Story ballet

While a modern work, Manon is at least as fusty as Giselle or Sleeping Beauty, all costumes, decorations and melodramatic music. Since Manon is no transcendental work of genius, its prurience makes it even more part of another epoch. Manon‘s closest relative in the pantheon of story ballets is probably the amoral and vapid The Corsair.

The message of the first half of Manon seems that crime is lots of fun and pays off in riches and love. Then in the second half, the message becomes “until it doesn’t” and everyone associated with even theft is murdered, exiled and raped. Finally even Manon dies of consumption in the swamps of Louisiana.

Early critics of Manon loathed the story. In the Guardian, Mary Clarke wrote “Basically, Manon is a slut and Des Grieux is a fool and they move in the most unsavoury company.” The Morning Star critic Jane King was even more categoric in her condemnation: “An appalling waste of lovely Antoinette Sibley, who is reduced to a nasty little diamond digger.”

Why Manon

Sin and spectacle sell though and Manon has been popular where it has played. The elaborate 18th century ancien regime French costumes and décor, along with the prurient story lead to a lively evening. SND designers and costumers did excellent work in recreating the story ballet costumes. Manon looked very good, if old school. There is not much innovation here.

SND director Nina Poláková built her own career at Vienna Staatsoper on excellent performances in the great costumed story ballets like La Bayadère, Giselle, Le Corsaire, La Sylphide, Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Manon, Mayerling, Onegin, The Pavilion of Armida, Raymonda, Romeo and Juliet and Sleeping Beauty. Poklakova’s choice of Manon as a new work for the SND makes a great deal of sense.

The company is mostly smaller dancers, with few great stars. Leaning on pomp and decorations, with less demanding dancing is the right artistic strategy for the major works and to bring in a wide public. The best SND performances are usually sparked by a single great dramatic performance, who pushes the other dancers to reveal themselves in the emotion of the show, drawing in the audience more from emotion than technique. Manon’s dark fate seems to promise such an opportunity.

Manon Music

Massenet’s music in the orchestration of Martin Yates is surprisingly deep. While Jules Massenet did write an operetta Manon, the ballet score is taken from Massenet’s weightier orchestral scores. Adam Sedlický did splendid work at the conductor’s podium with strong support from a charismatic lead violinist.

Well-played, as it was in Bratislava, on the night we saw Manon, the score is one of the highlights. I’d like to listen to the score at home or work.² Without extraordinary dance, astonishing decorations or an uplifting story on which to lean, Manon mostly leans on the performances of its dancers.

Performances

Konstantin Korotkov as Des Grieux came across as a bit old and tired to be Manon’s impulsive and infatuated student lover. While always he cuts a handsome figure, Korotkov’s astringent Des Grieux didn’t make much sense to me. Home grown Evy Jaczove Choreographic School graduate, Mergim Veselaj played GM effectively. In his aristocratic finery Veselaj was a persuasive aristrocratic, drawing attention to himself whenever on stage, drinking in the attention to his person as a celebrity or spoiled noble would do. While SND stalwart Andrej Szabo as the New Orleans Prison Governor dripped cruelty, Szabo’s actions lacked the necessary lasciviousness to truly chill the audience’s blood.

Artemyj Pyzhov as Manon’s brother Lescaut was the performer who brought the most convincing energy and conviction to his performance. His ill-conceived plans to lure his sister out of the convent and to betray his master GM at cards sincerely flashed the symptoms of a misguided chancer.

And Manon, the centre of the story and star of her eponymous show? Sadly, after twenty years as a dancer, the lovely Tatyjana Melnyik has become exceptionally thin and austere. This is not unusual among ballerinas, the strict eating regime and endless training slowly takes its toll. While there was nothing wrong with Melnyik’s dancing per se, she lacked the youthful sexual ebullience and nonchalance of a budding femme fatale.

One felt Manon had already done her twenty years in prison. Melnyik’s emaciated Manon at this point in her life would do whatever necessary to avoid deportation and enjoy a seat at a warm, well-laden table. She’d be old enough to be more careful in terms of risk. Her Phrygia in Spartacus is a better role for Melnyik today.

It’s not just a case of visible age, which we observed seated close to the stage. Age is also in movement. Young people move differently, with a livelier bounce in their step. Without a sex kitten Manon, in my opinion, the whole work falls apart. The motivation of the men, all falling over each other for a night’s attention from Manon, makes no sense.

Conclusion

We sat back and enjoyed the live orchestra and the costumes. Manon at SND is a pleasant musical evening, though on the evening we saw it much less piquant than it could be.

Preferred Casts: Tatyjana Melnyik performed as a guest artist from the Hungarian National Ballet. Based on past performance, I’d aim for one of Romina Kolodziej‘s performances. Tatum Shoptaugh is the other Manon. The key role is Manon so choose your performance based on your preferred Manon.

Since French étoile Manuel Legris took over the reins at Staatsoper, he’s insisted on rebranding Choreolab as the rather dull “Junge Choreographen des Wiener Staatsballets”. Vienna ballet lovers remain grateful for his enthusiastic support under its new moniker.

Ingeborg Tichy-Luger founder of choreo.lab and Vienna Ballet Club

This year choreo.lab enjoyed a particularly full program at its new venue Theater Akzent on 7 and 8 May. In two parts, the evening began at 7pm and ended about 10pm, granted that the pause was a full half hour for resetting the stage for live music (more on that later). There were a total of thirteen original works presented.

If one considers the Stravinsky Hommage at Volksoper last week an extension of Choreo.lab (Eno Peci, András Lukács and Andrei Kaydanovsky are all veterans of Choreo.lab), there are sixteen original works presented this year by Staatsoper dancers.

As every year, there are a few outstanding works in 2017. Yet with this much production, the quality is inevitably uneven. Even in the lesser works, one feels a sincerity. Perhaps there should be a last editorial pass where the only the best finished choreographies are presented to the full audience. Of course there would be a risk of politics and many broken hearts, so less damage is probably done by forcing a rapt audience to sit through a few too many short dance pieces.

Without further ado, let us revisit the choreographies in order.

Trevor Hayden’s pas de sang is a dance take on the original dracula story to dramatic music from Bela Bartok and Sergei Prokofiev. Alas, brilliant casting of a gaunt and frightening Alexis Forabasco as the Vampire and Eszter Ledan as his victim. Ionna Avraam is uncharacteristically dull as a physical manifestation of blood or the vampire’s bloodlust. There are some nice lifts but there isn’t much continuity to the dance. Many of the sections feel rushed or unfinished.

I’ve been keen on vampire stories, since I first read Bram Stoker’s Dracula in high school and it’s perfect for representation in dance (passion and death) but Hayden misses the mark here.

Hungarian dancer and third time Choreo.lab veteran, Attila Bakó leaves mysticism behind for technology in shadows we cast. His large group of dancers are strapped to pulse monitoring devices which project the beats per minute of their pulse live on the back of the stage as a waveform. The technical visuals could have been presented with more panache but that’s really a question of time and budget. Much thanks to Vienna’s Technical University and Uni Wien for participating in a dance project in their free time.

On the dance side, shadows we cast is much brighter. There are some excellent duets (Mila Schmidt and Greig Matthews comes to mind) and the excellent group movement is truly elegaic. The whole piece makes me think of Rosas and Anna Teresa de Keersmaekers’s best work which is high praise indeed. Géraud Wielick’s long hair is perfectly in place here (unlike in Movements to Stravinsky) and he dances well. Elena Bottaro, Sveva Gargiolo and Zsolt Török round out a committed cast.

Étoile Nina Poláková presents her visually austere daneben (nearby) to an emotional Yann Tiersen score. Jakov Feyferlik and Gala Jovanovic are dressed in what look like early twentieth century costumes – he’s wearing suspenders and she in a long dress – and seated on two chairs. They struggle to understand one another. While Jovanovic is a commanding dancer, she overmatches the slight Feyferlik. Where their duet should be sensitive and soft, he’s clearly struggling to carry and lift a dancer who is almost the same size as she is. This piece would have worked better with a light, ethereal and fragile dancer like Poláková herself.

daneben is Poláková’s first public choreography so it would be server to judge the work too harshly.

Francesco Costa’s anima et corpo is intrinsically a crowd pleaser with lots more white sheets (pas de sang) and a bedroom atmosphere. The women (and men) enjoy the young Jude Law like beauty of James Stephens while Nina Tonoli’s exuberant youthful beauty and talent delight the men. Natalya Butcho and Francesco Costa do fine work, albeit outshone by a radiant Tonoli and Stephens.

As for the movement, there’s thrashing in sheets on the floor, Arab music, some close duets. I didn’t take away anything deeper than a tasteful lascivity and physical beauty from Costa’s dance poem but that’s sometimes enough.

