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.

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.

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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.

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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.

The evening opened with a fine excerpt from La Sylphide with full decorations, with Maria Yakovleva in the eponymous title role and Masayu Kimoto as her partner. While La Sylphide is always easier to watch in its entirety both were very good and the corps-de-ballet looked good too. An auspicious start.

In John Neumeier’s Vaslaw, Denys Cherevychko carried the lead role. It’s very good casting, as Cherevychko’s habitual narcissism works to good effect in Vaslaw’s solo gymnastics and diffident interaction with the other couples.

Prisca Zeisel starts to justify the high hopes placed on her precocious arrival at age sixteen in the Vienna Staatsoper, as the great Austrian principal, a role left vacant since Dagmer Kronberger left at the height of her powers to motherhood. Kronberger is dancing marvellously but has not had the same roles she had before leaving.

Alexandru Tcacenco did an excellent job partnering the lyric and self-assured Zeisel. Masayu Kimoto’s moved the audience with a passionate solo: Kimoto was both emotional and in excellent physical form, really finishing his movements.

Ketevan Papava and Ryan Booth are a very dramatic couple. Both tall, they were very effective together. The pas de trois was a little bit unbalanced.

Kiyoka Hashimoto and Davide Dato danced well together, as did Alice Firenze and Greig Matthews, without drawing particular fire or attention to themselves.

The pas de cinque from Swan Lake was performed to a blue backdrop and was rather a bore without decorations. Eno Peci was a marvellous prince, while Natascha Mair and Ioanna Avraam were lovely noble damsels. As companions, Davide Dato and Dumitru Taran partnered their damsels very well. I would have preferred to see Peci’s magnificent physique and radiant presence as Apollo later. While Peci is great on stage, his technique could be sharper: he seems just a bit lazy as a dancer before the show which is a great pity as he has international star potential.

The highlight of the evening was the pas de deux from Mayerling. Here Kenneth MacMillan’s masterwork had the best possible casting. Irina Tsymbal lived the role of the impetuous Baroness Vestera while Kirill Kourlaev incarnated Crown Prince Rudolf.

Kourlaev’s appearance with moustache and goatee is spectacularly dashing. He should consider dancing the grand roles with facial hair.

Kirill Kourlaev as Kronprinz Rudolf & Prisca Zeisel as Mizzi in “Mayerling” © Michael Pöhn
This is a symbolic photo from another performance

Tsymbal and Kourlaev’s passionate embraces felt truly real. Tsymbal gave herself to Kourlaev with abandon. One felt her folly with the pistol, one felt the passion of woman on the edge. Every one of her movements was both lyric and transparent. Kourlaev’s masterful steps and dignity belonged as much to the theatre as the ballet.

I felt like I was watching Ekaterina Maksimova and Vladimir Vasilev in their prime. Vienna has a very special pair in these two. They are a perfect match. Hopefully they will be kept together for most of next season. Someone should invite a choreographer to create something dramatic just on these two. They are in another league as partners to anyone else in the theatre.

In Apollon, an excellent performance by the orchestra brought the score alive.

On stage we saw the best dancers Vienna has to offer. The three graces included Olga Esina, Ketevan Papava and Nina Polakova.

Esina and Papava are schoolmates and rivals for the last fifteen years first in the Vakhtangova Ballet School, then a few years in the Marinsky Theatre and finally in Vienna State Opera. Both are classic St Petersburg ballerinas, with long arms and legs and perfect technique. And here in Apollon they offset each other ideally, one tall and fair, the other long and dark. Polakova did well to keep them company but perhaps Ionna Avraam would have been a better match.

Hopefully one day perhaps a perceptive choreographer will take advantage of these twin graces, dark and light, and build a piece based on fragmented personality or twin loves. As an example, one could rework Swan Lake in an entirely new version with Odetta/Odile on stage at the same time.

Roman Lazik did not look as strong as Apollon as he has all year, in what has otherwise been a banner year for him. Apollo should really be a Nijinki or Nureyev style dancer who summons the whole theatre to his godlike presence. With just a couple of workouts per week, in a few months, Lazik could put on the two or three kilograms of upper body muscle he’d need for such a role. A tall, elegant dancer if he wants to become a power on the stage, he should muscle up a bit.

