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Like Water Lilies on an Édouard Manet Pont

Martin Schläpfer choreographs Schubert´s “Trout Quintet”
plus Balanchine´s “Four Temperaments” and Mats Ek´s “Aluminium”
Ballet on the Rhine
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf Opera-House. Germany
December 11, 2010
 
by Horst Koegler
copyright by Horst Koegler

 After Zurich´s start of the 2010 season with Heinz Spoerli´s "Death and the Maiden”, set to Schubert's string quartet in d-minor, D 810, Düsseldorf followed suit with Martin Schläpfer's “Trout  Quintet”, choreographed to Schubert´s quintet in A major, D 667. A coincidence? Both choreographers are Swiss, Spoerli of 1940 vintage, Schläpfer born in 1959; both belong to the fraternity of Balanchine impregnated neoclassicists; and both are motivated by music running through their arteries. Schläpfer, is now in his second season as ballet director of the Dusseldorf company, while Spoerli reigns in Zurich since 1996. Both are experienced choreographers of chamber-music works. Spoerli did the  superb “Lettres intimes” to Janacek´s eponymous string quartet last season, while Schläpfer choreographed a gem of a ballet to Ligeti´s string quartet (when he was still in charge of the Mainz company) in 2005. Both pieces could not be more different – but both succeed in their unique way.

Ravel: An Orgy of Musical Lightning

Joerg Mannes: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
Terence Kohler: Daphnis and Chloe
Bavarian State Ballet
National Theatre,
Munich, Germany
November 21, 2010
 
by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler
 
Since its 1912 premiere at the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev Paris season, Maurice Ravel's Symphonie chorégraphique "Daphnis and Chloe“ has attracted top conductors in its many  productions and even more often for its concert-programmes all over the world.It's all the more astonishing then that the programme of Samedi, 8 June, when it was first given at the Théâtre du Châtelet, did not even mention the name of its conductor: the then 37-year-old Pierre Monteux (who was also in charge when “Sacre du printemps” bowed one year later). Unlike some other Diaghilev commissioned works for his company –   “Firebird”, “Petrushka” and “Sheherazade” - “Daphnis and Chloe”, first choreographed by Fokine, has never entered the ´canon´ of  model productions in its later revivals. Probably the staging that survived longest in the repertory is Frederick Ashton´s for the then  Sadler´s Wells Ballet, first seen in 1951. My personal favourite version is the one John Neumeier created for his Frankfurt company in 1972, starting with the excursion of a school class of 1912 to the Mediterrenean island of Lesbos, during which a boy daydreams the pastoral story of Longos. It had to wait, though, for eleven years to reveal its full musical splendour when Lorin Maazel conducted it with the Vienna Philharmonic in the pit (and the State Opera Chorus backstage) for Neumeier´s revival in 1983 at the Vienna State Opera (double-billed with his “Firebird”).

A Kaleidoscope of Styles

Wayne McGregor's  “Yantra”, John Neumeier´s “Fratres” and Jorma Elo's “Red in 3.”
Stuttgarter Ballett
Stuttgart Opera House
Stuttgart, Germany
September 28, 2010
 
by Horst Koegler
copyright by Horst Koegler
 
On September 28 the Stuttgart Ballet opened its 50th anniversary season with a triple programme, demonstrating its fantastic stylistic scope. Every single one of the three pieces was in mint condition,  performed by dancers who seemed to have just returned from holidays, spent, not by lazing around at fashionable beaches, but by attending master-classes by top-pedagogues all over the world. They were accompanied by the Stuttgart Staatskapelle under its regular conductor James Tuggle.

A Kurt Weill Alternative to the “Nutcracker”

“Zaubernacht”
Nina Kurzeja & Ensemble
Theaterhaus
Stuttgart, Germany
September 2, 2010
 
by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler
 
Want to get rid off the prayer wheel litanies of the annual “Nutcracker” ritual? There is some help for you! It is called “Magic Night” and proved to be one of the top events of the recent Stuttgart Music Festival, where it scored an unanimous success. It is of 1922 vintage, when it receivd its first performance under the German title “Zaubernacht”, a couple of days before X-mas at the Berlin Theater am Kurfürstendamm, as a ´Children´s Pantomime in one act´, concocted  by the Russian emigré writer, librettist and theatre-impresario Wladimir Boritsch and the young and hopeful composer Kurt Weill, then a just 22 years old fledgling student with Ferruccio Busoni at the Berlin State Academy of Arts. It was conducted  by George Weller, directed by Franz Ludwig Hörth, the leading man of the Berlin State Opera and regisseur of the forthcoming Alban Berg “Wozzeck”, with choreography  by Mary Zimmermann, performed by dancers from her local school.

Dances at a Swiss Gathering

The Zurich Ballet Opens the New Season with works by Heinz Spoerli and Hans van Manen
Van Manen´s “Solo“ sandwiched between Spoerli´s “Nocturnes” and “Death and the Maiden” The Zurich Ballet
Zurich Opera House
Zurich, Switzerland
August 28, 2010

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler
 
 
Gradually the balance sheet of Heinz Spoerli´s artistic direction of the ballet at the Zurich opera-house is approaching its end. Together with general manager Alexander Pereira, Spoerli, who last month became 70, will leave the rather small but cosy opera-house at Lake Zurich after the 2011/12 season. He has reigned there for now fifteen years and built the company and its repertory which is today regarded as one of the top of German, Austrian and Swiss opera-based troupes.

Attempt at a Balance Sheet of the German Dance Season 2009/10

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler
 

 

At the end of the century´s first decade, the German dance scene, though not without the compulsion of tightening its belt, resembles a beehive of dancing activities – both on the traditional ballet oriented and the dance-theatre sector.

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.