Another Hungarian dancer, László Benedek makes his choreographic debut with realité. This is the first but not the last piece to a gag or joke made three dimensional with dance. realité talks about the promises a man makes to seduce a new woman in contrast with the reality of his indifference to the woman in his life. This is a well-known plight across cultures and across centuries. Once Alexander Kaden in the lead role controls an interchangeable (done with identical wigs) Marie-Sarah Drugowitsch or Suzanne Kertész, he becomes brutal and indifferent. The dance sequence at the end with projected video from a sex doll factory as Kaden dances with both ladies is laugh out loud funny.

I suppose the moral of the story is roughly Perrault’s from Little Red Riding Hood:

All wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition – neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!

Don’t expect too much from men or love! Cunningly made and performed with charm, realité was a success with both the audience and on its own light artistic terms.

Young Portugese dancer Leonardo Basílio debuts as a choreographer with another beauty piece, appropriately titled Skin set to sensual electronica from René Aubry. We have sexy dancing and sexy costumes worn by Nina Tonoli and James Stephens again, with an equally beautiful Alaia Rogers-Maman and the powerfully built Masayu Kimoto rivalling them for charm. The women again are almost interchangeable in dark bob length wigs. The men wear nothing but sparkling briefs.

The dance is largely about symmetry with the two couples mirroring each other’s movements. Some original lifts and dramatic focused lighting bring an originality to a largely sensory piece. While the pleasure was skin-deep, it was complete. I’m curious to see where Basílio goes with his next works.

Swedish soloist Nikisha Fogo’s dramatically titled Movements of the Soul offered more visual irony in the vein of realité. We see blonde Sveva Garguilo against a blood red projected backdrop which turns purple and blue. The piece ends up as a study in colours. Unusual electronic music the barbatuques and Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein add to the surreal feel. The dance follows a young woman’s feeling about life. While Movements of the Soul failed to touch me, Fogo enjoyed an enthusiastic reception from the audience. Or perhaps many were looking forward to the long-awaited pause.

Brazilian Volksoper dancer Tainá Ferreira Luiz’s Thoughts & Feelings was the most ambitious work of the evening. With musician Sebastian Brugner, Ferreira Luiza created an original musical and dance work, with a full jazz orchestra with six musicians on stage (Brugner on vibraphon, brother Simon on drums, brother Franz on piano, Vienna star trumpetist Lorenz Raab, Roman Bisanz on viola and Luiz Gustavo d’Ippolito on contrabass).

The story follows two waiters in a tango bar both in love with a colleague and what happens when one of them falls in love with a client. There’s both an entrance to the nightclub where the waiters smoke outside and a colourfully lit interior set with tables. The two romances and mixed up feelings go back and forth, with the waiters hiding each other’s actions from the other woman. There’s always uncertainty about who really loves whom. Behind the comedy of manners Ferreira Luiz works to communicate a more serious point about class structure and social mobility. Whichever waiter stays in the club with the waitress will face a life of hard work and toil, unlike the wealthy and spoiled clients. The same band plays on and on as the ordinary struggle to survive and the wealthy play there way through life.

Felipe Viera and Andrés Garcia-Torres play off of one another perfectly and manage to communicate the slippery qualities of Latin waiter/lovers to perfection. Irene Garcia-Torres is beautiful as the waitress colleague while Natalia Salazar plays up her role of wealthy client to perfection.

There are a lot of acrobatic lifts and funny faces in what is a thoroughly delightful divertissement with heart. It’s inspiring to see this kind of ambition to get music, choreography, decorations and costumes right. If Ferreira Luiz maintains this level of intensity of preparation in her stage work, at the very least she’ll be in demand to stage the dances within opera and operetta. Time will tell if Ferreira Luiz has the talent and sustained inspiration to make it as an original choreographer in her own right. As a first work Thoughts & Feelings is a great start.

French Volksoper dancer Samuel Colombet is a choreo.lab veteran since 2008 with four original creations. Colombet has worked as an assistant ballet master in the Volksoper for the last couple of seasons. His choreographic work usually includes sophisticated costumes and high emotions. In Verrat (Betrayal), Colombet misses the mark. The costumes are ugly, partly cheap satin and partly sleazy sequins. The backdrop was just projected light without much atmosphere. The overblown Tchaikovsky score drowns us in unearned emotions. While Iliana Chivarova and Trevor Hayden valiantly try to communicate huge emotions neither the choreography or the atmosphere justify the music and emotions.

On a technical level, Hayden seemed to struggle with his partnering at times, suggesting a lack of adequate rehearsal time and sometime strength. Colombet himself is a wide chested man with a rippled muscular physique and probably over-estimated Hayden’s strength. It also seemed that the stage at Theater Akzent was quite simply too small for the dance which Colombet imagined as Hayden and Chivarova always seemed to be cutting short their movements. Colombet’s past choreo.lab works were a cut above Verrat.

Veteran Slovak dancer Martin Winter is presenting his second work at choreo.lab after the excellent don’t know in 2012. A tall and handsome dancer, Winter has been with the Vienna Staatsoper since 2007 and used to dance on the main stage until volunteering to move over to Volksoper due to some nagging injuries. Excellent dancing skills, along with height and good looks make him a great asset.

Outside In is a profound work set to a filmic score from George Crumb and Michal Hruza. A blistering performance from Mila Schmidt as Winter’s lover sets the pace. Tainá Ferreira Luiz dressed in a long black dress is a passionate dark döppelganger for Winter’s character in a simple charcoal suit who seems to be reluctantly abandoning his lover for Ferreira Luiz.

What’s special about Winter’s work is his ability to reinvent movement. He injects classical dance movement with a completely casual and fluid language of feeling. One symptom is a more complex hand movement than one would ever see in ballet. But Winter’s language of movement goes beyond simple explanation. It’s feeling made into movement.

In Outside In, Schmidt’s lover is suffering from jealousy, abandonment. It’s not clear if Ferreira Luiz is a rival or her own lesbian lover. What is clear that Schmidt is deeply in love with Winter’s dark suited man and something is separating them. Winter’s own ambiguous feelings about the relationship and himself perplex and intrigue. There’s a deep existential crisis taking place inside of him, for which Schmidt bears the costs.

In the end, Schmidt’s character is left with Ferreira Luiz when Winter leaves her.

After the performance I was able to speak to the choreographer and ask him about the structure of the ménage à trois. It turns out that Winter and Ferreira Luiz are one person. Winter based his thirteen minute work on the lives of close friends. Winter’s character suffers a sexual identity crisis and decided to physically change genders but wishes to stay with Schmidt’s character after becoming a woman. Schmidt’s crisis is losing the man she loves deeply yet having the possibility of becoming his/her lesbian partner after Winter’s sex change.

The fascinating backstory is less important than the authenticity and depth of feeling Winter managed to invest in Outside In and the performances he coaxed out of his female partners. Outside In is the most moving dance work I’ve seen in the last two years.

If Outside In is ever re-staged or you have the opportunity to see any of Martin Winter’s work, do not miss the occasion. It turns out Mila Schmidt is a rising star in Volksoper and will be honoured the Vienna Ballet Club’s Founder’s Prize next month. If Outside In is any indication, look out for Schmidt’s performances in roles which benefit from dramatic presence and intensity.

Handsome young Spanish Volksoper dancer Andrés Garcia-Torres first choreography an die ferne Geliebte (To a distant love) was a very traditional affair. The choreographer himself is in the lead role in an 18th century gentleman’s ruffled shirt at a desk, writing with a quill while a candle burns. Dramatic Beethoven music accompanies his writing. He sees a vision of his distant love, the very beautiful Irene Garcia-Torres in a long flowing dress (his wife, I will presume). She comes to him and the pair dance a beautiful pas-de-deux. The whole episode seems more like something made for Louis XVI rather than a modern audience but the piece is well made. Its modern antecedent would be Roland Petit’s dramatic and dark Jeune Homme et le Mort (A Young Man and Death) set to J.S. Bach). An die ferne Geliebte is far more upbeat of course and the charisma of the two dancers takes us a long way.

I’d be more interested in seeing Andrés Garcia-Torres dancing some princely roles (his looks and lines seem a bit wasted at Volksoper) than more of his choreography for now.

Austrian native-born rising star Jakob Feyferlik whom we’ve already seen dance a couple of times tonight also made his choreographic debut with the last piece of the evening. Desire is another crowd pleaser with ballet silhoettes, gorgeous curvy dancers, handsome men and lots of show-off style dancing. Ethereal music comes from the works of post-minimalist contemporary British composer Max Richter. A bevy of beauties Nikisha Fogo, Natascha Mair, Nina Tonoli make up the women. Francesco Costa, Greig Matthews and James Stephens are all look heroic and partner the ladies through high lifts and spectacular throws effortlessly.

There doesn’t seem to be any deeper message to desire than to the emotion of joy and delight at being young and beautiful. The choreography hints men’s desire is stronger than female desire as it’s always the men pushing the women further. No opinion ventured on that subject here, this is just a report. Desire is a feel-good and well-danced positive envoi for the evening.