Afternoon with a Faun immediately brings memories of Nijinski, the famous photograph. It’s a dangerous standard to lance against. Choreographer Boris Nebyla has never lacked courage and plunges straight in. The stage is spare with just four white ceiling to floor breaking the all black stage, light slips through from behind. At the front of the stage, Mihail Sosnovschi poses front foot under him back leg extended. His powerful physique impresses right away. Sosnovschi strikes a series of poses to Debussy’s music, sometimes balletic, sometimes more from a bodybuilder’s show.

Faun: Mihail Sosnovschi

At this point, one is optimistic about the duet to come. Lovely Brazilian Tainá Ferreira Luiz creeps across the back of the stage between the columns. Her hair is dyed a flaming red and she is clad in a flesh toned body suit.

The pair now pose together and interact in some sort of flirt. It’s all strangely sexless though. From here Afternoon of a Faun just meanders. There’s a hint of hope for some flames when Luiz with her legs extended backwards and on her stomach with Sosnovoschi above juts her hips into the floor three times, as if making love but it’s just a tiny spark in a very tasteful but too benign Afternoon of a Faun.

Faun: Tainá Ferreira Luiz & Mihail Sosnovschi

Bolero is the creation of András Lukács, Hungarian wunderkind of the Harangozo’s regime. Lukács is almost all grown up now and toils no more for choreolab but for the main stage. No excuses now.

In tackling Bolero, once again the choreographer is taking the measure of a musical work greater in the imagination than anything he or she could create.

Cleverly Lukács opens with a closed curtain which is slowly pulled up by a very beautiful Gala Jovanovic, clad in a long black skirt and a set of black beads. Underneath the beads there is a body suit alas. Without the bodysuits, Jovanovic and Lukács could challenge the music. But they’d need another six or seven women up to the occasion.

Bolero: Gleb Shilov & Josefine Tyler

Excellent work on the costumes by Mónika Herwerth.

Gradually the stage fills with other dancers, the men stripped to the waist and in the same long skirts, all the other women in black beads. They cross in impressive, elaborate patterns, their footwork as sensual as Afternoon was cool.

Bolero: Ensemble

The half naked men in skirts cut a more imposing figure than the women, Lukács mixes the dances up between monosex and mixed. As Bolero flames up, the lifts become more challenging, the movement more compelling. An effective slow build which culminates in the whole group quickly disappearing. Again Jovanovic is left alone on the stage, this time at the back in a space between the curtains. The final horn sounds and she slams shut the curtain.

The manoever shows just how much mileage a clever choreographer can get from a minimalist staging.

The audience erupted in felt applause this time, partly for the music and impressive performance of the orchestra under conductor Guido

Florian Hurler stood out among the men for both his physical size and his interesting presence, daring the audience to love him. We saw again Felipe Vieira from choreolab but for some reason he seemed more timid today.

Nothing prepared us for the insanity after the pause. Volksoper Ballet Director Vesna Orlic took her own run at one of the greatest pieces of music ever, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

The curtain opened to a full choir of seventy filling the entire backstage singing at full voice. Front stage stood a figure in a long dress with forty centimetre bee’s bun hairdo. Under the makeup, stood again the enormous Florian Hurler. He threw his hands up in the air summoning the gods. At this point, around his feet half-dressed figures as if from Spartacus rolled and thrust their legs in the air around Hurler.

As the choir belted out Valkyrie levels of sound, Hurler strutted and posed as if descended from the heavens. The closest pop culture equivalent I can think of is the aria from Fifth Element but that scene is largely insufficient for this enormous stage of music and movement.

The pace did not let up from there. We moved from choral scenes to arias and back again.

The tableaux gradually leaned towards Daliesque: at one point a four metre cross is carried on stage by ten tall collared monks. They put it up and it turns out to glow neon red. The monks sing as a choir around a dinner table on which there is a huge silver roast cover. They slash knives and forks together. The lead priest pulls the silver cover off the food to reveal the very fat head of another opera singer, who sings as if decapitated from the middle of the table. When he is done, the monks cut his head to pieces and eat him alive. Immediately afterwards ten black haired prostitutes run in in garters to fornicate with the monks, who turn out to be wearing can-can dresses under the habits.

