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Anne

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Everything posted by Anne

  1. Odinthor, I didn't read your post until today, so my reply comes a bit late, and maybe you will not see it at all, but anyway: I wasn't particularily fond of this production either and I do understand your nagging doubt whether you have seen the real thing. But if it is any consolation to you, I can tell you that also the traditional 1st act of Napoli can be a frustrating experience for a first-time audience: it has always been impossible to catch all that happens on the stage. You simply has to see the ballet many times to get the full picture! (and still you will always miss something, because the dancers improvise and change things from performance to performance).There is not more going on in this production than in the traditional one. Actually Hübbe has been very true to the over all pattern of the original, often placing the characters in the same part of the stage, just with new clothes on and maybe doing other things.
  2. The RDB is visiting the Paris Opera in January, bringing Nikolaj Hübbe's production of "Napoli" to the stage of the Palais Garniers. They perform every day from January 6 till January 10. Link to Opera National de Paris here
  3. I went to one of the last evenings of RDB’s ”Broadway for an Evening”, presenting four ballets by Jerome Robbins: two productions from last year, West Side Story Suite and The Cage, and two new ones, The Concert and Other Dances. The last one has never before been on the programme of the RDB. The title”Broadway for an Evening” is a bit of a salesman’s trick. Apart from West Side Story Suite none of the ballets has any connection whatsoever to Broadway, except that the programme as a whole is a very entertaining one. But if it is a trick to lure the audience into the theatre, it has certainly failed. The big operahouse was only half full. Pressed on the economy RDB makes a great deal of reuse in their programmes, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If done cleverly, wellknown ballets can appear in a new light when presented in a new context. This programme looked like a clever one, presenting four very different Robbins ballets, and thus demonstrating the width of his talent as a choreographer. I enjoyed the evening and I found it very interesting to see some of the older ballets by Robbins. At the same time I do understand why it didn’t make a hit with a broader audience. All four ballets have their good and interesting moments but none of them are really masterpieces, and some of them haven’t entirely survived the time travel into the new millenium. When you are dealing with a Danish audience you can’t count on any pre-existing interest in Jerome Robbins as I suppose you can in New York. You have to win them over, and that you cannot do with a programme which tends to be ”interesting” rather than catching. The Concert is a charming and elegant ballet about..., yes what is it actually about? In a light-hearted way it deals with many things – with our relations to music, to our fellow human beings and maybe to our own inner dreams. But it also deals with ballet itself and its many stereotypes. Most hilarious is the middle section where a group of dancers makes a mess of patterns and symmetries, because one of them keeps falling out. The first 20 minutes of the ballet are pure gold, but then it runs out of steam, the dancers flitting around the stage with butterfly wings for what feels like ages. It is a pity because until then it is extremely witty. Susanne Grinder was both elegant and touching as the rapturous and flirtatious ballerina, and Mads Blangstrup was a big surprise as the dull husband who tries to live out his wild dreams of love and murder behind the back of his possessive, bourgeouis wife. I hadn’t thought I should see him in that kind of slap-stick comedy, and doing it really well! But everybody did well, especially Alba Nadal caught the eye as the bespectacled girl, who is always out of step with the rest of the group and cause chaos. The Cage, Robbins’ creapy ballet about man-devouring female spiders, was a shock to the audience in the early 50’es. Today it hardly shocks anybody, and time has been especially cruel to the corps of female spiders, who look a bit ridiculous in their choreographed savagery. They provoked many subdued laughs and comments from the audience, who was clearly puzzled about what they saw. But as soon as the Novice, the newborn ”spiderwoman”, starts to dance, one is spellbound. Her solo is a choreographic stroke of genius, it is simply thrilling to see how she discovers her body, limb by limb, and later, her own self and maybe even love in the pas de deux with the second intruder. J’aime Crandall as the Novice was my second big surprise that night. I have never doubted her technical strength, but I have never been