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According to their DNA Analysis

Wayne McGregor's “Yantra”, Edward Clug's “PocketConcerto” and  Jorma Elo's “Red in 3.”
The Stuttgart Ballet
Schauspielhaus
Stuttgart, Germany
July 10, 2010

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler

For the end of its 2009/10 season, the Stuttgart Ballet moved to the Schauspielhaus. In spite of that theatre's smaller capacity, the company had to fight against dwindling audiences because of the simultaneous football world cup championship in South Africa, which drew thousands of fans to the open-air screens in parks and public places. Performances, though, did in no way suffer, as the company was dancing brilliantly – as if itself fighting in a competition of supremacy.

Offering a triple bill, it sandwiched a revival of Edward Clug's “Pocket Concerto” from last year between two creations, Jorma Elo's “Red in 3.” and Wayne McGregor's “Yantra” – with the new Elo proving a cliché-ridden blatancy, while the McGregor scored a smash hit.

With a Strong Whiff of Japanese Perfume

The 36th Hamburg Ballet Days highlighted the ballets choreographed originally by Maurice Béjart and John Neumeier for The Tokyo Ballet

“Images of Asia by Béjart” (“Bugaku” and “The Kabuki Suite”)
and “Flowing Worlds” by  John Neumeier (“Seven Haiku of the Moon” and “Seasons –The Colors of Time”)
The Tokyo Ballet and Hamburg Ballet
Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg, Germany
June 23 and 24, 2010

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler

  When John Neumeier took up his new job as artistic director and chief-choreographer of the ailing ballet company at the Hamburg opera house for the 1973/74 season, he was, at thirty-one, just one of the Anglo-Americans exploring the possibilities of the German post-World War II dance scene, following in the footsteps of Todd Bolender in Cologne, Alan Carter in Munich, Walter Gore in Frankfurt and Sonia Arova in Hamburg.

"Orlando" in Stuttgart

With Turbo-Speed Through the Time-Tunnel of Four Centuries
Marco Goecke choreographs Virginia Woolf´s “Orlando”

Stuttgart Ballet
Stuttgart State Opera
Stuttgart, Germany
June 2, 2010

by Horst Koegler
copyright by Horst Koegler

Premiering "Orlando“, A Ballet by Marco Goecke after Virginia Woolf, the Stuttgart Ballet has definitely left its Cranko-pastures of  Shakespeare and Pushkin blockbusters as its repertory base, with which it still tours the world, 38 years after Cranko´s premature death in 1972. There have been other full-length pieces by Christian Spuck, one of its two resident choreographers born in 1969, on literary sources (for instance by E.T.A. Hoffmann and Wedekind) and of the Italian Mauro Bigonzetti (on the film script of Visconti's movie “Rocco e I suoi fratelli”) as well as numerous shorter works, but none so far experimenting with the literary avantgarde which Virginia Woolf's ´Biography´ signaled when its was first published in 1928.

Invasion of the Aliens

In Düsseldorf Martin Schläpfer tackles
Morton Feldman´s Beckett ´Opera´ “Neither”Ballett am Rhein
Düsseldorf Opera House
Düsseldorf, Germany
May 6, 2010

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler

 

At 50, Swiss Martin Schläpfer has clearly joined the front-rank of Europe´s top creative choreographers. After spending ten apprentice years as artistic director of the rather smallish Mayence company, he branched out this season, heading the much stronger Ballett am Rhein of the twin cities Düsseldorf and Duisburg. With five premieres announced for 2009/10, he managed to turn the so far rather lacklustre troupe into a beehive of dance activity. Apart from contributing about four-fifths of the repertory (eight different works) by himself, he presented works by George Balanchine, Kurt Jooss, Hans van Manen, Twyla Tharp, Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, plus, announced for June, the Argentinean newcomer Teresa Rotemberg.

A New “La Péri” for the State Ballet Berlin

From the Factory of Choreographic Ready-Mades
Vladimir Malakhov produces “La Péri” for the State Ballet Berlin

"La Peri"
Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden
Berlin, Germany
February 27, 2010

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler

Despite its earlier appearances in dictionaries and encyclopedias (Beaumont, G.B.L. Wilson, Chujoy etc.) the classic ballet entry of “La Péri” is still the one in the “International Encyclopedia of Dance” of 1998. It is also the most concise one, reading: “Théophile Gautier´s scenario for ´La Péri´ was inspired by his attraction to the Orient and dedicated to the feet of his belovd Carlotta Grisi, who danced the Péri, a Persian fairy. She appears to the wealthy and satiated Achmet in an opium dream and he falls in love with her. To test his love, she takes the form of a runaway slave, Leila. Achmet is killed for refusing to surrender her to her owner, but in apotheosis he is seen entering heaven with the Péri. - ´La Péri´ redeemed Grisi´s reputation at a time when she was receiving bad reviews. Jean Coralli provided her with two striking dances: a ´pas du songe´ that culminated in her daring leap from a six-foot high (two meter) platform into Achmet´s arms, and a ´pas de l´ábeille´a decorous striptease prompted by the invasion of an imaginary bee.”