The Spanish Embassy provided a glamorous reception to conclude another excellent choreo.lab. This year’s cuvée did lack some of the excitement and ambition of past seasons (live automobiles driven on stage, casts of twenty, both courtesy of Patricia Sollak) or a scent of scandal (Karina Sarkissova’s Moulin Rougesque erotic works). Some of the pieces seemed a bit underrehearsed (though less so than at Hommage to Stravinsky) due to the very non-stop workload of another busy Manuel Legris season (no complaints, dancers live to dance, better a few too many performances than too few). What interests me is to see how Winter, Ferreira Luiz, Bakó and others develop as choreographers.

It’s a hallucinigenic and disorienting spectacle to face that many principal dancers at the same time, each dancing his or her grand role. Staatsoper is a particularly beautiful ballet company with the men for the most part fine featured and long limbed. The Staatsoper corps-de-ballet women are slim, soft curved and graceful. Thanks to their pretty faces and fine dancing skills the illusion of eight princes and eight Giselles convinces.

Staatsoper is a better match than Eifman’s own company for Red Giselle as the Staatsoper dancers perform the classics every week and are prettier. Eifman’s own group are a bit shorter and more muscular – primarily modern dancers.

Giselle-Rouge-Red-Kommissar-with-Giselle-Vladimir-Shishova-Nina-Polakova

Red Giselle’s story follows a principal ballerina who abandons her choreographer director husband in the early years of the Russian Revolution for a fling with a Red Kommissar. Initially her plans were for a short affair but the black coated kommissar is not prepared to let her go.

Ioanna Avraam is perfect as the arrogant and willful ballerina who gets her and everyone she knows into such trouble. Later her choreographer husband is thrown into a basement somewhere and tortured to death. Andrey Teterin dances his way to death with distinction and poise.

The role of the Kommissar equally suits Alexis Forabosco, whose sinister handsome face reminds one of Christopher Walken in his prime. Princes don’t suite Forabosco’s gaunt features but villains do, he exudes dark power.

Giselle-Rouge-Red-Kommissar-with-Giselle-Vladimir-Shishova-Nina-Polakova

Avraam’s strong almost masculine features and powerful shoulders are a good match for Forabosco’s muscular physique. I’m not sure how effective Red Giselle would be with a fragile Giselle type dancer in the lead role.

When Forabosco’s Kommissar takes Avraam’s ballerina to visit his revolutionary mates, the women spurn her at first. The costumes are Red chic, with revolutionary caps, scarves and long quotes on both men and women. Avraam then wins them all over with a bold dance. This is fantastic spectacle, worthy to be the principal scene of any West End musical.

There is a ravishing Soviet late night café scene complete with flappers where the entire cast swings through the night. It’s the same tight group of thirty dancers who play the Ballerina’s dancer friends, the Soviet revolutionaries, the decadent Soviets, a second dance troupe and finally Willis. There are full costume turnaround in less than two minutes at some points without a single cue dropped. It’s amazing work by the corps-de-ballet, drawn from both Staatsoper and Volksoper companies and by rehearsal masters Alice Necsea, Jean Christophe Lesage and Albert Mirzoyan.

The underused Igor Milos is perfect here as Avraam’s principal ballroom partner. As Avraam’s post-Kommissar dancing partner, Staatsoper étoile Roman Lazik convincingly portrays both dancer and prince.

The minimalist decoration communicates a post-Revolution Leningrad perfectly. The lighting plan is well wrought and atmospheric. The score provides a wide range of musical delights from Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowki’s Serenades, diverse Alfred Schnittke’s extracts, particularly from the Gogole Suite and finally Georges Bizet’s L’Arlessiene Suite. Red Giselle ends of course with the finale of Adolphe Adam’s Giselle.

Giselle-Rouge-Second-Act-The-Madhouse-Willis-Ketevan-Papava

The fast forward Giselle in the second half is very strange and in some ways goes on too long. It’s unclear what Giselle’s story has to do with an arrogant ballerina who thought she could bed whomever she wanted without consequence. It’s a role reversal from the original Giselle where the prince was the thoughtless one. In this case, the Kommissar should become Giselle in a complete role reversal. But in the final Willi scenes, Giselle remains Giselle. Despite the very effective shock-value madhouse costumes on the Willis, the last third of the piece doesn’t make much sense.

Yet when a theatre work is so well-composed and so varied and so effective, a small thematic failure can be overlooked in favour of the spectacle.

Eifmann’s work is perfect in Volksoper with a grand group of Staatsoper dancers. An almost flawless must see show.

David Dato in a photo by Johannes Ifkovits, the publicity image.
In Movements to Stravinsky costume where Dato does not dance

Stravinsky’s compositions for ballet were the core of Sergei Diaghelev’s Ballets Russes. The Firebird premiere took place in Paris Opera in 1910, while Petruschka premiere also took place in Paris but in Théâtre du Châtelet. The original choreographer for both ballets was Michal Fokine. Both of these ballets enjoy a rich tradition around the world, with versions in the repertoire of The Mariinsky Theatre (Kirov), National Ballet of Canada, The Bolshoi Theatre, the Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre to name just a few. Ironically enough, the Russian premiere of Fokine’s The Firebird had to wait until perestroika in 1993.

In fairness to Michal Fokine, what we saw this week should probably not bear the name of the original compositions, a while the music is still Stravinsky’s, neither the original choreography or libretto plays any role in Peci or Kaydanovsky’s creations.

Petrushka – Eno Peci

The original Petrushka tells the story of the puppet Punch (Petruscha) who loves a Ballerina puppet who in turn loves the Moor puppet who takes the Ballerina away from Petruschka. The loss of his love kills Petrushka. Most of the action takes place in the middle of a bustling Russian street market.

Petrushka is a difficult work to rebuild as a new ballet. The clown, his mistress, the Russian market. How do you replace all of that colour and energy?

Peci choose to open with a birthday party at home where Petrushka is with his beautiful partner celebrating the birthday of their young son. The ongoing motif is a clock installed in the ceiling on which the hands turn and turn.

Suddenly we are in a white schoolroom with wooden desks and very high ceilings. The girls come in white jackets and very short skirts. Céline Janou Weder enthusiastically leads her able fellow classmates including Emilia Barano, Adele Fiochhi, Anna Shepelyova….in the playful dances of schoolgirls. They are joined by an equal contingent of six boys who quickly quarrel and stir up petty rivalries and trouble. On a high trumpet note Petruschka enters as a buttoned down school teacher in brown suit and tie.

David Dato quickly takes control of the hijinks and quarrel between the boys and the classroom settles down. Dato’s Petrushka owes more to Hollywood dance start Fred Astaire than Michel Fokine. He’s convincing in his fifties style persona with a big smile and a cheerful attitude.

A very dangerous Rebekka Horner comes across as a giant wasp in her geometric black latex suit. It’s uncertain for me if Horner should represent the Magician or the Moor. In any case, she’s accompanied by two young street thugs who cause trouble at the school and rape the teacher/Petrushka’s wife. Trevor Hayden and Arne Vancervelde convince with malice. Even their 80’s hairstyles are offensive.

Pavol Juras’s decorations, costumes and light are the real highlight. The huge blackboard, the high ceilings, the worn out windows, the faded colour palette are all on the mark. Peci has struggled with story in his past works, often as beautiful as perfume ads but equally shallow. It’s great to see him working in close partnership with a dramaturg. The great Juraj Grigorovich did his best work in close collaboration with stage designer Simon Virsladze.

Balázs Delbó has created a fantastic trailer for the piece which gives a real taste of the amazing atmosphere and the lighting, as well a short glimpse at the performances:

[fvplayer src=”https://vimeo.com/217467530″ width=”470″ height=”320″ splash=”https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/634740096_1280x720.jpg?r=pad” caption=”PETRUSCHKA – Trailer”]

Less convincing is the relationship between Petrushka and his wife, a very beautiful Nina Tonelli. In the original, one feels Petrushka’s humiliation when the Ballerina prefers the Moor’s ravishment to Petrushka’s true love. This time around the humiliation takes place in front of his students. Any teacher would say that’s almost as bad. It’s quite a distance from unrequited love.

The choreography and movement are solid but not extraordinary. There is no original spark in the movement, instead a pastiche of suitable fragments gathered from here and there.

Peci and Jurás’s collaboration is an original and strange yet viable re-interpretation of Fokine’s work.

Movements to Stravinsky – András Lukács

Movements to Stravinsky opens in a bare off-white box. The costumes are black and white. Some of the men have neck ruffles, some of the women battery lit horizontal white tutus.

The majestic Stravinksy melodies relentlessly insist on lyric art, as the dancers regally walk in from the sides, extremely elegant. Everything is extremely tasteful.

Between bouts of elegant walking we enjoy duets, solos and triplets.

The first pair is the best. Long limbed Cypriot Ionna Avraam is in another category tonight, bending her body like copper, harmonious, perfectly in sync with the music and very long. James Stephens is an able partner.

The other major duet Nikisha Fogo and Greig Matthews. The choreography is excellent and Fogo’s soft curves are well suited to the sensual lifts. Unfortunately both she and Matthews appeared very uncertain while dancing. They could both use at least a week or two of additional rehearsal before public presentation.