able to warm up to her. This time she took the stage with such power that you couldn’t take your eyes from her. No wonder she has just been promoted to principal. To me, though, she looks like a very modern dancer, and a bit to the cool side, and it is going to be interesting to follow her and see, if she can stretch her stage personality to cover the more traditional repertoire as well. From the gloomy universe of the Spiders to the sunny world of Other Dances is a long leap! The dances are, according to the programme note, a ”left over” from ”Dances at a Gathering”, which Robbins made 7 years earlier in 1970. Having missed Dances at a Gathering two years ago, I was happy at least to see this one. I felt like watching an American Ashton, with a similar flow to movements and a wealth of details. Thomas Lund and Alessandra Lo Sardo made a wonderfully synchrone couple. Especially Lund has the right lighthearted approach and technical ease to make this little pdd glow and sparkle in many colours. Lund ’s technical superiority enables him to play with the steps and to surprise over and over again, it looks so fresh all the time, like he just invented the steps here and now. (Gudrun Bojesen has the same artlessness in her way of dancing, and I think that is one of the reasons why they made such a good couple on stage. It is a pity that they are so seldom paired anymore. ) Lo Sardo is a very secure dancer with a strong technique, but she doesn’t have the same rapport with the audience as he does, and her style of dancing is a bit too cute and girlish to my taste. (The pdd ended with a bit of drama, as the ribbons of one of her point shoes came undone shortly before the end, but luckily nothing happened and she came safe through the last jumps and pirouettes.) The grand finale, West Side Story Suite, was the only real disappointment that night, and the disappointment has to do with the ballet itself as well as with its execution. The difficulties by turning the musical West Side Story into a ballet are apparently (and understandably) so big, that one cannot help thinking, why do it at all? It works all right, or at least tolerably, until the tragedy sets in. I can live with a sung solo, performed by a singer at the proscenium, while Tony dances his solo on the stage, and it is okay too that the dancers are backed up by 4 professional singers in the pit during the ensembles. Ballet dancers are not singers, we know that, and therefore it is okay with some help. The compensation for all that should be, that ballet dancers dance this better than show dancers who are expected to be able to both sing and dance. And in a sense they are better, but it doesn’t look the right way. Especially the male dancers can’t help looking like ballet dancers, no matter how many jeans they wear. It is just too nice and too clean to look at, no rough edges, no earthiness. Marcin Kupinski (as Tony )with his airborn style was particularily misplaced. One of the jets, though, was really convincing. A tiny dancer with the right rough style and attitude. But as the printed programme doesn’t tell who is doing the minor parts anymore, I have no idea who he was. (I hope the RDB will change this new praxis as it very frustrating for the audience and disrespectful to the dancers.) Amy Watson as Anita was another great exception from all the "niceness". She was fabulous – never thought she had so much temperament and such a fury to her movements. Wow! But I cannot live with the ending – and how we get there! I had heard that Robbins changed the ending, but I had never imagined a happy ending of these dimensions. And without any kind of transition. We jump directly from the battle scene, where Riff and Bernardo get killed, to a light-filled stage with the dancers dancing happily together to the sound of ”Somewhere” (beautifully sung by Signe Asmussen by the way). Robbins might have been facing too many difficulties when having to tell, without words, the story between those two scenes. But that again raises the question, why then doing it at all? He should have left out the story completely, like he probably did in the former version a couple of years earlier, but still, it wouldn’t make much sense.
  4. I share your enthusiams about the Cranko version, and would be happy to see it again sometime. I know that the Staatsballet Berlin is premiering it in the coming spring season and hope to be able to go there. The Zürcher Ballett had it on its repertoire in the late 80'es before Spoerli took over and created his own uninspired and extremely boring Romeo and Juliet. I had the luck to see Cranko's version in Zürich a lot of times while I lived there as a student, once even with a not-so-young-anymore Richard Cragun, the original Romeo, as a guest star. In my eyes Cranko's version is the most beautiful of all versions. His ability to create lyriscism in dancing, especially in a pas de deux, is without equal.
