With/Out Tutu
William Forsythe, “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude”, Jodie Gates, “Courting the Invisible”, and Clark Tippet, “Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1”
State Ballet Berlin
Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Berlin
May 18,2008
by Horst Koegler
copyright @2008 by Horst Koegler
Near the end of his fourth season as Intendant (General Manager) of the German State Ballet Berlin, Vladimir Malakhov, 40, presented as his third seasonal premiere an all-American triple-bill, entitled “With/Out Tutu”, starting with William Forsythe´s potboiler “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude” of 1996 vintage, succeeded by Jodie Gates´ creation of “Courting the Invisible”, with Clark Tippet´s “Bruch´s Violin Concerto No. 1” of 1987 as conclusion. Danced at the historical Opera House Unter den Linden (the other regular performing place of the company is the modern Deutsche Oper Berlin in the Western part of the city) it showed the 80-odd dancers troupe (the biggest of all German companies) in fine technical fettle and was clamorously feted by the audience, though less unanimously so two days later by the Berlin critics, some of whom thought it too retrograde in its rigidly classical orientation. In the context of the whole season, its two earlier programmes celebrating “Glories of the Romantic Ballet” (with excerpts from “Pas de quatre”, “Le Vivandière” and “Paquita”) and the Peter Schaufuss staged version of Bournonville´s “La Sylphide”, the season really seemed classically somewhat overloaded, but it has to be admitted that it emerged a splendid showcase of the technical progress the company has made in the relatively short time of its existence, with Valentina Savina as its strict taskmistress.
Malakhov has a fine nose for emerging talents, and so he landed his first coup by engaging even before his official appointment already in 2002 the just 18 years old Polina Semionova from the Moscow Bolshoi School into his Berlin company, where she blossomed quite naturally, soon being promoted principal dancer status, but outprincipalling all her colleagues by her physical beauty, charm, grace, technical prowess and personal charisma. She is now the darling of toute Berlin, and even more so by her un-diva like behaviour. In Forsythe´s razzmatazz choreography of Schubert´s last movement from his symphony no. 9, her whole body seems to transform into the telluric shape of her Stephen Galloway designed very Bauhausisch tutu, with her steps flashing like electric sparks, animated by a Swiss clockwork balance wheel. She is the enter of the female trio, her two companions being Beatrice Knop and Shoko Nakamura, two of the company´s starry assets. Malakhov himself, who in recent months for physical reasons had to considerably reduce the high protein level of his dancing, had returned to his former power and took of as if fed by airborne gas, reflected by Dinu Tamaziacru as his duplicate. I cannot say that I like Forsythe´s interpretation of Schubert at turbosized speed, who for me kills all the Viennese charm of its Allegro vivace sweep as if tested how fast you can go at a laboratory for high-pitch velocity.
So it was back to leisure and 19th centuryish convenience in Jodie
Gates´ ”Courting the Invisible” to the softly rippling sounds of Felix
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy´s and his sister Fanny's undulating piano pieces.
Though she danced several years with Forsythe´s Frankfurt troupe and
before with Joffrey, Gates was to me and my colleagues a rather unknown
nonentity, her biography in the programme listing some prestigious engagements with US and European companies both as a
dancer and a choreographer. She has set her piece for three couples of
soloists, among them Nadja Saidakova and Michael Banzhaf, who belong to
the principals of the company. plus twelve corps dancers – quite a
large group, who appear in front of and behind three pearl curtains,
which lighted by Michael Korsch, suggest a mysterious atmosphere,
perhaps a wood, wandering hither and thither, without ever assuming
concrete shape. Without tutus, they wear laced unisex trikots, through
which one spots naked flesh. In their black net trikots with golden
applications (designed by Stephen Galloway”) they look like medieval
knights. performing their secret rites – actually Gates refers in her
programme notes to the fineries of calligraphy and to the positions of
rapier fights. And it is true, courtly manners dominate the spare
movements, which often start with classical figures, with the women on
point, to break away into more modern oriented convulsions. – but all
in relatively sedate patterns. Virtuosity is out of bounds, instead
intimate attempts at shy and almost coy contacts prevail, and the
movements seem to flow directly out of the music. It is often quite
beautiful to look at, but as nothing really happens, twenty seven
minutes is an awfully long time. Critical reaction was split. Some
admired it as one of Malakhov´s best imports, others found it rather long winded, and I must admit that I belonged to the latter fraction.
But as the Berlin dancers went through its enigmatic rites, it assumed
a sort of poetic quality that I wondered how Tudor might have reacted
to it.
Came Tippet´s “Bruch Violin Concerto”, announced as German first performance, but then I guess that it was his continental debut – maybe that ABT gave it on one of its European tours, but I don ´t remember any European production of any of his ballets. This was staged by David Richardson, and very pretty and flourishing it looked as the hordes of dancers, appropriately tutued by Darin Marcus, took possession of the stage. Most of my German colleagues thought it quite dated – a Balanchine inspired big concert ballet in the wake of “Symphony in C”, with Balanchine´s spirit completely evaporated. But as I am a very musically oriented man and like to be bathed in gushes of waves, both in sound and concerted mass movements, it easily challenged all my bad tastes – and won. And then I thought of the time of its creation, when I was twenty years younger and the big symphonic ballets were booming, with Cranko´s Brahms, Nijinska´s Chopin, Massine´s Tchaikovsky (not to mention all the Tchaikovsky's Balanchine bundled in his Festival of 1981) and Scholz´s Rachmasninov, and I could not refrain from deeply plunge myself into this ocean of nostalgia.
Once again the company demonstrated its exultant vivaciousness, its glittering attack and its enjoyment of Tippet´s choreographic gushes. There are two soloist couples for the first movement, handsomely paraded by Elena Pris and elegant newcomer Mikhail Kaniskin, and Corinne Verdeil with Rainer Krenstetter (who tops his part with mouthwatering Viennese cream). while the allegro energico finale is headed by Gaela Pujioy and the ebullient Marian Walter, a youngster, obviously baptized with Spree waters (wish that Malakhov might try to revive for him one of Paul Taglioni´s typical Berlin ballets from the second half of the 19th century, which at the time of his Berlin court ballet-directorship enjoyed a similar popularity like Bournonville in Copenhagen). But the real highlight of the whole evening was the second Adagio movement, celebrated by Polina Semionova and her brother Dmitrij Semionov, who joined the company only this season. Two years older than Polina, he is a product of the St. Petersburg Vaganova Academy, dancing for several years with the Kirov, before joining shortly the Dresden Semper-Opera Ballet (led since 2006 by Aaron S. Watkin – one of those Canadian ballet ambassadors at the head of several German companies, the most famous being of course Reid Anderson at Stuttgart). A rather tallish, classically proportioned dancer herself, her brother is even taller, with his blond head putting the accent aigu on their ideally complimentary matching bodies. Together they are a couple with the potential of growing into one of those legendary partnerships which are the Fabergé jewels of ballet history. Actually I had the feeling of envisioning the utopia of time arrested when she enfolded into that en Arabesque position, so much dreaded in the Rose Adagio, which she held as if modeled by Carlo Blasis himself in soft plaster, quivering with life.
Photos by Enrico Nawrath