Alice Firenze with Masayu Kimoto fare better against a less challenging duet. Céline Janou Weder dances a trio in pants with an absurd looking Géraud Wielick in some kind of tunic skirt with a Mongolian pony tail on his head. Wielick’s casual hipster look nearly collapsed the entire aesthetic of Lukács’s neo-classical piece.

Movements to Stravinsky is a lot like any Kyllian piece staged in Paris Opera from about 1985. Its roots go even further back to George Balanchine’s structured art like Jewels. Some would call Movements to Stravinsky dated, others might consider it timeless. The conservative Viennese audience adored it, András Lukács has created a real crowd pleaser. Movements of Stravinsky or something very like it will be danced in 2050 as well. There’s probably not enough passion or innovation in this particular version that it will survive much beyond next year. Choreographer András Lukács is capable of much more feeling.

The Firebird – Andrei Kaydanovsky

The Firebird is a great story of resurrection and redemption. Unfortunately choreographer Andrei Kaydanovsky has chosen to wrap it in his own dark notions of modern times:

rampant consumerism of our time, our egoism, and the problem of dead centres of personal development.

I don’t disagree with Kaydanovsky about the wasteland of contemporary mainstream life. But the Firebird was never about the mainstream and general despair. It was about rising above the ordinary.

As far off target as he is with the music and the theme, Kaydanovsky’s sense of stagecraft is magnificent right from the parting of the curtains. A group of men gather outside a Russian deparment store goggling at the mannequins. Kaydanovsky creates this atmosphere with just a few wood frames and a Универсал (Department Store) sign in Russian.

A man in a giant chicken costume wanders in and circulates among the men handing out restaurant fliers. After a time the mannequins come to life and the men flee. Chicken-man (the character of Ivan in the original Firebird follows the Firebird mannequin into the store where there is an entire wall of boxes stacked high in three giant shelves with the text above them in Cyrillic characters, straight out of Soylent Green.

Hier bist du Vogelfütter

Shoppers crowd around and riot underneath the boxes until they fall down. At this point the shoppers turn into zombies writhing in the boxes – Kaydanovsky’s rampant consumerism. The movement is very sloppy but exceptionally organic.

Ivan now follows the Firebird deeper into the basement factory of the department store where grey female rag doll princesses move along a conveyor line.

The dolls are dancers who drop into old dirty yellow foam at the end of the conveyor line. This is quite a clever reinterpretation of the twelve princesses of the original. There is still hope the story will take an interesting and parallel path with the original.

The workers are in overalls from the thirties or fifties. The vast empty space of the workshop is created by rows of overhead flourescent lamps. Richard Szabó in particular convincingly offers the rough movement of a factory worker in a trio with Zsolt Török and Géraud Wielick (whose hair once again distracts).

Ivan dances – rather stumbles around – with the mannequins trying to find one he likes. Finally he finds his Vasillisa in a dirty pink costume and a huge orange wig. It’s Rebecca Horner under a thick cake of white zombie makeup.

Their awkward duet finally ends in collapse on the floor. A window appears at the back of the atelier. Dato’s Firebird takes his place in the window when a man in a hotdog costume wanders by. The end. Kaydanovsky offers no redemption, there is no firebird, just a guy in a shiny jacket, luring you into a department store.

Kaydanovsky doesn’t give the dancers much to work with so one cannot talk much about the performances but all of the dancers acquit themselves well enough. While the performance and the stagecraft, Kaydanovksy’s The Firebird remains fairly shameless shocktastic piggybacking on top of a classic with which his work has nothing in common. An approach symptomatic of the same weak ethical qualities and consumerism about which Kaydanovsky complains.

Orchestra – Conclusion

Throughout the evening the orchestra under David Levi offered an excellent classic interpretation of Stravinsky’s splendid scores. The Volksoper orchestra is a bit thin for the Firebird in comparison to the Marinsky or Bolshoi or full Staatsoper orchestra but the three pieces make an excellent musical evening.

According to his granddaughter and trustee of his works, Isabelle Fokine, Michal Fokine was not keen on radical changes to his works:

When Alexander Golovin’s designs were destroyed, Diaghilev commissioned Natalia Goncharova to design a set that would be easier to tour. My grandfather was horrified by the result – “It dealt a death blow to my ballet.” This was due to the fact that dancers were reacting to elements of the staging no longer present. This may not have troubled Diaghilev, but to a choreographer for whom dramatic sense was paramount, Fokine believed it made nonsense of his work….My grandfather greatly resented his ballets being altered. Today nobody would dream of tampering with the work of a living choreographer, so it seems inconceivable that it took place, but it did – often.

It’s good thing Fokine has been dead for 75 years. Let’s hope Peci’s and Kaydanovsky’s revisions don’t bring him back from his grave.

Out of the three works, Eno Peci’s Petrushka is easily the most successful. If you don’t pass out from déjà vu, Lukács Movements to Stravinsky is harmless and elegant fare. Kaydanovsky’s The Firebird is painful and depressing. Watching it is a suitable and delightfully ironic punishment for those superficial balletomanes who seek only shallow beauty from a night at the operahouse. As the Volksoper is often the first place people see dance in Vienna, Kayadanovsky’s The Firebird risks demotivating many to ever see another ballet.

All images copyright Wiener Volksoper 2017 and Ashley Turner.

Dancer credits beneath each photo in lightbox

The evening began with a short extract from one of Toulon’s own most ambitious works, Swan Trilogy (Schwanentrilogie). I saw the full piece at its premiere in 2009 and Swan Trilogy has aged well. The giant eggs with cracks in them create impressive atmosphere while Dianne Gray looks fabulous as the Swan princess. Michal Zabavik is in great form. The live orchestra give the performance the feel of one Europe’s great cultural capitals like Moscow or Paris. It’s a pity the excerpt was so short.

The next pas de deux came from Roland Petit’s Proust ou les intermittences du coeur. Two men dance naked to the waist as equal partners. Beautiful shapes, tender movement. Gabriel Faurie’s Elegy for Violoncello and Orchestra provided a deeply moving acoustic background for what Toulon correctly noted as a masterwork. 1974 is like today. Rainer Krenstetter and Marian Walter’s communication via movement will be the best we see tonight. A perfect performance of Petit’s perfect piece.

Marian Walter and Rainer Krenstetter in Roland Petits
Duett from Les intermittences du Coeur

Aimless is just one year old, Dimo Milev won the Copenhagen International Choreographic Competition with his short reflection on life: “it’s not important where you go but with whom you go”. Style is Hong Kong cinema with rust coloured pants and flowered shirts. Tango music from Marc Ribot adds a sensual funkiness to slinky synchronous movement. Performer Tamako Akiyama moves like a young dancer in her timeless and trendy swan song.

Dimo Kirilov Milev und Tamako Akiyama in Aimless
von Dimo Kirilov Milev Foto Costin Radu

Fortunately the Graz Oper’s speaker system is good enough to mix with live orchestra. Jean Sibelius’s “Ariels Lied” mixes into nature effects in the next duet, another extract from Toulon’s own Swan Trilogy. Anne-Marie Legenstein’s costume for the white swan remains breathtaking, a tightly pulled gauze bodysuit with transparent sections, decorated with silver and jewels. Bruna Diniz Afonso did justice to Toulon’s finely wrought choreography but her partner Keian Langdon persistently let her down. He looks good but his movement was sloppy and neither his head nor heart were in the dance this night.

“Fifth Corner” tries to tell the story of solitary confinement through three dancers. We hear opera arias mixed with some synthetic beats but the mix feels like a posed cool. Three long-haired beardos in Mao suits are the dancers but for me the movement was second rate. Choreography credits are shared by Guido Sarli and Manuel Rodriguez. Perhaps the full Loser King from which “Fifth Corner” was extracted makes more sense: Loser King won prizes in both New York and Madrid.

Toulon takes us back again to Swan Lake with Pascal Touzeau’s two year old reinterpretation of the pas de deux from the second act. The music is original and gorgeously played by the Graz Orchestra but the movement is entirely new, in what is an almost naked Swan Lake. This is great dance from a ballerina in her prime. Anne Jung brings a ferocious German intensity to Tchaikovsky’s elegaic score. A slightly awkward Christian Bauch does his best but he’s not able to keep up with Jung. It would definitely worth the trip to Mainz to see an astonishingly refreshed Swan Lake with parallel love stories (Odette and Odile are twin sisters).

Anne Jung und Christian Bauch in Pascal Touzeaus Schwanensee Act II Pas de Deux

Tarek Assam’s Alter Ego brings two men together on the stage again to the pure industrial sound of Alva Noto’s Argonaut. Michael Bronczkowski is a big black miracle worker of a dancer, his long arms extend forever. His silken movement makes you wonder how there any white male dancers. Manuel Wahlen holds up his end but Bronczkowski absolutely dominates the stage in one of the best performances of the evening.