The Catholics in the audience sat in silent bewilderment but atheists were happy to see organized religion get its nose tweaked again before the naked bride showed up, as a man dressed in only a black tutu danced the black swan part from Swan Lake, brilliantly danced by Samuel Colombet, reprising a role from a short piece in choreolab three years ago.

The stage turned to reveal an audience of twenty men on benches who had arrived for the black swan’s live sex show with the lady in red, danced by a very seductive Gala Jovanovic.

Immediately thereafter strolled out sixty white clad children hopping and skipping. Then they too broke into high song.

There was smoke, there was fog.

Carmina: Florian Hurler (Fortuna) & Ensemble

If all this sounds unbelievable it was. You’d have to watch Orlic’s Carmina Burana half a dozen times to unravel all the Dali moments. There was an old man and a woman leaving to death, admirably portrayed by Gabriele Haslinger and Percy Kofranek. There was a young couple who took their place.

Carmina: Ekaterina Fitzka, Samuel Colombet, Gala Jovanovic

The end was as powerful as the beginning as Hurler returned in his floor length gown, his powerful arms thrust into the air to summon again the gods and bring an end to this tormented and spectacular evening. Once again limbo’s ghosts rolled around his feet.

It has been many years since I’ve seen such an ambitious production in Vienna, let alone in Volksoper. The closest equivalent was Jan Fabre’s Blood on tour at Tanzquartier.

Karl Regensburger intendant of ImPulsTanz summarised the grandeur: “a spectacle on a scale to greet the departure of Greece from the Eurozone”.

Musically I must mention the soprano work of Beate Ritter. Her voice is heavenly. The male soloists offered solid performances, but Ritter’s voice was the musical highlight of evening, together with the whole choir.

My only concern is that I don’t know what Vesna Orlic can ever do to top this her first full evening piece.

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsballett/Elisabeth Bolius

So many people put so much into Choreo.lab to make it happen, to finance it, to create it. Vintner Hvram, every year brings up some of the finest cuvées from Burgenland. From the ambassador’s wives to the professors in the audience, Ingeborg Tichy Luger is a lady very precise in her gratitude. I thought all our grateful hands might fall off when we were done clapping for everyone present and everyone who contributed. Tip to the producer: group the people and fire through the names in a group and let us clap louder for four or five names together.

This year under Choreo.lab under the aegis of Staatsoper and ballet artistic director Manuel Legris was even more ambitious than usual with a full nine pieces in two acts, including two from Fabrizio Coppo.

Choreo.lab veteran Samuel Colombet opened the evening with a Balanchinesque bit of neoclassicism. The costumes were unusually good, splendidly draped white over four beautiful dancers Ionna Avraam, Iliana Chivarova, Erika Kovacova and Rui Tamai. In particular, Ms. Avraam was in spectacular form. One could also see why Manuel Legris promoted Erika Kovacova to the main stage from Volksopera. In line, she is like the top Paris Opera dancers. Her dancing is very smooth, but a certain absence of snap and a weak jump break the illusion you might be watching a younger Elisabeth Platel.

As accomplished and lovely as Columbet’s distaff contingent, his men were extraordinarily beautiful led by a dramatic Martin Winter. Young Felipe Vieira is like a confection, with almond roasted skin and cherub mouth. Gleb Sheilov did not stand out but supported his comrades well.

The difficulty with Columbet’s Oktett is in the end was the easiniess of some of the choices: a concerto from Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is a certain crowd pleaser. The splendid lifts and accomplished steps and bare torsos of handsome men almost cannot fail to delight a ballet audience. In the end, after Oktett one has enormously enjoyed what one has seen but little remains.

In don’t know, Martin Winter takes greater risks as a choreographer. With the music of Arvo Pärt he is nearly as safe musically as Columbet but his language of movement is far more challenging. Greig Matthews carries Reina Sawai in ways which are completely unnatural. The lifts are dramatic and almost dangerous. When dancing apart, Matthews is even more compelling with almost faun like poses and tremendous speed. One wishes that he and Sawai had more time to rehearse the piece. This one is good enough to travel with so he may get the chance.

