The Vindication of Ivanov
Christopher Wheeldon's American “Swan Lake“ conquers the Continent “Swan Lake”
"Swan Lake"
The Ballet of the Baden State Theatre
Opera-House
Karlsruhe , Germany
24 November 2009
by Horst Koeglercopyright@ 2009 by Horst Koegler
Rarely has a ballet career been so logically developed like that of Birgit Keil. Born 1944 in what was then the German occupied part of Czecho- slovakia, from where her family was expelled after the war, she came with her refugee parents to Stuttgart where she started her ballet training at various private studios before enrolling at the ballet school of the Stuttgart opera house. It was the time of Nicholas Beriozoff´s artistic directorship of the company and she appeared first in the “Waltz of Flowers” in his production of “The Sleeping Beauty” when eight years old, becoming a regular member of the company in 1961. Immediately spotted as an outstanding talent, she won a scholarship at the Royal Ballet School in London where she polished her technique to being promoted soloist in 1963 when she returned to Stuttgart, where Beriozoff had been followed by John Cranko as artistic director.
It was Cranko who formed her into what “The Oxford Dictionary of Dance” has defined as one of the company’s “Most renowned ballerina. A tall, elegant, almost ethereal dancer with a pure classical technique, she performed much of the ballerina repertory but also created roles in many new works” by Cranko, of course, but also by invited guest choreographers like MacMillan, Wright, Tetley, Kylián, Van Manen and Spoerli. And if Marcia Haydée as Cranko´s muse became the Callas of the Stuttgart Ballet, Keil, because of her elegance and beauty, competed with her as the Tebaldi of classical ballet. Guesting with numerous companies abroad, she always returned to Stuttgart as her home – long after Cranko had died so tragically early in 1973. Often invited with her partner Vladimir Klos to teach at the various summer academies, spreading all over the continent, she continued her ballerina career until her retirement in 1994.
By that time she had already established a foundation, named after her, to further the cause of younger dancers, and that became the base of her being appointed – together with Klos – as director of the Mannheim Academy of Dance as part of the local State Academy of Music and Theatre. This she built up into one of Germany´s top addresses for the education of young dancers and choreographers, her school performances soon becoming a must for talent scouts on the look out for recruits for the many ballet companies attached to the German opera-houses.
The next step of her career followed a couple of years later when the Baden State Theater of Karlsruhe offered her the position of artistic director of its languishing ballet company for the 2003/4 season. Now Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, an hour´s drive apart, are competing cities because of their former residential status in the two states of Baden and Württemberg, which were merged in 1952, with Stuttgart as its capital, while Karlsruhe became the city of Germany’s highest Federal Court of Justice. Both cities have their own State Theatres with opera, drama and ballet-companies sharing premises, but since Cranko the Stuttgart Ballet has clearly put Karlsruhe in the shadow, though it always cultivated ambitious plans of its own, and notably so during the late ’seventies, when its troupe was directed by Germinal Casado, former star dancer of Béjart´s Ballet of the 20th Century, who, alas, proved more the designer of opulent sets and costumes than a genuine choreographer.
Now Keil is no creative choreographer either, just contributing individual pieces for special occasions like gala performances or school matinees, and the 30 regular members of her Karlsruhe company cannot compete with Stuttgart´s roster about twice its size. But, still being in charge of the Mannheim Academy, she can draw of its master-class and thus augment her Karlsruhe forces so that they are able to perform the standard classics if in somewhat slimmed down versions. Through her close connection with Peter Wright of the Royal Birmingham Ballet we have had in Karlsruhe not only perfectly workable productions of “Les Sylphides” (thank goodness performed to the original Chopin piano pieces), “Giselle”, “Coppélia”, “Fille mal gardée” (Ashton’s version) and even “Don Quixote” and “La Bayadère” (called cautiously “Die Tempeltänzerin” alias “The Temple Dancer”) and even Kenneth MacMillan´s “Romeo and Julie” (a very daring project considering Cranko´s staging just seventy-five kilometres away in Stuttgart) plus many creations by strapping youngsters, among them a full-evening “Anna Karenina” by Terence Kohler, a genuinely gifted Australian boy who emerged from her Mannheim Academy, and who was immediately snapped up by Munich, where he prepares as his next ballet “The Secret Agent”, based upon James Bond.
Now in her seventh Karlsruhe season Keil has scored a major coup by luring Christopher Wheeldon to revive his Pennsylvania “Swan Lake” of 2004 vintage for her company, stocked up, with the help of Mannheim, to 41 dancers (with 18 swans). Staged by Tamara Hadley, and designed by Adrianne Lobel and Jean-Marc Puissant, who were in charge of the original production in Philadelphia, it bowed in Karlsruhe on November 21, emerging as her crowning achievement – for me the most interesting version I have suffered through, not being an ardent “Swan Lake” fundamentalist, during the last thirty years or so since John Neumeier´s Hamburg production as “Illusions – like Swan Lake” of 1976.
