Celebration of the 25th German Dance Prize
for John Neumeier in appreciation of his life time achievement
with guests from Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich, Copenhagen, Moscow, Paris and Milan
Aalto-Theater
Essen, Germany
March 1, 2008
by Horst Koegler
copyright @ 2008 Horst Koegler
At 66, Milwaukee born John Neumeier looks back on living and working in Germany 45 years now – which puts him in a line with Bournonville´s activities in Copenhagen, Petipa's in St. Petersburg and George Balanchine's in New York. In 2008 he is celebrating several anniversaries: his first professional engagement as a dancer in Stuttgart under Cranko in 1963, his appointment as Germany´s youngest ballet director in Frankfurt 40 years ago, his transfer to Hamburg in 1973, where he has resided ever since, has reformed in 1977 the opera-attached ballet school, establishing twenty years ago the Hamburg Ballet Center. John Neumeier was awarded in 1988 the German Dance Price, developing the Hamburg Ballet over all these years into an internationally acclaimed company, with his list of creations numbering so far 137. Reason enough for the organizers of the Deutsche Tanzpreis, Germany´s highest award for people connected with dance, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, by honouring Neumeier a second time for his ´life work.'
As in former years the gala, held at the beautiful Essen Aalto Theatre, became once again the summit meeting of dancers, choreographers, pedagogues and dance-publicists, let alone Hamburg and German ballet fans, from all over the globe. The programme offered the usual greetings and speeches, with a special appreciation by Norbert Lammert, President of the German Parliament in Berlin and a devoted ballet spokesman. The laudatio was delivered by nobody less than Marcia Haydée, who, together with Ray Barra, had discovered Neumeier in a class at the Royal Ballet School in London, inviting him to join the fledgeling company in Stuttgart, telling many anecdotes of their common career, including their various collaborations with Béjart, culminating in Neumeier´s Opus 100 –for Maurice ., which he created for Béjarts 70th birthday - and which became now a moving tribute, only weeks after Béjarts death. In his words of thanks, in which he included all his collaborators of those many years, Neumeier made it clear, that in spite of all his Hamburg attachments (most recently he was appointed honorary citizen of Hamburg – an honour very rarely granted), and his acquiring German state citizenship: "I am and stay an American“. Wish that America had more cultural ambassadors of his creative virtues and international reputation in the world!
In the gala-programme, lasting four and a half hours, 11
ballet-excerpts from Neumeier´s oeuvre were presented. But how to
choose from a list of more than ten dozen creations? Indeed there were
some complaints of mising representative specimens from the vast bulk
of his Mahler complex and from his ambitious catalogue of ballets
created to religious music. But then with so enormous an output it
seems impossible to make a fair choice. Anyway there was no lack of
change and the selection had so carefully been planned, that not for a
moment one had the feeling that Neumeier was running out of ideas.
The programme opened with Yonder, a ballet set to songs by Stephen F.
Forster, presented by a a group from The Hamburg Ballet – it´s a hymn
to the young and energetic America, full of joy, optimism and youthful
ardour. danced by the Hamburgians with infectious exuberance, so that I
had the impression, that if Obama had been present, he would have
engaged the 14 boys of the "That´s What´s the Matter“ on the spot for
one his election campaigns, Followed another piece of Neumeier´s
Hamburgiana: Shall we dance?, his homage to Gershwin and the Broadway of
the ´seventies, served by the (married) Hamburg stars, Silvia Azzoni
and Alexandre Riabko with the nonchalant grace of the legitimate heirs
of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. After which came 1963: Yesterday,
the famous Beatles´ song, arranged by Neumeier as a fairy-tale of the
meeting between a La Sylphide maiden and a boy from the London of the
´Swinging Sixties, and her transformation (almost Den lille havfrue
like) into a girl next door, ravishingly performed by Silja Schandorff
and Sebastian Kloborg (son of the well remembered Eva Kloborg) of the
Royal Danish Ballet. The first part before Haydée´s laudatio finished
then with the second act pas de deux from Neumeier´s Stuttgart created
Lady of the Camelias, starring Stuttgart´s today leading Sue Jin Kang
and Marijn Rademaker, sucking us helplessly into the stream of their
l´amour fou.
It the temperature in the auditory had already reached boiling point at that time, we cooled it down during the following intermission with some champagne and found us when the curtain went up again at the shore of the Baltic Sea, where Valeria Mukhanova and Dmitry Khamzin from the Moscow Stanislavsky ans Nemirowich-Danchenko Music Theatre greeted us as the young lovers of Neumeier´s The Seagull, true ambassadors of the Czekhov inspired spirit still alive in their house from Stanislavsky´s times – magically drawing us into the sweep of Shostakovitch´s elegiac sounds. From the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich – where Neumeier keeps us what almost looks like a second residence – Ivy Amista and Lukas Slavicky tenderly dallied as the lovers in Neumeier´s A Cinderella Story, before Laetitia Pujol and Manuel Legris from the Paris Opéra demonstrated thir more sophisticated way of making love in Neumeier´s pas de deux from Sylvia. There could not have been a more brutal contrast than the following rape scene of his A Streetcar Named Desire – which is Neumeier at his sexiest, performed by Katja Wünsche and Jason Reilly with Stuttgart/Louisiana steamrolling exuberance. There was no lack of passion either in the farewell pas de deux of Violetta and Armand, sealing their tragic love-affair, with all their rapturous Camelia's flavour having long faded away, into which Lucia Lacarra from Munich and Roberto Bolle of La Scala di Milano conjured up once again the heartbreaking power of their relationship. But this was still not the end of the performance. There came the touching encounter of the Seamaid and The Prince at the beach, in which Silvia Azzoni (her greatest and most challenging role so far) appeared like a reborn young Martha Graham from the waves, with Carsten Jung as the Prince and Lover with his customary Hamburgian captain´s charm – a timely reminder of the friendly connection , which Neumeier has cultivated between Hamburg and Copenhagen since his early days up in the north. And what could have been more appropriate as finale of this glamorous gala than his tribute to his great colleague and friend, the late Maurice Béjart, with his Opus 100, performed by Alexandre Riabko and Peter Dingle, with their buddy comradeship tinged at this occasion with just the slightest touch of melancholy.
After which we are looking forward to Neumeier´s next anniversary to celebrate his 40 years as first the Director and now Intendant – the highest position in the German theatre hierarchy, meaning the rolling into one of Artistic and Managing Director – of the Hamburg Ballet as one of Germany´s top cultural ambassadors.