From high love we dip into deep kitsch in the next piece Elegia. A cravatted pianist enters with a heavy letter in his hand. He struggles to open the velum. Oh no, the words of parting. His dear john letter. In the meantime, stage left literally clouds of smoke are billowing in. Igor Zapravdin starts to play the grand piano. Florian Hurler wanders in in a high collared white shirt, looking fetching in a Hollywood thirties kind of way. Out of the smoke Ekaterina Fitzka comes running. The Rachmaninoff trumbles along as the lady slowly spurns Hurler as the pianist’s alter ego. Better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all. Fitzka aspires to the place of the absent but not forgotten Karina Sarkissova. Russian dancers passed via the St Polten choreographic school haven incredible affinity with kitsch. Hurler is handsome in a high German sort of way with Grecian profile and blonde hair: you look for his dueling scars.

But not all Russian choreographers incline to melodrama. The young Andrey Kaydanovsky takes us in an entirely different direction. Out stroll three women in rags arguing with one another in Portugese, Slovak and Rumanian. A child appears and is scolded by his very convincing mother Ketevan Papava. Alexis Forabasco and Alice Firenze then live a passionate but very violent love affair in front of our eyes. The music moves from Flamenco to Sicilian music, latin and indeterminate. Kaydanovskiy is working hard to show us the complexity of life. The little boy appears again and then disappears. Of the three women Brazilian Rafaella Sant’anna is the most remarkable with much more swing in her hip than her European companions.

But frankly they are all good, including Ketevan Papava and Andras Lukacs in a comic turn. Dolce Vita is a sophisticated and long piece, funny and rewarding. A bit derivative of Kylian but indicating real talent for ensemble staging.

At this point, let me compliment the stage team on the eight different stages they dressed without incident.

A piece of glass in the middle of the stage. Bowls of paint behind to the left and right. Italian Davide Dato enters in mere briefs. He takes great gobs of the blue, red and yellow paint, flings it around, rubs it on himself. It’s quite dangerous for the audience as we are all well dressed and the paint is flying five metres in the air. Ennio Morricone’s music is appropriately dramatic. It all seems a bit nineteen seventies though. Identity is young Italian Fabrizio Coppo’s first piece of the evening. Whlee does better in round two.

Part two of the evening beings with louding beeping noises and flashing lights and then turns to Johann Sebastian Bach. Yes, Eno Peci is back. He does his own mixing: soundscape is clearly important to him. He feels the world technically. There’s some very nice dancing from the great group he assembled. Dagmar Kronberger shows us why she is still one of the best Austrians dancing, even if overshadowed by Harangozo’s Russian stars since returning from motherhood. Masayu Kimoto dances his heart out with Greig Matthews, Davide Dato and Alice Firenze and Kyoka Hashimoto all in support. Despite the passion of the performances, Exitium remains decorative and not quite as strong as Peci’s last pice.

Donne (women) is the name of Fabrizio Coppo’s next piece and it’s exactly that. Three women: Ketevan Papava in red, Marie-Claire d’Lyse in purple brown and Oksana Kiriyenko in a rich emerald colour. Kiriyenko represents sadness and melancholy. Her moves are purposeful and moving. Papava flames through her piece in red. Each time she appears on stage her personality changes. Her dancing is purposeful and coherent despite the agenda of passion. Vaganova trained Papava may be the best dancer working in the Staatsoper now. Why she is not an étoile is beyond me: there are far less capable dancers already carrying that stripe.

Marie Claire d’Lyse dances like a wraith. She’s beautiful and dangerous, a lovely role for her and a pleasure for our eyes.

Again with Fabrizio Coppo you feel a bit in the seventies. Had he come to ImPulsTanz with this in the first five years, he would have been the talk of the town. There is a purity to his work: if Coppo applies himself over the course of five years, it could become less derivative and able to stand on its own.

Attila Bakó’s Attingo is a solo on Richard Szabó in an all Hungarian piece. The music is from Zbigniew Preisner. While Szabó is a talented enough dancer, solos are dull at the best of times. There is nothing in the piece which is particularly bad and nothing particularly to remember. But that is what Choreo.lab is about: experimenting. Not all experiments in the kitchen turn out marvellously either.