"Marilyn" in Salzburg

“Marilyn”
Peter Breuer's dansical about Hollywood's Sex Icon
Salzburg Ballet
Salzburg State Theatre
Salzburg, Austria
February 20, 2010

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler

At 63, Peter Breuer belongs to the post-second world war generation of German dancers who had  collaborated with choreographers of the Massine, Nijinska, Lander, Cullberg, Béjart and Cranko vintage. Of Bavarian descent he seems to have been breath-fed by his father, who was a ballet rehearsal pianist and conductor at the Munich State Opera. A product of that institute's ballet school, he auditioned  for Balanchine when he worked in Hamburg during the early sixties and was offered a contract with the New York City Ballet when only 17. As the NYCB at that time was not allowed to hire foreign dancers, he had to apply for US citizenship to get a working permit, from which he shrank, afraid that he might be drafted into the Army to fight in Vietnam. With a recommendation from Victor Gsovsky he went instead to Düsseldorf, where he was immediately engaged as a half-soloist, being promoted already in his second year to soloist status after his break-through performance as servant Jean in Cullberg´s “Miss Julie”. Based upon that house for many years as a principal, he created roles in about 25 ballets by Erich Walter, perfectly happy to work with a choreographer of Walter´s innate musicality.

The Giant Bach Quilt

Duato´s “Diversity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness”
Bavarian State Ballet
Munich National Theatre, Germany
December 26, 2009

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2009 by Horst Koegler 

At 52 the Valencia born Juan Ignacio Duato Bárcia, since 1990 director of the Spanish Compania Nacional de Danza, looks back on an oeuvre of 52 ballets. Educated at Rambert Ballet School in London, at Béjart´s Mudra School in Brussels and at Alvin Ailey´s New York based Dance Center, he started as a dancer with the Cullberg company in Stockholm and was there picked up by Jiri Kylián for the Netherland´s Dance Theatre. Duato created his first ballet for the company in 1984 and had his break-through as a choreographer in 1992 with “Jardi  Tancat,” a work for three couples based on Catalan songs. For the Bach anniversary of 2000 he was commissioned by the city of Weimar, where Bach had spent some of the happiest years of his life as an organ-player and concert-master at the Court Chapel, to create with his Spanish dancers a Bach-ballet, which was premiered there under the title “ Diversity. Forms of  Silence and Emptiness” ( its Spanish original title read “Multiplicad. Formas de silencio y vacio”) and became an international hit, produced recently by the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet and on December 23 by the Bavarian State Ballet at the Munich National Theatre.

Neumeier's new "Orpheus"

“Orpheus”
Hamburg Ballet
Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg, Germany
December 6 and 8, 2009

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2009 by Horst Koegler

June 24,1962 proved a Red Letter Day for the German ballet scene. That was the day of the Hamburg Stravinsky Festival in honor of the composer’s 80th birthday. Stravinsky had been invited by Rolf Liebermann, General Manager of the Hamburg Opera House, to present an all-Stravinsky ballet-programme, consisting of “Apollon musagète”, “Orpheus” and “Agon”, performed by soloists of the New York City Ballet and members of the Hamburg State Opera Ballet. It was a glorious event that set the barre for the further development of ballet in Germany, just recovering from the wounds the country had suffered during the Second World. Such was the success, that the New York City Ballet on its first tour to the Soviet Union was invited back to Hamburg for the autumn, performing six Balanchine ballets: “Raymonda Variations”, “Liebeslieder Walzer”, “La Valse”, “Episodes”, “Four Temperaments” and “Symphony in C”. By that time, German ballet was inflected with the Balanchine virus, which spread from Hamburg to the many opera-ballet companies operating in Germany, with Stuttgart just emerging as its number one address, after John Cranko had been appointed artistic director of the Stuttgart State Opera Ballet the year before. At that time Liebermann, a personal friend of Stravinsky, was still hoping that he might accept a commission to compose a third ballet to complete a trilogy, based upon classical Greek myths.

Christopher Wheeldon's American “Swan Lake“ conquers the Continent

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 Koegler
copyright@ 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.

Like a Marc de Champagne from Switzerland's Top Chocolatier

A Third “Raymonda” at the Zurich Opera-House
The Zurich Ballet
Zürich Opera-House
October 31, 2009-11-04

by Horst Koegler
copyright @2009 by Horst Koegler

It is already Zurich´s third production of "Raymonda“ –- after Rudolf Nureyev´s brillant staging of 1972 with Marcia Haydée in the title-role and Nureyev as Jean de Brienne, both at that time 34 years old (and the unforgotten Gabriel Popescu as Abderakhman) –- and after Bernd Robert  Bienert´s version of 1993, dominated by the Italian star-architect Aldo Rossi´stage-design rather than by any Petipa-ambitions. The new Zurich “Raymonda 3rd” represents an entirely different approach, lovingly staged by Heinz Spoerli, with assistance by the Petipa-specialist Sandor Nemethy from Budapest. It materialized on October 31 at the Zurich opera-house, unanimously acclaimed for its musical splendour under Mikhail Jurowski´s electrifying direction, and its smashing dancing potency as it was performed by the soloists and corps de ballet members of the company.