of November, tickets have been in high demand. Given Possokhov’s good work on the Bolshoi Ballet’s “Nureyev” and an “Anna Karenina” for the Joffrey Ballet & the Australian Ballet, I was curious what approach he’d take to this iconic ballet – and it was clear within seconds that he had given this Nutcracker a strong update.

Sergey Rylko’s dazzling videos hurl us through flurrying snow to a spinning astrological sign. From there, a golden ram gallops off towards and through a faceless white town, flying in low over rooftops, an ice-rink, and a carousel. We land at the workshop of Drosselmeyer (danced by Jonah Cook, a former principal of the Bavarian State Ballet and the Zurich Ballet), who is heaping presents onto a sleigh together with his nephew (Andrey Kirichenko). Drosselmeyer’s wall-sized astrological clocks, their faces rotating mysteriously, are presumably tools that control the ticking of the universe. (more…)

A Teaser

January 8, 2023

“Diaghilev. The Dress Rehearsal”
New Tretyakov Gallery
Moscow, Russia
December 2022

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

Sergei Diaghilev’s name is nearly synonymous with the art of ballet. Well-versed in both arts and business, he succeeded not only as a writer and curator, but indelibly as the founder and cunning impresario of the Ballets Russes.
From 1906 onwards, foreseeing political and cultural paralysis at home in Russia, Diaghilev shifted his activities from St. Petersburg to Paris (and later to other European metropolises). Though his first venture (an exhibition of Russian paintings at Paris’s new Salon d’Automne) earned him laurels, he soon turned away from museums towards the ballet stage. The Ballets Russes became the core focus of his life – and it’s because of them that the western art of ballet was reinvigorated. As Stravinsky stated, “it is to [Diaghilev], that we owe the recent development of choreographic art in the entire world.” (more…)

Transcendent

January 3, 2023

“The Nutcracker”
Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre
Moscow, Russia
December 29, 2022 (matinee and evening performance)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

After meeting him at a guest performance with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo six years ago, the Bolshoi’s Semyon Chudin suggested that I see their “Nutcracker” in Moscow. Year after year, one thing or another has prevented me from getting to the Bolshoi at Christmastime. Finally, this year, it happened: on the edge of New Year’s Eve, I watched a matinee and an evening performance.

The Bolshoi’s “Nutcracker” dates back to 1966 – qualifying it neither as trendy nor hip by today’s standards. Perhaps Makhar Vaziev, the company’s artistic director, has kept it in the repertoire for a number of reasons: out of respect for tradition; out of respect for the ballet’s choreographer – Yuri Grigorovich – one of the company’s formative figures; and out of respect for the crowd-pleasing nature of the piece that leads to sold out performances now as ever. (more…)

Dreary

December 22, 2022

“Consagracíon” / “Polvo, palabras, sombras, nada”
Danza Contemporánea de Cuba
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
December 17, 2022

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2022 by Ilona Landgraf

Danza Contemporánea de Cuba – a contemporary ensemble from Cuba – is in the middle of a tour of Europe. After performances in France and Switzerland, the group presented a double bill in Ludwigsburg, Germany, last weekend. I expected exhilarating Latin American pyrotechnics infused with burgeoning Christmas spirit. However, the two pieces – “Consagracíon” (2018) and “Polvo, palabras, sombras, nada” (2021) – spoke quite a different language.

Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du printemps” has provided a spark for choreographers throughout the ages. Nijinsky’s pioneering version augmented the music’s primeval power, as did some of his colleagues’ later works. Many “Sacres”, though, have turned out to be fairly insignificant entries to the canon. Though it’s true that the strength of a performance can depend on its venue (or on the perseverance that is needed to stomp the energy out of the ground), the Ludwigsburg Forum’s stage was not the reason that “Consagracíon” gained its momentum slowly. (more…)

Enchanting

December 16, 2022

“The Nutcracker”
Hungarian National Ballet / Hungarian National Ballet Institute
Hungarian State Opera
Budapest, Hungary
December 10, 2022 (matinee + evening performance)

The Dutch National Ballet has in its repertoire a gorgeous “Nutcracker and the Mouse King” by Wayne Eagling (featuring no less beautiful designs by Toer van Schayk), which premiered in 1996. It seems that from that moment on, Eagling has been spellbound by the “Nutcracker”. The version he created in 2015 – tailored to the Hungarian National Ballet – is his fifth take on the fairy-tale. For Budapest’s “Nutcracker” he collaborated with the company’s artistic director, Tamás Solymosi. I saw a matinee and an evening performance.