The final piece to the evening between two worlds is in an incredible soundscape built on music from Johan Johansson and Jon Hopkins. For twenty short minutes we are truly taken to another world.

Ionna Avraam enters a long a narrow line of light. Later she dances a duo with Davide Dato where for once we forget his short legs as he melds and parts with Avraam. The lifts are high and otherworldly. Avraam truly dances, she moves beyond her body into another world. There is good supporting work again from Papava and others.

Maxime Quiroga is the star of the evening. 

The other works which I would very much to have seen again include Martin Winter’s “don’t know”, Andrey Kaydanovsky’s Dolce Vita and perhaps Fabrizio Coppo’s Donne. But there are no guarantees with Choreo.lab veterans: Dan Datcu had perhaps the best piece here and subsequently left the Staatsoper and gave up choreography altogether. On the other hand, Nicki Adler a multi-year veteran of Choreo.lab got his start here and is one of the best of young Austrian choreographers now. Patricia Sollak decided to give up dance altogether and become a lawyer. The uncertainty is part of the excitement of Choreo.lab.

Alas, you won’t be able to see this program as it is a three day run and gone forever. Happily enough, the Ballet Club of Vienna filmed the performances several times and are menacing us with a video version. While dance on film is rarely the equivalent of dance on stage, hopefully Balazs and the others have captured some of the essence of these pieces.

Photos from Max Moser to come.

• the Scottish setting can seem very campy
• adequate stagecraft to preserve a sense of wonder
• the music can come across as thin and grating
• sufficiently large, gifted and beautiful corps-de-ballet
• the male audience can fail to fall in love with La Sylphide
• the women in the public fail to identify with Effie
• the women in the public can wonder what Effie sees in James

Manuel Legris has gotten it all right with Wiener Staatsoper ballet.

Irina Tsymbal as La Sylphide
All photos courtesy & © Max Moser

The decors are very sober, even a little bit drab. You feel inside a Scottish manor somewhere in the Highlands. Yet all the space of the huge Vienna State Opera stage is all there for the variations. In the second act the woods were tremendous and airy.

The small touches of stagecraft were a delight. Sylphides flying across the stage at 15 metres above the stage, Sylphides perched in the branches of the trees, La Sylphide disappearing vertically up the chimney or disappearing instantly into the floor.

The Staatsoper orchestra was in fine form, particularly in the overture which was sufficiently lyrical and touching that one wishes a recording. Through the rest of the ballet the performance was usually very good but the limits of the score were sometimes felt and the music hinted of military marching band. Still I’m far from sure one can do better without reorchestration.

Staatsoper corps de ballet La Sylphide

Manuel Legris has continued to work wonders with the splendid corps-de-ballet that his predessor Harangoza so paintakingly built. There are no less than 23 additional sylphides on stage in the second act. The whole corps-de-ballet looked great. There are small moments of synchronicity to perfect, but it is the premiere after all. There are few over-rehearsed ballet companies left in the world and Vienna Staatsopera ballet is not one of them.

Irina Tsymbal tears of La Sylphide

Irina Tsymbal is a perfect Sylphide. Her pallid complexion and somewhat tragic demeanor finds its natural home. Tsymbal can portray imperious roles as well. She is a very versatile ballerina. But La Sylphide is the most natural fit of all for her.

After the performance, Manuel Legris elevated Irina Tsymbal to First Soloist. It is good to see Legris keep an open mind about dancers. Initially, he planned to release Tsymbal before his first season as what he saw in rehearsal hadn’t impressed him. Fortunately a good fairy told him that Tsymbal’s talents flame on stage and not at the bar. If Legris can remain open to talent like this, he has a long and bright career as a director ahead of him.

Effie is a more difficult role. Danced with sufficient flair, James enchantment with La Sylphide would make no sense. Nina Polakova is almost as lyric a ballerina as Irina Tsymbal, with less of Tysmbal’s undercurrents of dangerous passion. As Effie she very deliberately curbs her charms to become a real girl, in love with her man but more cheerful than deep, trusting than passionate.