  5. Thank you for bringing attention to this link, it was really interesting and very informative. They have another one about the new costumes for Sleeping Beauty which is interesting too: http://www.roh.org.u...the-lilac-fairy The Royal Ballet produces many of these video features, an many of them are of high quality. I am particularily fond of those where you get a glimpse of what happens in the rehearsal room. At the moment there is a very good one with Anthony Dowell rehearsing the final scene of Swan Lake with Marianela Nuñez, Thiago Soares and Christopher Saunders. It makes you see the final product with much more awareness when you have seen, how a little detail, a prolonging of a movement or a glance in the right direction, can make a hugh difference in the final impact on the audience. Link to the Swan Lake feature video: http://www.roh.org.uk/video/ I think it is wise, in more than one aspect, to make this kind of videos, with a more educating and enlightening approach, instead of only focusing only on the purely commercial ones.
  6. I'll be seeing Ms. Grinder as the Sylph. Is her 'delicacy and refinement' perfect for it? I bet it's going to be really exquisite. Charming photos I just found: http://www.ballerinagallery.com/grinder.htm I might be too late in my answer (I haven't visited this site for a longer period and I seem to have missed out on a lot of things concerning the RDB tour - I'm a bit shocked, and sad too, that they have had such a bad start on their tour) but I think Susanne Grinder has the potential, physically as well as psychologically, to be a very exquisite Sylph. When I saw her in La Sylphide more than a year ago she still hadn't fully developed into the character, but I think that over time she will be one the great Sylphs. Maybe you have already seen her perform? (I'm not quite updated on their tour schedule.) Thank you for the link to the photos!
  7. Thank you for the tip, Joan. It is nice to be able to follow the comapny a little bit from the sideline. It is going to be very exciting to see how the tour will develope. I wish the them lots of success "over there"!
  8. I saw her in this role in Copenhagen at the last Bournonville Festival and she was sublime. Thank you, Mashinka. Of course, just because a dancer wasn't trained in a particular tradition doesn't mean she/he can't embody it. I'm really looking forward to seeing this. I can only aggree to that: she is one of the best sylphs I have ever seen. It is like it is made for her and her fragile yet strong frame. I think the part of The sylph was the one thatt trigged her to go to Denmark. It was her dream part. I myself was very surprised when I saw her the first time as the Sylph, because I had until then considered her a very modern dancer.
  9. Congratulations to Lendorf - it is indeed well deserved! Nikolaj Hübbe stated his reasons for promoting Alban Lendorf this way (my go at a translation): "At rare intervals it happens, that our art form is rewarded with a dancer of completely indisputable and invariable talent and charisma. It is a blessing to the art form, to the audience and to us here in the ballet. Such a talent and such a dancer MUST be honoured and promoted. He has already made an almost meteoric career. And he is a young, up-and-coming lion, whose dance sends everybody into raptures, and you can only sit back, gaping – and applaud." The Danish original (if anyone should wish to compare... ): "En sjælden gang imellem sker det, at vores kunstart beriges med en danser af fuldstændig uomtvistelig og ufravigelig talent og karisma. Det er lykken for kunstarten, for publikum og for os – her i balletten. Et sådan talent og en sådan danser SKAL hædres og promoveres. Han har allerede gjort nærmest kometagtig karriere. Og er en ung, fremadstormende løve, som evner at danse, så alle henrykkes, og man kun kan sidde tilbage, måbende - og klappe."
  10. I would definitely prefer, and of course that is very peresonal, to see the young rising star Alban Lendorf as Gennaro on June 11. He is interesting both as a dancer and as an actor and both is so important in that role. Both Teresinas are good, though I prefer Amy Watson, having more temperament than the delicate and refined Susanne Grinder.
