Eno Peci – Landgraf on Dance

26. November 202526. November 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.

Except for the core theme (male infidelity and female maneuvers to deal with it), Petit’s version has little in common with the operetta. He employs only three protagonists: Bella (Olga Esina), her husband (Timoor Afshar), who is named Johann (maybe an ironic jab at Strauss II, whose second wife, Angelika, cuckolded him?), and the family’s friend, Ulrich (Davide Dato). In Ulrich, Petit combined two characters of the operetta, the schemer, Dr. Falke, and the seducer, Alfred.

While the operetta’s Dr. Falke was ridiculed for wearing a bat costume, the ballet’s Johann transformed into a bat at night, flying from his conjugal bed to seek pleasure at other establishments. Bella no longer excited his senses, and their austere, Mondrian-style home (designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte) presumably didn’t either.

One night, she found out that Johann was leading a double life and called Ulrich. He rushed in as if he were waiting for the moment, covered Bella’s arm with an armada of kisses (in contradiction to his purported, noble altruism to save her marriage), and took action. Under his supervision, Bella metamorphosed into an Odile-like diva who ensnared her prince, Johann, at Maxim’s in Paris. (Bella and Johann live in an Austrian-Hungarian capital, so how they managed to get to Paris in no time was a mystery.)

Dressed as a waiter, Ulrich coached Bella’s performance as if he were Rothbart. She enraptured Johann, who failed to recognize his wife. When Bella and Ulrich escaped by carriage in the purple morning light, Johann jumped on as a stowaway. He stood on top in a bold arabesque like a hood ornament while the horse galloped off—a smashing exit!

Bella then moved on to a seductive gig at a masquerade ball reminiscent of the hunting scene in The Sleeping Beauty. In contrast to Prince Désiré, who followed his spiritual calling to search for Aurora, Johann was driven by sexual appetite. The parody intensified when Bella turned up. Wearing a scant, red tutu and a black neck ribbon (costumes by Luisa Spinatelli), she resembled a hybrid of Kitri and Carmen and danced like a frivolous Paquita. The Hungarian Csárdás that was part of the ball also turned farcical when Ulrich joined, his cheeks clownishly red.

Night fell as Johann, fueled by spiking hormones, tried to conquer Bella (he made me think of an unstoppable steam engine). Inevitably, Johann turned into a bat and fluttered above the guests. But Bella lured him to a lower altitude, and the trap snapped shut. Policemen arrested Johann. Behind bars, he lip-synced tenor Lukas Schmidt who didn’t sing about Bella, but the lovely Rosalinde, begging her to quench his desire (Rosalinde is the operetta’s heroine, and Alfred sings the song). Indeed, the beloved Bella appeared, effected his release, and, dropping her mask and clothes (except for a skin-colored, full-body leotard), rekindled their marital love.

The couple’s intimate pas de deux was the only scene that Petit didn’t turn into a comedy. But not for long. The moment Johann succumbed to Bella’s allure, Ulrich (this time dressed up as a prison guard) handed her huge scissors, and gone went the bat wings. As if stripped of his balls, Johann instantly transmuted into a henpecked husband, whose feet Bella tucked into felt slippers. She had realized her initial dream. Men orbited her; she called the shots, and life was as spiffy as a waltz.

Esina’s Bella cleverly hid her hurt from Johann’s disinterest under a shiny surface. It was unclear if her masquerade was motivated by true love or to secure her well-off status. Compared to Bella, Afshar’s Johann was an open book. His turns were hasty when he was impatient to break free, pretentious when he was eager to stand out, and spicy when he burned with lust. Women other than his wife lent wings to his showmanship.

Dato’s feet moved with such lightning speed and precision that I thought of hot needlework. A string puller, his Ulrich always turned up at the right moment. He puffed himself up like a toreador at Maxim’s, played the goof at the ball, and in prison he acted like a companion in crime.
Céline Janou Weder played Bella and Johann’s sometimes zealous, sometimes drowsy maidservant, Eno Peci was the police commissioner who arrested Johann. As servants at Maxim’s, Gaspare Li Mandri, Kristián Pokorný, and Géraud Wielick buzzed around, their spins, split jumps, and bobbing bottoms adding heat to the already hot atmosphere. The three can-can ladies (Francesca Cesaro, Sveva Gargiulo, and Chiara Uderzo) achieved the same by lifting their skirts extra high. Like a remnant of the good old times of ballet, Alessandro Cavallo continued to lead the Csárdás with composure, regardless of Ulrich’s interference. He only gave him a raised eyebrow.
The corps’ waltzes had pep, but their routine at the ball (including hands flapping up and down and heads turning left and right) looked silly.