From the moment I noticed the cupcakes and Gugelhupf on the Stahlbaum family’s Christmas buffet, I knew that Eagling and Solymosi’s production would be just so: a treat based on a traditional recipe but refined with local additions and updated techniques. The original recipe by Vasili Vainonen is from 1934 – and his “Nutcracker” premiered in Budapest in 1950 to great acclaim. (more…)

Encompassing

December 8, 2022

“Romeo and Juliet”
Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc Rijeka
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
December 03, 2022

This season, the Forum Ludwigsburg has attracted an audience by offering an alluring variety of dance. Two weeks ago, it welcomed the Maribor Slovene National Theatre. This weekend, the Croatian National Theatre presented Jiří Bubeníček’s “Romeo and Juliet”, which premiered this April at the company’s home base in Rijeka.

While the quarrelsome Capulets and Montagues vociferously bumped heads in Verona’s marketplace, I thought back to a performance in which Bubeníček himself danced Romeo. Back in 2014, the Belgian Stijn Celis choreographed “Romeo and Juliet” for the Semperoper Ballet, tailoring the leading role to Bubeníček. The ballet was meant to be a feature for the company’s most prominent male dancer, but turned out to be disappointingly banal. Michele Pastorini’s performance as the title’s hero of Ludwigsburg felt like a depiction of how Bubeníček might have wished to dance the role himself. (more…)

Disappointing

December 2, 2022

“Autumn Matinee of the Heinz Bosl Foundation”
Ballet Academy of the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich / Bavarian Junior Ballet
National Theater
Munich, Germany
November 27, 2022

Most ballet schools present their work to the public once a year. Munich’s Ballet Academy performs twice, in spring and fall, usually joined by the Bavarian Junior Ballet. I saw the first of two matinees that this time – contending with an international symposium on dance training held at the Academy almost simultaneously – primarily featured the Junior Company. Ivan Liška, former artistic director of the Bavarian State Ballet and current AD of the Junior Company (since its founding in 2010), moderated the program. (more…)

Jittery

November 26, 2022

“A Wilde Story”
State Ballet Hanover
Opera House Hanover
Hanover, Germany
November 20, 2022

Marco Goecke recently added the German magazine tanz’s “Choreographer of 2021” award and the 2022 German Dance Prize to his collection. Last month, he presented a new ballet at the State Ballet Hanover, which he has helmed as artistic director since 2019. “A Wilde Story” plays with the life and work of Oscar Wilde. I was curious to see whether or not the story was, in fact, wild.

The evening opens not with Wilde, but with a bare-chested Michelangelo Chelucci, who jerks open and closes off his muscular torso, arms plowing through the air. His feet scurry zealously this way and that as he elegantly lifts his black, floor-length skirt. A glance at the program book reveals that Chelucci personifies the art of writing. Behind him, black-clad dancers hustle from one side of the stage to the other, comic figures in fast-forward, shaking their fists. Their steps stir up dust that gradually blurs our view of the grainy facade of a stately gray mansion (set and costumes by Marvin Ott). Though the pulsing rock of The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight Tonight” suggests otherwise, we’re in Victorian England. “Believe in me,” they sing – but at whom does this line aim? (more…)

Refreshing

November 16, 2022

“Peer Gynt”
Maribor Slovene National Theatre
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
November 11, 2022

Edward Clug, the artistic director of the Slovene National Theatre’s ballet company, is currently creating a new “Nutcracker” for the Stuttgart Ballet – but, in the meantime, his own Maribor company has joined him in nearby Ludwigsburg. This weekend, they toured the Ludwigsburg Forum with Clug’s 2015 take on Henrik Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt”.

Ibsen’s happy-go-lucky peasant’s son Peer is quite the ambiguous figure. It’s easy to dismiss him as a narcissistic slacker and gascon. He never misses a chance to womanize or to seek trouble as he gads about Norway’s mountains. The splendid future that he imagines in his fantasy fails to become a reality. The wealth that he gains abroad does not make him lucky at home. His dream of becoming a crowned king (or emperor?) materializes, but only as an inmate in a Cairo madhouse. Old and feeble, he returns home in an effort to save his own soul. Only in the very last moment does he realize that he would have been much better off staying with his early love, Solveig. But why are we sympathetic to Peer rather than disliking him? (more…)