Roman Lazik Irina Tsymbal La Sylphide

As James, Roman Lazik is in his element. James is the ordinary guy caught in a remote fantasy. Lazik plays James as a good old boy more than a dreamer. Still, in the second act, he struggles as one feels the the emotion is not in his bones. While Lazik is a very handsome man and a very correct classical dancer and an attentive partner, he lacks a certain passion.

With a truly charismatic and masculine dancer in the role of James – Sergei Filin from the Bolshoi comes to mind – the men identify strongly with James and the women understand and feel both for Effie and La Sylphide. Lazik didn’t fail to move us, but didn’t move us as much as I’d like. This single weakness explains to me why the audience reception was enthusiastic and not ecstastic. I hope we will see Vladimir Shishov in the role of James.

Andrey Kaydanovskiy as Madge

We did see some great performances in secondary roles: Andrei Kaydonovsky was truly wicked as Madge. The pantomine was writ large but he pushed through it with sufficient abandon that we believed in her evil. His movement remained strong but feminine.

Kamil Pavelka was a resolute and sufficiently antagonistic Gurn. One felt his contempt for his friend who was half heartedly stealing the woman he loved. Pavelka is the kind of dancer who is perfect in the secondary role, although I’m not sure how well he’d carry a prince.

The Scottish kilt complemented Mihail Sosnovichi’s shape and gave him more traditional proportions, which along with a good leap and his usual energy helped both Sosnovichi and his partner Maria Alati to an invigorating pas de deux as the young newlyweds.

Mihail Sosnovichi Maria Alatii

Solo Sylphides Alena Klochova Marie Claire d Lyse Andrea Nemethova

The solo Sylphides – Marie-Claire D’Lyse, Alena Klochova, Andrea Némethová – were very good but perhaps a little bit too heroic. Super Sylphides, I would call them. But why must Sylphides always be frail.

Manuel Legris brought in excellent pedagogues: himself and Elisabeth Platel. Gradually he is pulling Vienna up to the level of Opéra de Paris. The danger is too much success and perhaps Paris will be calling him back too soon for Vienna’s good.

On the whole La Sylphide earns a 9 out of 10. If I hadn’t seen Sergei Filin dance James, perhaps I’d give La Sylphide 2011 at Vienna Staatsoper a perfect 10.

Special thanks to Max Moser for his ever excellent dance and theater photos. You can book Max’s services at PhotobyMM.com. His full gallery of La Sylphide.

Robbins likely does not deserve the last one, as the most active namer of names in his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1953, leading to the blacklisting of dozens of colleagues and acquaintances (effective professional death).

Fundamentally a showman, first as a performer and then as a creator, Robbins felt that there should not be a divide between commercial artists and high art, i.e. a successful Broadway choreographer should be allowed to set ballet. The three works chosen by Legris showcase Robbins’ work as an avant-garde choreographer, a Romantic ballet master and a Broadway showman in turn.

Glass Pieces

Who has one time heard the trombone of Glass Pieces from Philip Glass will never hear the trombone the same again. Each puff resonates through twenty beautiful figures moving at speed, changing the world with a precise gesture.

Homage to Jerome Robbins at Vienna Staatsoper. Glass Pieces.

Glass Pieces drives the viewer into a profoundly meditative state. Colours, some light, sound, we are children again staring into a xylescope.

The piece opens casually enough with an army of colourfully dressed pedestrians crossing back and forth across the stage. Periodicaly the crowd are interrupted by pairs, pink, emerald, blue. Each pair tunes its affection in a different way.

Natalie Kush and Shane A. Wuerthner were particularly touching in pink. She so small and fragile and optimistic, Wuerthner taller and cool. The last times I’ve seen him dance he’s been paired with dancers like Olga Esina who overwhelm him. His own talents shine brighter with a more petite dancer.

Kiyoka Hashimoto and Masayu Kimoto dance well together, in what has been a season of revelation for Kimoto.

Olga Esina makes her own appearance late in the lead role opposite Roman Lazik. Glass Pieces is written just for her kind of awesome ballerina. Esina’s endless limbs, noble carriage and schooled movements bring grace to the piece and she glildes across its surface as if on wings. Glass Pieces demands of a dancer to be one with the music and this Esina masters. She is the perfect muse, here no emotional demands to distract her from herself.

