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Stuck in His Narccisstic Cul-de-sac: Vladimir Malakhov as Percy Shelley in Patrice Bart´s ballet “The Flaming Heart”

"The Flaming Heart"
State Ballet Berlin
Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Berlin
June 20, 2009

by Horst Koegler
copyright@ 2009 by Horst Koegler

“Percy Who? That was the unanswered question which seemed written on the face of many a dumbfounded Berlin ballet-fan, when the Berlin State Ballet announced as its latest premiere „The Flaming Heart“, with Percy Shelley as its protagonist. Wolfgang (Goethe) or Friedrich (Schiller) might have been OK. But Percy? With that, for a foreigner, unpronouncable second Christian name Bysshe?  Hardly ever heard of! 

And so they had to wait for the programme book to be informed that he lived  from 1792 through 1832 and is considered one of the most important British poets of the romantic age. And there they could also read that he came from a noble family, studied at Oxford and became one of the most debated free thinkers of his time, an agnostic and anarchist, and, first of all, a notorious womanizer, who seduced his ladies by the dozen, married them, left them, drove them into suicide, while, maybe, loving even more his bosom friend, Jefferson Hogg, if not his poet pal Lord Byron. And there they could also read that he spent his last years in Italy and got ship-wrecked on a sailing spree, after which his corpse was washed ashore, to be finally burnt at the stake, but his heart refused to catch fire and thus blazed as filthy smoke to heaven.

With a Whiff of Nostalgia

Uraufführung 2009
Pina Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal after their return from Chile
Opernhaus Barmen
Wuppertal,
June 20, 2009 (performance – first night was June 12)

by Horst Koegler
copyright @ 2009 by Horst Koegler

Compared to its fellow Iberians of Argentina and Brazil, Chile´s contribution to the history of world ballet has been rather meager. Actually its longest entry in the ´Theatrical Dance´ section of the country´s appearance in the ´International Encyclopedia of Dance´ deals with the exile existence of the Ballets Jooss under the direction of Ernst Uthoff, which dates from the 1940 season, later growing via the school, established by Uthoff into the Ballet Nacional Chileno. touring the country and abroad,  with Uthoff´s wife Lola Botka and Patricio Bunster as its top-stars. Later on the Santiago born Lupe Serrano became one of the most popular ballerinas of American Ballet Theatre, but her influence on the dance scene of her home country was nil. Michael, son of Ernst Uthoff, another home-grown Chilean product, made it to the states, studied at Juillard, started his career as a dancer with Joffrey and became the artistic director of the Hartford Ballet Company, but never looked back to his roots. Short  attempts at forming an indigenous Chilean company, for instance under the Hungarian Ivan Nagy or, during the early ´nineties under Marcia Haydée, proved too short-lived, to develop an identity of its own. So Chile remained until today, dance-wise, a country to come and go.

The Enigma Opens Vistas of a Future Art

Hamburg Honors Nijinsky both on stage and with the most extensive exhibition of his paintings
John Neumeier: “Nijinsky” and “Dance of Colours – Nijinsky´s Eye and Abstraction”
Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier at the Opera-House and Hamburger Kunsthalle
Hamburg
May 19, 2009

by Horst Koegler
copyright @2009 by Horst Koegler

On May 19, 2009, at 20.05 p.m., John Neumeier told the 1674 visitors of  the capacity filled Hamburg Opera House, that exactly 100 years ago ballet had entered the Modern Age with the debut of Diaghilev´s Ballets Russes at the Paris Théâtre du Châtelet – that is one hundred years minus thirty minutes, for the Paris performance had started half an hour later. For Hamburg it meant the 90th performance of Neumeier´s ballet “Nijinsky” since its premiere on 2nd July 2000 – 16 months prior to that fatal New York date of September 2001.

In the Wake of Dante´s "Divina commedia" and Kafka´s “Metamorphosis”

In the Wake of Dante´s "Divina commedia“ and Kafka´s “Metamorphosis”

For the 20th anniversary of the Bavarian State Ballet Jirí Kylián choreographed “Zugvögel” (“Migration Birds”) as Danzas apocalypticas

Bavarian State Ballet
National Theatre
Munich, Germany
May 3, 2009

by Horst Koegler
copyright @ 2009 by Horst Koegler

Studying in the ballet classes of the Prague conservatory with the highly venerated former Czech ballerina Zora Semberová (Prokofiev´s first Juliet in the 1938 Brno first performance of “Romeo and Juliet”), Jirí Kylián (born in 1947) and Ivan Liská (of 1950 vintage) were lucky enough to escape Czechoslovakia just before the Communist political powers crashed what had so hopefully begun as  the “Prague Spring” of 1968 to study with a scholarship at the London Royal Ballet School. From there they progressed to their first professional engagements in Germany – with Kylián joining the young company John Cranko was just establishing at Stuttgart, while Liska started with the Düsseldorf company, from where he went to Munich, to finally being engaged as a principal by John Neumeier in Hamburg, becoming soon his first protagonist, creating dozens of roles from “St. Matthew Passion” through Peer Gynt. Kylián started to choreograph in Stuttgart, proceeding to The Hague, building the Netherland´s Dans Theatre together with Hans van Manen into one of the most creative troupes of the continent – later adding the NDT II for young dancers on the brink of their career, and even later the NDT III for a group of seniors in their early sixties. With the 1999/2000 season Kylián relinquished his directorial obligations, but continues to choreograph as a freelancer and thus was able to accept an invitation by his former pal Liska, who is now in his tenth year as artistic director of the Munich based Bavarian State Ballet. Following in the footsteps of its founding director Konstanze Vernon, Liska has honed it into Germany´s number one classically based company with an admirable repertory of Petipa classics, not only the three Tchaikovskys plus “Don Quixote” and “Raymonda”, but also a beautifully crafted “La Bayadère” and the highly entertaining “Le Corsaire”. 