Stephan Thoss’s Between Midnight and Morning returns us to Swan Lake but in a peculiar parody with the focus on an Odette head over heels in love with Rotbart. Laia Garcia Fernandez has a tutu which goes up to her chin. With short runs and bodychecks, Fernandez bowls Tenald Zace over again and again in fits of jealously. The game is funny at first but we quickly tire of it, repetition of the same joke breaks the funny bone.

Phew. That’s part one done. Back to our seats. After the second half, the orchestra does not return nor does Swan Lake.

Chat Rooms 2 is a sneak preview of Rosana Hribar and Grego Lustek’s contribution to the new Oper Graz dance evening. Bostjan Ivanjsic comes out early with Laura Fischer where he takes over an armchair and squaks about love. Others join them in bright green, red, blue shirts to ask the same question while tumbling. “Do you still love me?” which is always followed up by “I have to be sure which side you are on.” “Your side of course.” Uncertainty in love is universal so the trope of funny voices amuses at first but Michal Zabavik, Thanh Pham, Clara Pascual Marti and the rest wear it to death. The entire audience breathed an audible sigh of relief at the end of the short excerpt.

The simple piano music of Yarosava Ivanenko’s Invisible Grace brought soothing relief to raw nerves. A very beautiful pas de deux between the choreographer himself and Heather Jurgensen offers subtle gestures, great feeling and amazing empathy. There’s only black costumes but fine choreography and emotional performance makes one forget anything except the music and the dancers. If you are anywhere near Kiel, check the Ballet Kiel program to catch Jurgensen.

Heather Jurgensen und Yaroslav Ivanenko in Invisible Grace

Grey boxes, grey glothes and grey movement are what Kevin O’Day brings to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, a work where good choreographers go to die. The sad duet between older men is art with a capital A, important with a capital I and boring with a capital B. Dance is not about death from old age, even if the boomers are getting older, but about passion and fire. Thoughtful and interminable.

Kevin ODay und Robert Glumbek in Four Seasons Photo Christian Kleiner

Hung-Wen Chen’s acrobatic dancing in V.V.V. quickly made Oper Graz much livelier. Half way through their leaps and flips, up come the house light. Lester Rene Gonzalez Alvarez asks the audience about games of chance before going back to horizontal and vertical floorwork. Veni Vidi Vici is very entertaining though the black and white costumes and the movement often seem very eighties (not necessarily a bad thing).

Hung Wen Chen und Lester Rene in Veni vidi vici von Hung Wen Chen

David Dawson’s brand new “Opus.11” is a choreographic reflection on the impossibility of truly coupling and life’s temporality. It was written for two retiring dancers. Tonight Courtney Richardson was majestic in the role written for Yumiko Takeshima. Raphael Coumes-Marquet’s movement seemed a bit too distant and self-involved, as though not only was he not interested in this woman, but no women.

Courtney Richardson und Raphael Coumes Marquet in
David Dawsons Opus11 Photo Costin Radu

Chat Rooms 1, another sneak preview, closed out the evening with a bang. Checkerboards of light and industrial banging grab our attention. Young star James Cousins does not seem to have a clear point yet in this preview. Oper Graz’s company looks good but in a fashion piece like this regal ice princess Sarah Schoch is clearly missing. A dancer like Schoch would add a visual edge to this fashion piece.

Throughout the evening, we had the pleasure of Toulon’s introductions and reflections on dance. Toulon’s mix of intellectual humour and pomp mostly charms. Toulon seems more self-conscious about his age than he needs to be. While dancers careers are short-lived, a choreographer’s need not be.

Toulon came up with a great promotional and fundraising idea: attractive black t-shirts with next season’s program on the back and a quote from Nietzsche on the front for €10: Most sizes sold out.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

Next year is Toulon’s final season in Graz. There will be a sixth International Tanzgala here next May. Graz is wonderful in May and so are Toulon’s dance galas.

A splendid respite from pas de deux from Don Quixote and La Bayadère.

Further reflections on the future

If I had any wishes for future Graz Tanzgalas they would be to have fewer pieces, but longer excerpts. I’d like to continue to see as many pieces with live music as possible, even if it doesn’t involve the whole orchestra (piano with cello for example live). There is a danger of hitting the same wells each time: it’s important to see dancers from new venues every year rather than the same dancers back with something new each year. Several repeating artists does provide some continuity though and artists in their prime often have five or six stupendous years in a row, so the right mix of repeating and new artists is a fine line to tread.

Horecna Contra Clockwise Witness 1

The Second Detail opens up with a huge bright grey rehearsal space with just the words THE at the front. Thin white horizontal lines dividge the strange into precise grids. The dancers are in the same grey as the floor. I’m not quite sure why Apple is getting away with suing Samsung for packaging as Forsythe had the iPhone and MacBook Air boxing under control back in 1991 in Frankfurt. This is an early great work.

Vienna State Ballet company looks great dancing Forsythe these days. Under Legris, they’ve acquired both the élan necessary and the discipline necessary to put it all together. Strangely, the men have improved more than the women (who have been excellent as along as I’ve been in Vienna). Particularly notable is strongman Vladimir Shiskov but Mihail Sosnovichi also delivers an imposing performance while Eno Peci and Alexis Forbasco look good too. All of the men have developed powerful lower bodies and are a joy to watch.

In Forsythe, Olga Esina is in her element. Her perfect and pure lines outclass any other ballerina in the Staatsoper (and most in the world) even before she starts to dance. Forsythe’s dry emotions don’t even leave her colleagues a chance to make up for catch up ground.

Indeed, the whole company looked great with Nina Polakova in good form alongside Reina Sawai and Rui Tamai. Prisca Zeisel was given one of the more substantial roles. In her third season, Vienna’s child phenomenon has grown into a beautiful woman but needs to lighten her footwork is she is to catch the likes Polakova, Papava or Esina.

Rafaella Sant’Anna enters in a Greek toga in a large role as a woman from another time who wanders into this world of perfect bodies and machine like precision. She negotiates with aplomb tricky balance between balletic grace and primitive movement.

There was no orchestra playing tonight and I wondered why the stage was not built over the orchestra pit. The only issue with the whole evening is that the dance somehow seems quite far away. With an orchestra that’s justified but with an empty pit it makes little sense. In the end, the orchestra did arrive for Lander.

The second ballet “Contra Clockwise Witness” is the work of Slovak expatriate Natalia Horecna, a relatively young choreographer who only recently gave up her place as one of the stars at Netherlands Dance Theatre. I worried Horecna would just be another NDT dancer recycling what she’d seen as a poor reflection of the original.

The stage opens with choreographer dancer András Lukács with this head in a noose. It’s a lovely reference to Jeune Homme et la Mort which will follow Contra Clockwise Witness through its development. Three male angels of death gather with Greig Matthews as a imposing leader. The skull makeup, his two metre frame and fierce dancingf frighten like a good horror film.

At first we think it’s an execution but it appears to be more a suicide. While Lukács fathoms his own death a naked Andrey Kaydanovsky (curiously the other serious choreographer among active Staatsoper dancers) slides up behind him. Kaydanovsky will be Lukács spirit/shadow henceforth. Kaydanovsky represents mortality.

Five dancers in transparent gowns have entranced us now, Rafaella Sant’Anna keeping pace as a ballerina now in an excellent group of angels. The most remarkable movement was Avraam, whose movement is entirely otherworldly, controlled and abandoned at the same time. Céline Janou Weder and Ketevan Papava kept Avraam a close pace.

We then start to see episodes from other people’s lives as Kaydanovsky reads a magic silver book of tales. Emlia Barancowicz dances a charming comic book can-can, all gypsy red with a virile Mihail Sosnovichi with no pants and flowing hair. Alas they both die, falling through the floor.

The good angels leave us and we face hysterical dark angels in wigs, who shout in unison at us. In the back of the stage there is a giant door. Kaydanovsky tries to penetrate but he is pushed away by two male hands. Frantic Paganini violin solos animate ballerina shadows who circle the stage like abandoned wraiths. Two lovers push through long white tunnels to unite in the center of the stage naked, again Sosnovichi and Baranowicz. Now we get film music, as if from Hollywood but here à propos. The whole stage shakes with the low notes (whoever did the technical prep did a great job, I’ve not heard canned music sound so convincing in a dance performance). They shiver in the dark.

Lukács eventually wakes from his nightmare and goes on to live. A happy ending to a dark piece.

Horecna’s work is profound and shows the full potential of dance. When united with dramaturgy and adequate staging, dance can be life changing. Grigorovich understood that and gave that gift to John Neumeier and it lives on Horecna. Dance is just an element to help reveal the essential, asking questions like what is the after life, do we have a soul, can lovers meet in the after life.

Horecna’s answers appear to be yes we have a should but the next world is more frightening than we could ever possible imagine. Contra Clockwise Witness like Swan Lake or Giselle is the kind of work one can see again and again and find something new each time. This is a masterwork and Manuel Legris should be applauded for bringing it to the main stage in Vienna.

Horecna was with us tonight in Vienna: it’s thrilling to see true living choreography on our main stage.