In darkest shiniest bordeaux Roman Lazik partners Olga Esina. Once again, Lazik shows himself a perfect partner attentive to her every step but one wishes that one day he himself would dance his own steps for himself.

Glass Pieces: Olga Esina and Roman Lazik

In the corps-de-ballet, Andrey Teterin is easily the most impressive of the men when in the middle or the back of the pack. He is let down only by his uncertainty when front and center, a strange lingering stage inhibition. If he ever overcomes it, Teterin will be a force with which to reckoned, with his strong lines and forceful jump.

In The Night

In the Night is guided by a piano solo, a rather limpid Chopin Nocturne. This is art of the simpering kind. Across a starlit stage, Robbins reveals three couples, in purple, in brown and in pink. Each dances a tender pas, with the occasional ethereal lift. The piece never really took off, as none of the pairs grabbed any hearts.

Andrej Teterin returns to adequately partner Natalie Kush who is radiant at her second leading role of the evening. Teterin is again let down by the uncertainty of his steps at the most important moments.

Olga Esina and Roman Lazik take the stage second. Again, Lazik is attentive. Again he fails to participate in the piece himself, a cipher for his ballerina. Esina struggled with the trite emotions, ending up as in the first piece, like glass. The long flowing gown from In The Night hides her natural attributes and Esina is a dancer like another.

The final couple Irina Tsymbal and Vladimir Shishov match one another perfectly, Tsymbal’s gentle curves fold into Shisov’s powerful arms. Shishov lifts Tsymbal like a feather. Always a passionate performer, Tsymbal shines with a strong emotion to communicate.

It appears Vienna Staastoper still does not have the right partner for Esina, one who would push her to the next level. The closest physical match would appear to be ex-husband Shishov but both are dancing better since separated. Perhaps Eno Peci could do Esina justice.

The Concert, or the Perils of Everybody

In the final piece, The Concert or the Perils of Everybody we see a lot of Peci.

He delights the audience as the murderous and adulterous husband. Behind a false nose, Peci is unrecognisable. He wears the role of an unhappy husband like his own dressing gown.

The Concert: Franziska Wallner-Hollinek and Eno Peci

He is well-paired with Irina Tsymbal as the ballerina, object of love. Franziska Wallner-Hollinek incarnates his grande dame wife perfectly, her native Vienna upbringing and aristocratic profile serving her well.

Denys Cherevychko plays against character for once as the shy young man. Ludmila Trayan inspires no end of laughter as the energetic young woman, whether sitting next to the pianist or pushing people off their chairs

Igor Milos, Gabor Oberegger, the lovely Maria Alati and Marta Drastiková round off an excellent comic ensemble performance.

The Concert: Marta Drastiková, Dumitru Taran, Irina Tsymbal, Gabor Oberegger

The Concert is a very strange piece oscillating from straight parody to Prufrock-like dark reflections on existence. The funny moments seem rather silly at first until the unhappy husband kicks his would-be lover the ballerina, shortly after pantomiming the murder of his wife. The women are moved around like inanimate furniture.

There seems to be some curious underlying mysogeny in the piece bubbling just under the surface. Women are beautiful but annoying. Probably true. But then men are annoying too and don’t even have beauty to redeem them.

Parody of dance fills The Concert: whether in the Hungarian dance of the men or the extended ballet episode where the energetic girl can’t hold her place in the corps-de-ballet.

Dancers get so tired of Swan Lake, Giselle and Sylphides that there is nothing they love more than a good bout of dance parody, whether in Don Quixote or Robbins’s The Concert. They were all delighted to perform here and in the end, Robbins does have a point.

It’s damn hard to live and wherever you look, whether at a concert or a ballet or even in your own home, everything and everybody is annoying. Even your own mistress.

Hopefully we can see another side of life but in this dance version of the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock there is much to enjoy. Tart like the fizz on champagne but like champagne best consumed in moderation.

All Photos Copyright: Wiener Staatsballett/Dimo Dimov

Staatsoper will be performing Jerome Robbins’s work throughout September 2011 and March 2012. For specific performances, see The Staastoper website