  11. Eva Kistrup has written some very nice and very precise lines in her blog about Kritsoffer Sakurai on the occasion of his official resignment from the company. It is near the end of the article under the sub-headline The Lost Prince: "The lost prince"
  12. Thank you for the tip about a second transmission and for taking your time to give this accurate account of who is dancing what! It was interesting to hear about some of Hübbe's plans for the future seasons. I'm looking especially forward to seeing the Jerome Robbins programme, and also the neo-classic ballets he talked about less specifically. We are not used to see so many ballets from that era over here, and I think it is one of Hübbe's great merits that he has made us - and the company - more familiar with this kind of repertoire. (Though Aage Thordahl did a lot of this too in his short period as ballet master). I'm less keen on his plan to bring Balanchine's Nutcracker to Denmark. When I saw it with the NYCB some years ago, I was very disappointed, as I had expected something more fresh and stylish and not this sugary thing.
  13. Before their US tour in May 12 dancers from the RDB presented a sort of preview of their tour programme on the 20th and 21st of March in the little theater of the Guggenheim Museum in NY. Nikolaj Hübbe presents the programme and is interviewed about him self and about the history, style and present state of the Royal Danish Ballet. The programme takes 90 minutes, and you will se excerpts from following ballets: Bournonville Variations (adapted by Thomas Lund) Jorma Elo: Lost on slow Bournonville: Jockey Dance Bournonville: Pas de sept from A Folk Tale Bournonville: Scenes from La Sylphide Bournonville: Pas de deux from 1st act of Napoli and the Tarantella from 3rd act Have a look at all these "goodies" here: RDB at Guggenheim
  14. Still more from Nikolaj Hübbe: A long interview has been brought in the AOK guide (an internet guide to cultural life in Copenhagen): Interview (Im sorry, it is in Danish.) He is interviewed about his new production of Bournionville's "A Folk Tale", and the angle of the interview is the demons present in this ballet and the demons in his own life. He says a lot of harsh words about Danish mentality and about our bureaucratic/democratic ways of doing things, which means that everything takes a long time. In many aspects he is right, I'm afraid. He still loves the american way of reacting and acting spontaneously to things and make things happen. In Denmark it is always very important that everybody is getting heard and that you talk things through before you get to a conclusion everybody can aggree with. Very sympathetic in many ways, but it can be extremely time consuming.
  15. What sad, sad news! I had hoped to see him back, as he was one of the most exquisite dancers in the RDB. Among other qualities he has always had the most beautiful way of bearing his upper body and arms, and everything in his dancing has always been extremely graceful and pure, very pleasing to the eye. Like you, Natalia, I enjoyed his dancing during the Bournonville Festival in 2005, which was about the time he was announced principal dancer. One just wanted to see more of him! I still vividly remember a breathtaking series of battements and batteries (and what else you call the quick foot work in the Bournonville style) in the class room part of "The Conservatoire", which he did with extreme delicacy and swiftness. It is strange how such short moments can live on in one's memeory. And I still treasure some videoclips with him, among other things in the tarantel from Napoli in a transmission from the annual summer ballet event in the Copenhagen citadel. I'm really sorry for him and I hope, he will find new ways of fullfillment in life. A big thank to him for the many fine experiences he has given us, the audience, in his regrettably short career!
  16. Hilda is often given to a very young dancer, who is not in the rank of the soloists yet. And very often these dancers have later developed into great ballerinas: Kirsten Simone, Lis Jeppesen, Sorella Englund, Gudrun Bojesen among others. I think you are right about Hilary Gusweiler being in the fast track. I haven't seen much of her yet, but the smaller thing I have seen her in has been fine. I hope I will soon see more of her!
  17. As far as I know there has been a few male Muris during time, but it is not custom. Most Muris have definitely been female.