The last piece begins in the dark with dozens of legs in near blackness executing perfect fouettés. To cloying music from dead Dane Knudage Riisager on Carl Czerny’s original Etudes. For almost ten minutes. I think this is the first time in my life I have not enjoyed the Vienna Philharmonic.

Fortunately the lights came up and we could see almost the whole company from Dagmer Kronenberg to the beautiful Hungarians. We could admire how comfortable ballet dancers can make uncomfortable poses look. Cypriot Ionna Avraam looked especially at ease with the legs twisted.

From there it just went downhill. Apparently the theme was how beautiful and remarkable the ballet is.

Roman Lazik was the first fall guy as the perfect romantic hero, prancing around the stage. Of course, showboat Denys Cherevychko was right in his element piroetting for applause. Peculiarly Cherevychko’s leaps do not fly as high as his self-esteem. His Italian point man Davide Dato managed to outdance the ambitious Ukrainian.

Lead dancer Kiyoka Hashimoto acquitted herself well, considering the vacuity of the material. She didn’t allow her smile to smudge into a grimace and always moved with grace.

Etudes could just work with dancers of the calibre of Olga Esina and Ketevan Papava. With the second tier, it’s a frightfully dull experience. Even worse than watching ballet rehearsal. More like watching ballet class. Watching musicians play scales.

If you visit Ballett-Hommage, you will lose little if you leave after the first two acts.

Often the works are either historic pieces or imported. This year Volksoper ballet director Vesna Orlic and Staatsoper dancer and choreographer Andrey Kaydanovsky have collaborated on a new program called Marchenwelt or Fairy Tale World. The two parts are unified by dramatic Russian music, first Modest Mussorgski’s Pictures from an Exhibition and then Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scherezade.

Boris Eder’s brilliant turn as the Genie stuck in a lantern in Orlic’s 1001 Nights

Kaydanovsky has contemporised The Ugly Duckling for his fairy tale. His version includes high fives, industrial agriculture and sport hunting with rifles. And why not? Fairy tales should be timeless.

Ugly Duckling starts well with a turning stage which moves from one egg on stage to three. The hatching is neatly done with two students from the choreographic school peeking quickly out before ugly duckling Laszlo Benedek is revealed. Everyone is supposed to be horrified by Benedek’s appearance and they do their best, but really this duckling is never ugly enough. In the hands of a stronger character actor we would feel the rejection very strongly but Benedek is never more and never less than sympathetic.

Ugly-Duckling-Lazlo-Benedek-mother-Rebecca-Horner

All of Ugly Duckling is predicated on anthropomorphism: here’s how Kaydanovsky and his performers did in order of appearance.

• the two chicks Zuzana Kvassayova and Mila Schmidt were suitably brutal and bird-like.
• Rebecca Horner was a passable mother but didn’t exude much warmth. Her motherhen movement could use further elaboration.
• Patrik Hullman as the terrifying turkey was both outrageously funny and truly frigtening. Hullman stole the show in his huge black hoop skirt and red makeup. It’s a pity his tyrannic episode is so short: the short reprise at the end is an even greater delight.
• wild ducks Samuel Colombert and Keisuek Nejime were quite funny in their combat clothes but their movements were none too ducky.
• the reflected hunter with rifle was great. I’m not sure if it was video or shadow play but it was a highlight.
• Martin Winter as the old lady with his head wrapped up under a massive cape was fantastic. Making the old woman a huge man helped enormously with the difference between people and animals.
• Felipe Vieira appeared twice as a rooster but was not at his best. On the other hand, his partner in crime, the cat Suzanne Kertesz was lithe, saucy and thoroughly cat-like.

The constantly turning stage with it’s ambiguous reed or wood constructions did much to keep the pace. The ugly ducklings travels meandered a bit, losing the audience’s attention. Ravel’s orchestration was splendidly helped by a strong string section and an excellent oboe solo but thoroughly let down by an inconsistent French horn.

But the real hole in Ugly Duckling is the story. Kaydanovsky’s Ugly Duckling is a very dangerous work: it’s about birthright. If you are born a swan, you may have to suffer while you are small but eventually due to your born grace you will become a kind of celebrity. Hollywood might even work like this: on the whole sons and daughters do awfully well in comparison to the new arrivals. Never does Laszlo Benedek extend himself to succeed. He just meanders through life until the 24/7 swan party people find him and elevate him to their level.

24-7 Party People Swans

I have no use for blue bloods or privilege. If you believe in the divine right of kings, perhaps you’ll have more patience for Kaydanovsky’s Ugly Duckling than I do. Still many children will enjoy the performance for its barnyard anthropomorphisation, even if it gives them exactly the wrong ideas about life. No doubt those many spoiled over-privileged children in Vienna will feel right at home with Ugly Duckling.

Orlic’s A Thousand and One Nights is just the opposite. Her story is of true love and freedom won through constancy and struggle. The show opens with the genie on stage speaking while a huge crystal swirls above the stage. The ball is created relatively inexpensive by video projection. As someone who has done online edits for TIFF films, I’m usually annoyed by the weak video and effects work done in theatres for stage performances. But Balazs Delbo’s effects were impeccable and did a great deal to make Orlic’s Thousand and One Nights epic, whether it was live thunderstorms against minareted skylines, magic genies, emotional flashbacks or prison bars.

Tonight we enjoyed the vast horizons of films and the immediacy of theatre along with the impact of live music. In the end, the aesthetic of Orlic’s Thousand and One Nights is like a live version of the classic Wizard of Oz film.

The opening dance scene is in an Eastern court with the entire Volksoper corps-de-ballet paired off. Orlic very cleverly choreographs them (she danced in the Volskoper herself for seventeen years) to make them all look like Staatsoper soloists, with beautiful high lifts. Staatsoper director Legris’ policy of limoging flagging Staatsoper dancers to Volksoper instead of running separate auditions appears to be paying dividends with a very strong set of dancers determined to prove him wrong.

The beloved of the story is Rebeccas Horner, this time in white raiment as the Sultan’s daughter. She is flanked by handmaidens Ekaterina Fitzka and Una Zubovic. Long legged Horner danced superbly in the title role, but the charismatic Zubovic’s lithesome movements and gorgeous midriff threatened to steal the show whenever she was on stage.

Felipe Viera is a gorgeous Aladdin, both charming and valiant and beautiful as the pauper who dared to love a princess and fights adversity to justify the love offered him so easily at the start.

The show stealer in this case was not even a dancer but character actor Boris Eder who works as both the genie and the narrator, allowing Orlic to introduce the story to the children who are unlikely to read the whole program before watching the show. When he suddenly appears in the middle of the audience in a gigantic magic teapot, the audience almost fell out of their seats. The reverbation voice effects when Eder disappears from the stage and returns to his lantern create a real illusion that he is trapped in the silly little lantern.

1001-Nights-Evil-Vizier-Samuel-Columbo-with-Volksoper-harem

Samuel Colombert also returns, this time as the evil vizier whose soldiers kidnap Aladdin’s love to join his harem of one hundred brides. Colombert’s sinous and cut body along with the makeup made him look like a young Ghenghis Khan. A superb performance as a cruel tyrant. His jealous and spoiled brides epitomised our vision of Oriental sensuality and luxury. The harem scenes were among the best in Thousand and One Nights.

On the other hand, the battle scenes while they nod to Spartacus should be redrawn from scratch. The second one in particular is long, drawn out, repetitive and a bit silly. A real letdown in an otherwise almost flawless production.

Felipe-Viera-Samuel-Columbo-face-off

The ending comes straight from Firebird with the happy couple wandering out to Rimsky Korsakov’s ringing chords (perfect performance by the orchestra this time) to the applause of the court with the blessing of the Sultan.

The genie has the last words with gratitude for Aladdin’s hard won “happiness and at last freedom” for himself. Orlic’s Thousand and One Nights offers an inspiring vision: if you live true to your heart and strive for your dreams, you can make a better world.

Orlic’s glorious pastiche of film and ballet classics is not to be missed for either children or grown ups.

A sumptuous rendition of Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis & Chloe opens the evening. As substantial a stage as is the Oper Graz, the orchestra pit is full to bursting while the female voices take up the the left upper lodge. The male singers are in the wings backstage. The musical performance is worth the price of admission on its own. Combined with ballet director Toulon’s complex visuals, this is an extraordinary work. Majestic dancer Bostjan Ivanjsic takes centre stage as Daphnis. The role is a complex one, exploring a young man’s sexuality – first timid, then more aggressive. He throws himself into a pool on stage and comes out soaking wet and fully nude, challenging the slightly bourgeois Graz Opera audience with full frontal male nudity.

The women challenge us equally. Dianne Grey represents mature female sexuality in a long red skirt and a revealing bodice. The costumes are amazing. Her long arms enlaced Daphnis again and again, hypnotically and sensually. I was less taken with Chloe, Jura Wanga, whose innocence and dilemma were less persuasive. Soft and timid touching of genitals interweave with passionate duets and trios, making one think hard about Western societal constraints on sexuality. Why are we so constrained about what makes the world go round? more so even than money which is just a currency for the buying and selling of comfort and pleasure.