A Family Affair

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”?

Heinz Spoerli: A Ballet-Man of All Seasons

March 21, 2009

The Swiss Heinz Spoerli receives the German Dance Prize 2009 at the Essen Aalto Music Theatre.
In addition Marijn Rademaker, Principal Dancer of the Stuttgart Ballet, is the recipient of the German Dance Price ´Future´

by Horst Koegler
copyright @2009 by Horst Koegler

It is a bit like the General Meeting of the United Nations in New York. The place, however, is not Manhattan, but Essen, capital of the German Rhine-Ruhr industrial district (and home of the famous Folkwang School of Arts, established  some eighty years ago under the directorship of the legendary Kurt Jooss, creator of the “Green Table”).

Celebration for Uwe Scholz

Dancing Merrily Along Four Years After His Death
Stuttgart, Leipzig and Zurich Celebrate Uwe Scholz at his 50th Birthday

Opera-House
Stuttgart, Germany
December 31. 2008

by Horst Koegler
copyright @2008 by Horst Koegler

For a choreographer who died at age 46, Uwe Scholz left an enormous oeuvre, having created ballets almost in perpetuum mobile style for companies all over Europe, among them Stuttgart Ballet, Ballet de Monte-Carlo, La Scala di Milano, Vienna State Opera, Royal Swedish Ballet, Maggio Musicale Ballet as well as for the Zurich, Leipzig and Frankfurt opera-houses. Now the Stuttgart Ballet decided to celebrate his 50th birthday on December 31 with a 2008 New Year´s Eve gala by inviting the Leipzig and Zurich companies, of which he had been artistic director, to join Stuttgart for a triple gala-programme, which turned out an unanimous success.

In the Wake of Diaghilev

"100 Years Ballets Russes"
Mikhail Fokine, "Shéhérazade”, Bronislava Nijinska, “Les Biches”, Terence Kohler, “Once Upon An Ever After”
Bavarian State Ballet
National Theatre
Munich, Germany
December 11, 2008

by Horst Koegler
copyright @2008 by Horst Koegler

 Of the four opera-house based German Ivy League ballet-companies in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart, the Bavarian State Ballet, for ten years now led by Ivan Liska as artistic director, ranks as the most traditionally minded one. No wonder as it boasts no less than seven full-length Petipas (the three Tchaikovskys plus “La Bayadère”, “Don Q”,  “Raymonda” and “Le Corsaire” –  maybe even eight, if one adds the Petipa-derived “Giselle”).  Thus solidly anchored, Liska decided to celebrate the Diaghilev anniversary by a programme entitled “100 Years Ballets Russes”, offering Fokine´s “Shéhérazade” and Nijinska´s “Les Biches” – both in new productions, plus, in the best of Diaghilev tradition, a creation, “Once Upon An Ever After” by the 24 years old Australian newcomer Terence Kohler.  It turned out a huge success, showing the company in festive fettle, with all performances sold out.

Where genius and crime meet

Mauro Bigonzetti, “Caravaggio”
State Ballet Berlin
Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Berlin
December 9, 2008

by Horst Koegler
copyright @ 2008 by Horst Koegler

From the ancient friezes of the Grotte de Lascaux through the paintings of contemporary abstract expressionists there runs an uninterrupted chain of art objects, paintings, sculptures and engravings that have inspired choreographers through the centuries. And since Diaghilev, just about one hundred years ago, visual artists of all kinds – including even architects – have become creative collaborators of dance-makers all over the world – to think only of  Bakst, Picassso or Matisse as far as ballet is concerned or of Schlemmer and his Bauhaus colleagues through Rauschenberg, Warhol and Stella among the avantgardists. But while composers have occasionally been portrayed in ballets – most often this has happened to Tchaikovsky, but there have also been biographical ballets on Mozart and even Wagner – I remember hardly a danced portrait of one of the great painters – no Dürer, no Rembrandt, no Raphael – only those who have themselves concentrated on dance studies have occasionally been treated as subjects of ballets: Degas, of course, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Matching the Architectural Splendours of the House

Dresden SemperOper Ballett
Semper Oper
Dresden, Germany
“La Bayadère”

by Horst Koegler
copyright@2008 by Horst Koegler

 Dresden, former residence of the Saxon electors and part time kings of Poland, now capital of the State of Saxony, is considered  the Florence of the Elbe because of its lovely geographical situation in the valley of one of Germany´s legendary rivers, and its architecture and art treasures. Completely devastated by Allied bombing during the Second World War, the city is still in the process of rebuilding, but its famous silhouette has been restored and attracts now thousands of tourists from all over the world – among them the famous Semperoper, the theatre where Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner reigned as music directors and many operas by Richard Strauss had their first performance. In many ways it could also be called the St. Petersburg on the banks of the Elbe river – in that case the Semperoper might be compared to the Mariinsky Theatre, matching its splendour as one of the most beautiful and tenderly loved theatres of the world. Alas, there the comparison ends, for it is opera which reigns as number one, while the ballet has always played second fiddle.