  18. Cast lists for some of the first performances of Bornonville's "A Folktale" has come up on RDB's homepage: Cast list They have produced a short video as well, where one can see some of the sets and costumes: Video I'm happy to see Lis Jeppesen cast (again) as the kind troll Viderik, parallel to Thomas Lund. Jeppesen is the most endearing Viderik, I have ever seen, only equalled by Sorella Englund, who is directing this new production in collaboration with Nikolaj Hübbe. It is exciting to see, what Thomas Lund can make of the part, too, though I'm a bit sorry that his talents are used almost totally on the comical parts with very little dancing in them. He is still such a brilliant dancer but lately one has had only a few chances to see him dance. It seems that his own interests are going more towards directing and teaching and less towards dancing. Susanne Grinder is an ideal cast as Hilda. She has a poetic and lyrical air and possesses at the same time a refreshing "modernness" in her ways, which might spice up the character. Her Sylphide promised a lot in that direction.
  19. Congratulations to all five! They are all very capable dancers, though I have no very clear impression of J'aime Crandall, whom I havent' had the luck to see in any larger part. I'm especially happy to see Alexander Staeger on the list, he has long been an obvious choice. A good actor and an expressive dancer.
  20. Danish national television (Channel 1: DR1) brings a two part documentary about the Royal Danish Ballet, focusing especially on the School. Part 1 is scheduled for Wednesday Feb. 9 at 20.00 and Monday Feb. 14 at 12.50 (pm), Part 2 for Wednesday Feb. 16 at 8 o'clock (pm). Both part 1 and 2 take 1 hour each. Programme description (in Danish)
  21. Far from droppping it, the Danes are very proud of it - it is one of only three ballets enshrined in their official 'cultural canon'! When I saw them do it 3 or 4 years ago I found it rather less exaggerated than for instance the Royal Ballet version, and they had some very convincing dancers - though of course that makes it even more horrifying. (Actually I've been told that some Danes think it's a comedy.) Yes,we are very fond of it in Denmark, and one of its greatest assets is the music (not Danish I’m sorry to say), which I think is absolutely thrilling. I must admit, that I haven't yet met anyone who thought it was just a comedy in the more harmless sense of the word. What appeals to the Danish sense of humour might be the absurdity and the grotesque quality of the ballet. The original source of the ballet is Ionesco's one-act play "La leçon", a famous example of absurd theatre, and therefore the ballet shouldn't be performed in a too realistic manner. It must be performed with some artistic distance and irony, or else it will end up being just a "shabby little shocker", like Puccini’s opera ”Tosca” was once called by a critic. The ballet is, admitted, far more macabre than Ionesco's play. Ionesco's play is immensely funny in all its horror because of his absurd play with words, but dance hasn't that same metaphoric power. Body language is less ambiguous, and therefore the murder becomes more realistic and, yes, more unpleasant, than in the play. It is possible to watch two very different Danish performances of the ballet on the internet right now. On youtube you can see the ballet chopped into 5 parts with Gudrun Bojesen and Johan Kobborg. It is the performance from the official celebration of the "cultural canon", which Jane mentioned above. And on the homeplage of the Danish National Broadcasting you will find an older version with Flemming Flindt himself and Anne Marie Vessel. The latter is the far more scaring of the two!: (not complete - the beginning misses)Danish Radio: The Lesson
  22. Thank you for the tips! I visited the Blueballet blog at once, but I couldn't find any pictures from Sleeping Beauty. Maybe they are among the deleted photos - there has apparently been a break down of the platform.
  23. I found two copies of the book on this Danish antiquarian homepage (follow the link!): Danseglæde og springkraft You could try and see, if they will post it overseas! Good luck!
  24. The RDB has launched a new short video before the premiere of Sleeping Beauty starring Alban Lendorf and Gudrun Bojesen. The voice belongs to Nikolaj Hübbe, who tells in a "fairy tale style" about the young man Alban, who has been chosen by the ballet master to dance the prince in Sleeping Beauty toghether with the most beautiful ballerina, Gudrun, and who is therefore very happy. The costumes look gorgeous! video
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