Michael Munoz dances a rooster-like Pan with diabolic elan. Still the episode where Munoz offers the different young women a shiny necklace confuses. One young woman (Claudia Fürnzholer) dies after donning the necklace while another one (Laura Fischer) is happy wearing it and dances gleefully away with him. Long time Graz star Michal Zabavik has matured: he’s in very good shape while his facial features have hardened. Always handsome, Zabavik’s curved nose and full lips now leer imperiousness and disdain, as if he’d spent his life cutting deals among the power brokers on Wall Street. Usually a person only acquires such a hard edge in a city like Moscow or New York, not in sylvan Graz: Zabavik’s dark and brooding presence helps lift Oper Graz ballet to first tier international level.

Love and fidelity don’t make so much sense any more after watching Toulon’s Daphnis & Chloe. Those who stray seem to have a lot more fun. The power of Toulon’s treatment of sexuality is that it is not a full on empty headed bacchanal but is progressive and questioning.

Along with the choreography, the dancing and the music, stagecraft here is spectacular. A large white wall in the middle back of the stage is not just a visual prop but the entry point for different characters who clamber over and into the action. There is the pool in the middle of the stage which appears and then disappears. Atmospheric but thankfully subtle video projections deepen and texturize the stage. Toulon is a sculptor in full control of his materials. Sets and costumes from Vibeke Andersen were right on mark here and for all three productions.

Daphnis and Chloe is a performance one could watch over and over again.

After a short pause, the second half kicks off with an elegant Afternoon of a Faun from veteran Portugese choreographer Vasco Wellencamp. A peculiar choice of choreographer for the normally youth driven Graz company, Wellencamp taught everyone in Graz what real dance mastery entails. Every gesture, every hand shape was choreographed to the smallest detail. Nothing escaped his eye.

The stage offered a giant couch with a reclining Bostjan Ivanjsic, again shirtless. Subtly projected against the black back wall were silhouettes of trees, a moon shone down from overhead. Dianne Grey returns at the back of the stage to climb over a giant tree stump. One is nearly convinced that one is in the center of a dark forest. Astonishing atmosphere. But the giant couch remained strange: how did it get to the middle of the forest I kept asking myself.

Fortunately the performances put such silly but persistent questions out of mind. Bostjan Ivanjsic is a regal faun inciting the women to passion and dangerously physical. His chiselled physique lends itself perfectly to such body sculpting. Michal Zabavik returns as a hard edged man who wantonly ravishes the porcelain beauty of long legged Sarah Schoch. Serge Desroches and Dianne Grey enjoy a more equal and very passionate duo as the other pair. Wellencamp takes us into another mythical space of fauns, beauty and mystery. This was the second time I’d seen the piece in about ten days. With the live music I would happily go again to see Faun every day for the next week.

The Celebrating Sacre program in Oper Graz is one of the most musically fulfilling dance programs I’ve ever had the pleasure to enjoy. Ravel, Debussy and Stravinsky make a perfect three course feast. On the choreographic side, Toulon, Wellencamp and James Wilton are an equally well-matched trio.

Curiously as it is the eponymous highlight of the evening, if there is a weaker element to the evening it is James Wilton’s Sacre du Printemps. Before the 100 year celebration of Sacre begins we see a 3.5 minute long presentation of a list of the different versions of Sacre created around the world. The last fifteen years have been particularly fruitful yielding about 25 original creations including superb versions from Angelin Prelocaj in France and Renato Zanella in Vienna.

What is there new to say about the Rite of Spring where the maiden is killed by her fellows to satisfy the gods of fertility? Probably not much which is likely why James Wilton decided to turn sensuality into a political and military statement. The stage is a military encampment in the roman style protected by wooden poles: the minimalist effect is persuasive, powerful and elegant. Vibeke Andersen hits the set on the money again.

Here Michal Zabovic again plays the anti-hero as the brutual, Hitler-like leader of a mixed gender group of marines. He incites them to vicious exercises, ganging up on their colleagues and pummelling them to a pulp. Norikazu Aoki is spectacular as one acrobatic rebel against Zabovic’s totalitarian cause, leaping and tumbling across the stage until he is literally a bruised wreck. Serge Desroches is a more tragic figure as he succumbs to Zabovic’s abuse finally ending up a broken corpse, as a predatory Zabovic literally scoops out his guts and eats his heart. In Wilton’s Rite of Spring, society is entirely militarised and completely unforgiving. Given the current political structure of England, blindly supporting every heavy handed American intervention across the world against the will of the majority, I can see why Wilton thinks this way. His attempt to confront our diabolical politics is laudable. Unfortunately it should probably be to other music. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is not about militarism but about fertility and sexuality: Wilton’s has been sterilised by its politics.

Still the corps-de-ballet looks great, all dancing well in what is a long and physical piece. They seem to be enjoying themselves and the hard work. I’d not rush to see this Rite of Spring again – Wilton rather bored me by the end and in retrospect left me annoyed. But it’s still a fine execution of a flawed concept and certainly worth seeing once, even if one does not hunger to see it again and again like Toulon’s Daphnis or Wellencamp’s Faun.

The Nutcracker. Author: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Staatsoper

At the Vienna State Opera, Liudmila Konavlova as Clara holds the
nutcracker, surrounded by the giant heads of the grown-ups

Photo: Wiener Staatsoper

Every child should see The Nutcracker at least once. But if you want her to remember and him to treasure the occasion, best to be very careful which Nutcracker you choose.

Thus the new Nutcracker at Vienna State Opera is not a bad choice. It’s a Russian version, from Rudolf Nureyev, one of his first grand evening ballets in the West. The costumes are very traditional and very Russian: fancy officers’ uniforms, the grand gowns of the 19th century. The soldiers are Napoleonic and numerous, there are Hussars on horses (well, convincing enough). The decorations are as rich as the costumes, with photorealistic drawing rooms and massive grandfather clocks.

A realistic fairy tale

Despite his own fame as a dancer, what’s special in Nureyev’s Nutcracker is the stagecraft. Avoiding the metaphoric or symbolic approach of someone like Yuri Grigorovich and other more recent Nutcracker revisionists, Nureyev treated it like a realistic fairy tale, full of plot and visual effects as in a Hollywood film.

Particularly charming are all the children. There are dozens of them in the ballroom scene playing the soldier army. Seeing so many other children on stage will surely delight the ones in the audience. In the end, the stage is just as much a mirror for children as it is for us, the grownups. Overall, it’s a great scene, with partygoers evoking all the decadence of fin-de-siècle Russia. The Staatsoper men look splendid in their fake moustaches (some should consider growing them!) and Gabor Oberegger and Franziska Wallner-Hollinek were the perfect hosts of the family Christmas.

Born to Vienna high society in real life, the very beautiful Wallner-Hollinek has just the right aristocratic nose, height and noble bearing. The artifice of her Viennese charm perhaps lacks a certain Russian frankness, but aristocrats are aristocrats. The lively interaction between partygoers is captivating, occasionally even distracting us from the core action.

From here the first act takes off in one plot event after another. The party ends, the Nutcracker soldier is broken by brother Fritz, the rats arrive and are defeated in hand to hand combat. The Rat King returns with reinforcements and they kill a legion of toy soldiers. Clara is surrounded and barely gets away before Drosselmeyer, dressed as the prince, comes to her rescue. Spectacular snowflakes in titanium and silver descend from the rafters and bring the first act to a triumphant close.

The second act is completely different: All dance and no plot, in one extended dream sequence with variation after variation, a relentless sequence of pas de deux. After that it’s Spanish, Arabian, Russian, Chinese and pastoral variations until you think you can’t stand another jeté. You might want to take the kids home at the end of Act I, as even many adults won’t have the patience for the second.

Snowflakes descend from the rafters to close the first act of the Nutcracker | Photo: Wiener Staatsoper

Snowflakes descend from the rafters to close the first act of the Nutcracker
Photo: Wiener Staatsoper

And what of the dancing?

As a young dancer now in his prime, Vladimir Shishov switched between the old Drosselmeyer and the Prince with great grace, the perfect age to act both parts convincingly. He’s also strong enough and large enough to easily lift ballerinas of any girth.

Davide Dato and Emilia Baranowicz make a delightful Fritz and Luisa and return to dance the Spanish dance convincingly. Baranowicz has an easy charm on stage and Dato has a sweet, if a bit cloying, boyishness, which suits the role of Fritz.

Out of the variations, Ketevan Papava and Eno Peci’s comic Arabic duet stood out, combining just the right amount of mystery with humour. Georgian beauty Papava helps pickpocket Peci nick the purse of their master Christoph Wenzel, before they run off with his money, delighted in their own subterfuge.

