A Marathon Gala
Stuttgart Celebrates Reid Anderson´s Sixtieth Birthday
The Stuttgart Ballet
Stuttgart State Opera
StuttgartGermany
April 1, 2009
by Horst Koegler
copyright @2009 by Horst Koeglero
Ever heard of Marius Petipa celebrating his 60th birthday in St. Petersburg (that was in 1877, one year after the creation of his “La Bayaderka”) - with a big late-night party at Bubat afterwards, the number one restaurant of the Neva-capital? Or Balanchine in 1964 in New York, following the uproarious Gottschalk-“Tarantella” with McBride and Villella? Or MacMillan in 1989 in London after his second try at “The Prince of the Pagodas”?
Not so in Stuttgart, where on April 1st – not as a surprise at Fool´s Day – was feted as a red letter day: the 60th birthday of its Ballett-Intendant (General Manager) Reid Anderson. But then things are handled differently in Stuttgart, where the city considers its ballet company truly a family affaire. And so the members of that family decided to turn the jubilee birthday into a big event.
For Anderson, who had come to Stuttgart in February 1969, a lanky boy of not quite twenty from Canadian New Westminster, it means that he has spent almost two thirds of his professional career – with just a relatively short hiatus – at the Swabian capital., where he progressed from corps dancer via soloist and principal to ballet-master and artistic director status, before being appointed Intendant for the 1996/97 season (this is the highest position the German theatre-system knows, it is the equal of General Manager - on the same footing like the chiefs of opera-houses). Apart from Anderson only two colleagues rank in Germany as Ballett-Intendant, and that is John Neumeier in Hamburg and Vladimir Malakhov in Berlin.
And so they congregated on that Wednesday night at the Stuttgart State Opera, the official authorities from state and municipality, the directorial colleagues like Neumeier from Hamburg, Konstanze Vernon from Munich, Hans van Manen from Amsterdam, Monika Mason from London, Itzik Galili from Holland, Mauro Bigonzetti from Aterballetto, while others had sent their congratulations for the lavish programme book, Malakhov from Berlin, Bill Forsythe from Frankfort, Richard Cragun from South America, Jirí Kylián from The Hague, Karen Kain from Toronto, Brigitte Lefèvre from Paris and Valerie Wilder from The Australian Ballet. As master of ceremonies Tamas Detrich, former principal and now Anderson´s Vice, introduced the programme nonchalantly, succeeded by Marcia Haydée, now hailing from Santiago, before the dancers themselves took over for the four hour marathon programme, interlaced with two intermissions, topped with some former Stuttgart soloists like Bridget Breiner, Iseult Lendvai (now of Augsburg), Julia Krämer, Robert Tewsley, Ivan Cavallari (now artistic director of the West Australian Ballet in Perth).
Introduced by rows and rows of youngsters from the local Cranko Ballet School they skimmed the stage like an endless succession of waves from a tsunami. They were followed by a beautifully sculpted pas de deux by Breiner for herself and the perfectly styled Douglas Lee, whose silken way of moving lends him an almost divine quality. Not to be seduced by the sheer sensual pleasures of this creation, there followed a jazzy solo by Marco Goecke (one of the two resident choreographers – the other being Christian Spuck) for Friedemann Vogel, Stuttgart´s number one as a noble classicist, but here given a role, in which he quivers like an electric eel, with all his muscles x-rayed in a live relay from his nervous system. Impossible to list all the individual items of the programme. Considering that this was a gala, one registered not without relief that there was not a single “Don Q”, “Black (or White) Swan”. Aurora, “Corsaire” or “Nutcracker” pas de deux. Even more astonishing perhaps was that there was from Cranko no “Onegin”, no “Romeo” and no “Shrew” – instead Sue Jin Kang, Stuttgart´s prima, and Jason Reilly performed “Legende” (Wieniawski) one of Cranko´s most lyric pieces, in which he uses her almost like a brush, writing his poem on air.
Then there was the “Solo” by van Manen, which is really an etude for three, a relay race, in which the presto movements are handed over from one to the other. Neumeier contributed the very touching early pas de deux for Othello and Desdemona, an incredibly tender piece about the first revelation of their bodies, with his loin-cloth slowly unwrapped – a wonderful moment of naïve chastity, languorously performed by the still very young Elizabeth Mason and Alexis Oliveira.
An inevitable show stopper is Ben van Cauwenbergh´s “Les Bourgeois” to a chanson by Jacques Brel, originally created for Daniil Simkin (who dances now with ABT) and here tongue in cheek performed by Filip Barankiewicz. Another guest-contribution was “The Sofa”, a slapstick trio, with hair-split timing presented by Eric Gauthier and two colleagues of his group (a former Canadian dancer of the Stuttgart, Gauthier runs now his own small troupe of entertainers – and they are a big success at off places). Kylián was represented by an excerpt from his “Bella Figura”, a study like a specially polished piece of jewellery, seamlessly enfolded by Maria Eichwald and Friedemann Vogel, Stuttgart´s model classicists. This was in perfect contrast to Christian Spuck´s hilarious “Le Grand Pas de deux”, set to Rossini´s “La gazza ladra” overture, a boisterous comedian farce for a ballerina, more concentrated on her handbag (Julia Krämer - a twin-sister of Britain´s notorious Margaret Thatcher) than on her despairing partner (Jason Reilly).
Just to remind us, that Stuttgart led the West European revival of full-length pot-boilers through Cranko´s “Romeo” etc. and that his legitimate heir is now Neumeier, a pas de deux from his “Lady of the Camelias”, passionately projected by Sue Jin Kang and Tewsley, who looked like a young Cary Grant, reached almost Hollywoodian emotional abandon. After which van Manen´s “Sunday”, originally created in Stuttgart in 1988, saw Marcia Haydée and Egon Madsen as Stuttgart pioneers of the first hour, in one of the company´s grandma´s souvenirs: the nostalgic retrospective of an old age pensioner couple between boredom. and frustration, but not without some touch of tender humanity – and as such almost a logo of the company´s family feeling.
After which Stuttgart´s latest and youngest recruit of budding choreographers,. the Argentinian Demis Volpi concocted together with Breiner the fire-cracking finale of “La Grande Parade du Funk” headed by a marching brass band as if parading for mardi grass at New Orleans´ Vieux Carrée, until for the very end the whole stage was flooded in light and colours, with balloons exploding, streamers poured down from the flies and the whole company, including the staff and technicians assembled with posters to the sounds of Cole Porter´s “Night and Day” to celebrate their beloved Reid from ´up-over´ (to promote Canada as the equivalent Commonwealth twin to Australia´s down-under).