Having just reread about half a dozen reviews of Wheeldon´s original “Swan Lake” in 2004, I am struck that no one mentioned what for me was obvious from the very first act. And with this I don´t mean taking Degas and his Paris ballet-studio of the 1870s as his point of departure – strange enough that nobody hit earlier on his splendid idea of setting the ballet in the same decade of its composition by Tchaikovsky. Nor do I refer to Wheeldon´s other device of introducing a sinister Maecenas in the backstage action at the Foyer de la danse, where a rehearsal of ”Swan Lake” is soon going to start, who lusts for the girls very much to the disdain of the premier danseur and who later changes into the role of Rotbart. Actually I was a bit disappointed that Wheeldon did not build the role into a much more diabolic character (or was it a fault of the dancer Admill Kuyler that he turned out such a harmless creature?). But what struck me from the very first when the real dancing started to evolve – i.e. in the big ensembles of the waltz and the polonaise, was its stylistic leanings towards Ivanov rather than towards Petipa (who was given his due in the pas de trois, electrifyingly performed by Patricia Namba, Sabrina Velloso and Zhi Le Xu). It is these ensembles, which are not only musically superbly arranged, eloquently moulding its richly patterned phrases in a soft, unending flow, but being constructed and varied like a richly structured architecture, obviously modelled upon the material used by Ivanov in the second act.
This then proceeds generally as we know it, though the accompanying flock of swans is more actively involved in echoing the movements of the soloists by an enriched port de bras. It is the patterns, their groupings and regroupings steadily changing like a kaleidoscope which surprise through its formal wealth – I really had the feeling that they were generated by the fecund imagination of an architect rather than by a choreographer who automatically reacts to the phrases delivered by the music. And yet it carries the unmistakable stamp of Ivanov´s handwriting, its warm and poetic glow rather than the brilliant polish with which they are handled for instance by Balanchine in his staging of “Swan Lake”.
I am less sure about Wheeldon´s production of the third act as a dinner show in a night club, with the character dances robbed of their folkloristic substance, though I must admit admiring these cabaret acts like the soft-porn striptease in the Russian dance or the cancan which he draws from the Neapolitan tarantella without violating the music. Petipa (or is it Ashton?) is restored for the pas de quatre, sparkingly performed by the dancers who had appeared already in the first act pas de trois plus Yuhao Guo, as well as for the Black Swan pas de deux, while again I wished for more magic in Rotbart´s display of his exorcising powers.
But it is really the fourth act which sums up Wheeldon´s Ivanov approach with its fascinating wealth of forms and patterns in the various swan ensembles. And as the swans congregate in massive blocks and attack Rotbart and finally kill him, I was reminded of the people of East Germany demonstrating against their government when marching on the streets, while declaiming “Wir sind das Volk” (We are the people), I heard their silent battle-cries “We are the Swans!” Here Ivanov seemed to grow to the status of a strategic commander of Napoleonic dimensions. Alas, there is no release from their wretched existence as animals, and mournful they are retreating with Odette in their midst to a bleak future, leaving Siegfried alone on the stage, awakening from his dream and returning to his dreary existence in a thoroughly bourgeois world.
I wouldn’t maintain that the story of the performance of “Swan Lake” happening as a dream in Siegfried’s imagination only strengthens the dramaturgy of the action – for this the Bourmeister version is unsurpassed – but Wheeldon´s choreographic wealth is not matched by any other version I know from companies all over the world. It is as if Ivanov had planned the production from the very beginning, allowing Petipa just to add a few dramatic strokes.
It is beautifully danced in Karlsruhe, its corps de ballet and its small ensembles perfectly harmonized, as if they all had been sent to St. Petersburg for some master-classes. I caught the second performance on November 24, when Odette-Odile and Siegfried were danced by Elena Gorbatsch and Diego de Paula – she a strong technician from Kiev and steadfast like a pole in her razor sharp fouettés, he an Iberian conqueror from Sao Paulo and a product of Keil´s Mannheim establishment, a gracious cavalier and elegant partner, gifted with an arrow-like leap and haughty demeanour. As far as the two Great Swans and the four cygnettes are concerned Karlsruhe has nothing to fear from its nearby Stuttgart competitors: Actually their new scintillating “Swan Lake” makes Stuttgart´s version which still dates back to Cranko´s last version look somewhat cumbersome and unwieldy.
Photos: all by Jochen Klenk.
Rafaelle Queiroz (Odette/Odile) and Flavio Salamanka (Siegfried) with the ensemble.