Legris gave the role of Clara to Liudmila Konovalova, one of his recruits from Vladimir Malakhov’s Berlin Staatsballett. Nominally Konovalova is a powerful and physical dancer with great technique, and is better suited to this role than any other I’ve seen her in. But while her round face is quite child-like, her sulky petulance is not entirely Clara. As physically capable as she is, hard and brassy is not charming in a ballerina: She comes across as Tanya Harding in pointe shoes.

Be on the lookout instead for Maria Yakovleva’s performances on 23 and 25 December, or even Natalie Kusch on 26 October. Finally, Ludmila Konavlova will be performing on 27 and 28 December.

Der Nussknacker
Vienna State Opera
1., Opernring 2
www.wiener-staatsoper.at

Three hints for kids at The Nutcracker:
1. Arrive on time so the child has time to get used to the environment, can take his or her own seat, and must not sit at the back of the auditorium.

2. Buy tickets as close to the stage as possible. Children have no conception of choreographic formation and no reason to have one. They want to experience the ballet and not see it from a distance.

3. Consider leaving after the first act of The Nutcracker. The first act is very lively and full of toys and action and plot. The second act just sort of drones on and on with endless pas de deux and huge dance scenes.

Originally published by Alec Kinnear on October 26, 2012 in The Vienna Review

Once again we are in the extraordinary studio theatre Wilder Mann. What makes Wilder Mann different from almost any other space is that there is no depth to the stage and it is enormously wide. Dance works horizontally instead of vertically. Alas neither of tonight’s choreographers took full advantage of the space this time: to take advantage of the space, one needs to program opposing important actions on either end of the stage. The effect in when used properly is almost like Mike Figgis’s Timecode film with four frames of action taking place at the same time.

In Deal.East.West, the something new involved bringing together two young choreographers from the two far extremes of the Eurasian continent: Shanghai native Jie Dong and James Wilton from England. Both are dedicated national artists, working respectively in their native lands, rather than from the European melting pot of choreography (French in Belgium, Spaniards in Paris, Russians in Germany).

I can think and dream about it

To be fair, Dong’s work is very much in the Western tradition of modern dance and has very little to do with Oriental movement: his masters studied in the tradition of Martha Graham, Isadora Duncan and Pina Bausch. Dong is as Chinese (or not) as Hong Kong action films.

Jura Wanga, Jana Drgonova, Daphne van Dooren,
Ruo Chen Wang, Dianne Gray

Dong collaborated with long time Toulon stage designer Vibeke who onced again offered us one her extraordinary minimalist environments in white. On the left there was an enormous three meter high white chair. Later a smaller white chair is passed among the dancers. Small elegant details which worked.

“I can think and dream about it” started with dancers rolling in white tires from the left.

Then the sound of soft breath.

The dancers formed groups and parted again, in varied episodes. At one point they sleep altogether on the ground to an an ambient soundscape. The women’s movement gently lyrical, the men somewhat colder. Particularly fine were Areti Poulaki, Laura Fischer and Jana Drgonova. Sarah Schoch exuded a stern presence and beauty but her expression varied too little to communicate much.

Biag Gaongen Areti Palouki

Among the men, Michael Munoz was in fine form as usual, risking life and limb to make a choreographer’s work appear more daring. Serge Desroches offered a very strong presence in Dong’s work.

There were a few aesthetic decisions which weakened the work for me. In terms of costumes, it looked like everyone just turned up in his or her pyjamas. Everyone wore some kind of loose fitting pants and musty t-shirt, with no apparent rhyme nor reason in their choices. To choose to do nothing with clothing is also an aesthetic choice. I think Dong’s intention was an insistence on natural. But pyjamas do not strike me as natural clothing. His sartorial insouciance could be more studied. A chance was missed here. If the intention is post apocalyptic, Jong could go much further than pyjamas. The one item of clothing which worked for me was Areti Poulaki’s Turkish pants which offered form throughout her jumps and lifts.

Equally strange was the big eyes everyone made all the time. Along with just a smattering of pasty whiteface, Dong asked everyone to keep his or her eyes wide, wide open most of the time.

Jana Drgonova in particular seemed like a vulnerable blonde rag doll, a creature out of Blade Runner.

Jana Drgonova

What did work were the thunder and rain sounds towards the end preceded by an episode of Chinese pop. The strange sounds both alienated us and sensitised us to the movement.

Some work with a rope binding a dancer to the others and then unbinding him made visual the ties between people, even in modern cities.

“I can think and dream about it” ends with rag doll Drgonova atop the three meter chair looking out at us as all the other dancers look up at her. The mood was reflective, the moment touching. More like the true beginning of the piece than its natural end.

The whole piece felt more like variations building towards events which never happened. Agreeable but not earth shaking. Dong does show a great ability to move the focus between groups and solos and a talent for pulling meaning from simple objects.

Growing Divide

The second act offered young independent British choreographer James Wilton a venue outside of England where his career has taken fire since winning the Salder’s Wells Global Dance Contest in January 2011.

Wilton has no fear of taking on big themes: “Growing Divide” is Wilton’s reflection on the London riots and the class struggle in England. Wilton does not try to give us a narrative of the riots but rather explores the emotional state of the rioters. I’m afraid Wilton might be vulnerable to new English laws about sympathising with and encouraging rioters.

Sarah Jane Taylor Norikazu Aoki

After watching “Growing Divide” one understands very well the rage of a lost English generation, victims of a class divide who have been disinherited by what appears to be bottomless financial and governmental corruption.

From the beginning, one woman stands out among the nine dancers, Sarah Jane Taylor. She enters the stage seething with visible rage. Her every movement evinces contempt, anger and frustration. Taylor’s blistering performance makes the piece.

Wilton’s choreographic vocabulary here draws largely from martial arts and street fighting. The exact lifts and pushes and overall violence reminded me of Wim Vandekeybus’s work. Perhaps there are only so many ways to kick and shove a person on stage without permanent injury. Wilton acknowledges Vandekeybus’s influence but draws this distinction: “Vandekeybus starts with emotion, I start with movement.” Perhaps. More visible is that Vandekeybus usually has some kind of prop as a starting point. Wilton outside of the minimalist costumes allowed nothing on his stage but bodies and attitude.

James Wilton Growing Divide

In Wilton’s case, appropriate attention was paid to costume. All the dancers were clad in grey hoodies and cargo pants, allowing them to become an anonymous group and then slip into individual personalities seamlessly.

Musically “Growing Divide” offered more variety than I’ve recently heard. Wilton offers us an Eastern melody to begin “Mugam Beyati Shiraz” but in the middle switches to a very hard rock almost metal music from Steven Wilson, “Salvaging” and “No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun”, the latter a clever tribute to King Crimson’s “In the court of the Crimson King”. It is great to hear a choreographer using living music (Wilson’s Insurgentes was released in 2008).

For the middle point of “Growing Divide” Michál Zabavik fixes us with a fierce contemptuous stare. Zabavik dares society to take him on. Hatred in his eyes screams the anger/frustration of underemployed existence.

In some ways, “Growing Divide” is like music video choreography. Cat fights break out between the women. It is certainly not your grandmother’s modern dance.

Especially good were Dianne Gray, Nori Aoki, Biag Gaongen and Michael Munoz and Michál Zabavik. Strangely, as a dancer, James Wilton himself seemed to be a little bit at sea in his own production. His weaker physique and soft face seemed a bit out of place among the relatively hard bodies of the Graz dancers. Agnès Girard didn’t has not caught up to the fury or the precision of her colleagues. Jana Drgonova who had such touching presence in “I can think and dream about it” went through the motions in “Growing Divide”. Combat and violence are clearly not her muse.

James Wilton Michael Munoz Dianne Gray

At one point Taylor does a quieter solo in a cross projected from the ceiling, both a window frame and a cross. The change of pace was welcome.

Both pieces left us wishing for a little more in what seemed a short evening.

A point of artistic interest is the more or less permanent cross pollination between Oper Graz. Guest choreographer James Wilson and his dancer Sarah Jane Taylor participate in all the Graz shows and have taken some of Oper Graz’s dancers to England with them for their own touring.

Artistic director Darrel Toulon insists that cross pollination is the way forward: “It means dancers are knocked out of their normal hiearchy and have to treat the work as fresh. They are on their best and most competitive behaviour”. Toulon also likes having the guest choreographer help grow his piece past the premiere. Toulon still regrets not being able to bring in a few of Jie Dong’s dancers from China (part of the original conception of the evening): “It just didn’t fit within the budget”.

Neither piece as electric as the Guido Markowitz’s “ Sometimes it is not nice to be me” from last year. Part of the issue may be the absence due to injury of Bostjan Ivanjsic, the incredible soloist and leader of the Oper Graz dance company. While everyone else does their best, Ivanjsic’s physical presence and charisma is not easily replaced. Hopefully he will soon return to the lineup.

James Wilton may be the future of British choreography and is certainly an exciting creator but we are in the early days still. May he retain his willingness to tackle big issues along the way. It’s refreshing to see a choreographer leaving behind both deconstructionism and maudlin love to take on the world.

All photographs copyright Werner Kmetitsch/Oper Graz.