Links:		Website of the Vienna State Ballet
		“Die Fledermaus” – Trailer
Photos:	1.	Timoor Afshar (Johann) and Olga Esina (Bella), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	2.	Timoor Afshar (Johann) and Olga Esina (Bella), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	3.	Olga Esina (Bella), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	4.	Olga Esina (Bella) and Davide Dato (Ulrich), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	5.	Ensemble, “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	6.	Géraud Wielick (Servant), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	7.	Timoor Afshar (Johann), Olga Esina (Bella), Victor Cagnin, and ensemble; “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	8.	Kristián Pokorný, Géraud Wielick, and Gaspare Li Mandri (Servants), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	9.	Gaia Fredianelli, Alessandro Cavallo, and Natalya Butchko; “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	10.	Francesca Cesaro and Duccio Tariello, “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	11.	Davide Dato (Ulrich), Olga Esina (Bella), Alessandro Cavallo, and ensemble; “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	12.	Timoor Afshar (Johann) and ensemble, “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	13.	Olga Esina (Bella) and Timoor Afshar (Johann), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	14.	Davide Dato (Ulrich) and ensemble, “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	15.	Timoor Afshar (Johann) and Olga Esina (Bella), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	16.	Davide Dato (Ulrich), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	17.	Davide Dato (Ulrich) and Céline Janou Weder (Servant), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
	18.	Timoor Afshar (Johann) and Olga Esina (Bella), “Die Fledermaus” by Roland Petit, Vienna State Ballet 2025
		all photos © Vienna State Ballet/Ashley Taylor
Editing:		Kayla Kauffman

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”

29. March 202424. April 2024

Incomprehensible

“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. Continue reading “Incomprehensible”

26. May 201721. April 2020

Wasted Effort?

“Gala des Étoiles”
Grand Théâtre
Luxembourg
May 20, 2017

Luxembourg, one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe, has no ballet tradition. To change this is the aim of former dancer Natascha Ipatova and Georges Rischette, both founders of the Luxembourg dance school DanceXperience. This year’s two galas on May 20th and 21st mark the fifth year in succession trying to wet the Luxembourg audience’s appetite for the art form. Unlike the suggestive title of the event, no étoiles of the Paris Opera Ballet were involved. Instead, there were leading principals and their colleagues from various international companies. Continue reading “Wasted Effort?”

18. May 201721. April 2020

Real Life and Ideals – Nureyev’s “Swan Lake”

“Swan Lake”
Vienna State Ballet
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
May 14, 2017

“French and Russian style differ, so everything is a bit new at the moment,” Semyon Chudin told me in an interview a few weeks before his premiere in Rudolf Nureyev’s “Swan Lake” in Vienna. He and Olga Smirnova, both figureheads of the Bolshoi, guested in the leading roles with Manuel Legris’s company. I saw the first of two performances. How did they do?

Nureyev’s version differs in style, choreography and the weight given to several characters in comparison to other traditional interpretations of “Swan Lake”. The role of Benno, Prince Siegfried’s friend, is gone and, unlike in Russian productions, there is no fool either. Instead the focus shifts towards Siegfried, whom Nureyev danced more than fifty times himself; his last performance was in 1988 a few days after his 50th birthday. Nureyev’s Siegfried has more to dance – a formal Pas de cinq at his birthday party followed by a melancholy solo, for example – and allows deeper insight into his psyche. At the end he falls victim to Von Rothbart’s revenge and drowns in the floods of the lake, whereas Odette, still alive, stands at the lakeside like the idealized female. However desperately Siegfried stretches his arms towards her she is unattainable. He is doomed to die. Continue reading “Real Life and Ideals – Nureyev’s “Swan Lake””

6. November 201622. April 2020

Premiering Next to a Genius

“Balanchine / Liang / Proietto”
Vienna State Ballet
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
November 01, 2016

Vienna State Ballet’s new mixed bill traces an arc from a piece capturing Balanchine’s pure classicism to a new, multi-art form work honoring the tradition of romantic ballets. The fascination of flying and the idea of weightlessness unites the three pieces. Edwaard Liang’s “Murmuration”, 2013 choreography for Houston Ballet, deals with the flight formation of flocks of birds. For “Blanc”, the evening’s world premiere, Argentinian choreographer Daniel Proietto took inspiration from Michael Fokine’s flying sylphs. The opener, George Balanchine’s “Symphony in C”, doesn’t involve aviation but leaves one in the most elevated of moods when it is danced well. And so it was. The company was in sunniest form on opening night.

Natascha Mair and Jakob Feyferlik led the first movement of “Symphony in C.” Both were precise, swift and conveyed an infectious good mood. Í liked Liudmila Konovalova and Vladimir Shishov, the second movement’s main couple. Konovalova, blessed with a refined technique, subtly nuanced between composed grief and almost playful cheerfulness. Her tender fragility was met by Shishov’s caring look and fine partnering. Continue reading “Premiering Next to a Genius”