I was lucky enough to see Lesson (Enetime) with Johan Kobborg on Friday and Nikolay Tsiskaridze on Sunday, having seen it a few years ago in Copenhagen with Nikolaj Hübbe. I skipped Angel's performance on Saturday, I could not imagine him in this role, from Giannina's post it looks like I was mistaken.
Alina was the perfect student, not just a great dancer and the ideal physical type (young and delicate) for the part, she displayed a full range of emotion -- enthusiasm, apprehension, fatique, competitiveness, dedication, and fear (romantic love was simply not in the script). There was even some slapstick.
I preferred Johan as the lovesick Faun to Johan as the lecherous teacher. His dancing was supurb in both, but in the Lesson ("Enetime" in Danish) his character seemed two dimensional and was more comical than menacing. Nikolay was the most convincing, great dancing, but you could see and even feel his inner torment, at the beginning somehat obscured by insecurity and at the end overcome with shock.
After returning home, I found a TV trailer for Enetime, which I had downloaded several years ago from the Royal Danish website. The trailer inlcluded a couple of minutes of interview (in Danish, which I don't understand) with Hubbe, and a few clips of his rehearsal and peformance in Enetime. A great performance technically, and quite credible emotionally, but somewhat cold in comparision with Nikolay.
So I can count three recent performances of a forty year old classic (four including Angel, which I did not see), all very different, all quite satisfying, which just goes to show that there is still plenty of life left in Flindt's choreography, and that this will continue to challenge (and satisfy) dancers and audiences for generations to come.
As to the new works on the program (5 world premieres) I have little to add to the other reviewers in this forum, other than to say that each piece was even more rewarding when seen a second time, and that each piece was completely different from the others. All in all, a well constructed program that all concerned should be proud of.
PS
There was a photographer from the Orange County Register at the Sunday performance who was taking hundreds of photos with two different comeras, each with a huge lens. He tells me some of these should be appearing in Tuesday's paper, and will probably also be available for sale on the paper's website.
PPS
There is an honest and incitefull review of Thursday's performance at http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/enter...cle_1005396.php
Also some rehearsal gossip and photos at
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/enter...icle_993952.php
and
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/enter...icle_994027.php
(If the link is corrupted, search for Kobborg)
