Andrés Garcia Torres – Landgraf on Dance

“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”

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

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. Continue reading “Rekindled”