Bayadere - 17 November/31 December

[La Sylphide]

To anyone who considered watching La Bayadere while in Paris: very mixed reviews about it, so far...

Les Echos (French) : http://www.lesechos.fr/week-end/culture/spectacles/021496913989-danse-un-air-de-bayadere-a-lopera-1177210.php

La Bayadere fails to storm the Opera Bastille (English): https://bachtrack.com/fr_FR/review-bayadere-gilbert-heymann-paris-opera-ballet-november-2015

Le Figaro (French): http://www.lefigaro.fr/musique/2015/11/18/03006-20151118ARTFIG00077--la-bayadere-des-espoirs.php

[Buddy]

Saw Myriam Ould-Braham for the first time last night. She was Nikiya in La Bayadere. I thought that she was Magnificent !

The entire production had many outstanding highlights. The Shades Act was wonderful. Francois Alu as Solor was excellent.

Haven't read the reviews, but the theatre was packed and the applause was thunderous.

[miliosr]

Was there a common theme to the criticism? I thought the review in English was intriguing for saying that the "Nureyev legacy" has become like a "foreign language to the company." And that Benjamin Millepied has no interest in full-length narratives.

[Natalia]

Did anybody catch the guest performances of the Mariinsky's Kristina Shapran (Nikiya) and Kimin Kim (Solor)?

[naomikage]

I went to see two performances of POB's La Bayadere (and also one performance of the Wheeldon, McGregor and Bausch) but did not attend the Mariinsky pair's guesting. I did hear especially Kimin Kim was fabulous.

The 2 La Bayaderes, the overall quality was good but there were some problems. The first night was Heloise Bourdon and Issac Hernandez (from ENB) who replaced Yannick Bittencourt who was injured. Bourdon was very lyrical and beautiful in both her upper body and feet and had solid technique so it was really strange why she was still a Sujet. She had the strong stage presence of an etoile. Gamzatti was the very young Finnish Ida Viikinkoski and she was not good at all, had no technique, she did study at POB school but she didn't look so, there were no elegance. And she is a Coryphee (she did pass the competition and will be Sujet) People say she is a favorite of Millepied because she is not French and he wants to enhance diversity in the company. Hernandez was very warrior-like and did a fine job as a guest with great bravura double assembles, and his partnering were excellent.

The second night, Mathias Heymann was injured and replaced by Hugo Marchand who had beautiful feet and good technique that follows the POB tradition, executed brilliant leaps. (well he did not seem to have enough time for rehearsal so there were some wobbles re partnering but I am sure that would have improved in his second performance). And now Joshua Hoffalt got injured so Marchand replaced him and performed in the New Year's Eve performance too. Dorothee Gilbert was good in both acting and dancing but she is now so thin and seems to lost some of her strength. Her Shades variations were flawless though and her portrayal of NIkiya's character was very convincing. Marion Barbeau who will also be the new Sujet was beautiful but she needs more experience IMHO. Anyway I thought Gamzatti should be performed by a more high-ranked dancer. In the recording of La Bayadere, Gamzatti was danced by Elizabeth Platel.

The Kingdom of the Shades were unified and beautiful, it was strange to see Bourdon in the corps de ballet of the shades as she was Nikiya the previous performance and she also did Gamzatti in the Mariinsky guests performance. (also Hannah O'Neil was in the corps of the shades on my first performance but that should be one of her last corps de ballet roles) But the corps in the 2nd act was not so good. Both Pablo Legasa and Hugo Vigliotti were good as Fakir, and Sabrina Mallem shone in the Indian dance and also as the first shade in the corps de ballet.

So I felt the quality of Paris Opera Ballet is still high and especially the middle ranked dancers with experience are fabulous. During my stay in Paris I heard some criticism of Millepied among fans there. One thing is that he is trying to remove the hierarchy in the ranks and also abolish the promotion competition. If you see the casting of La Bayadere, you would be surprised so few Etoiles are performing in this. There were some injuries of the etoiles, namely Ludmila Pagliero, Heymann, Hoffalt, but there are some etoiles capable of performing the leads and were not casted. Gamzatti was performed by Sujets and Coryphees. IMHO the hierarchy system is an important part of POB so this seemed strange to me. Also people were complaining of BM's favoritism to certain dancers and ignoring the ones he does not like.

And the triple bill. Wheeldon's Polyphonia was danced well but I still could not understand why they brought this 2001 work to POB. Wheeldon has newer works and this is danced by many companies across the world. McGregor's new work was not really exciting although it featured many etoiｌes such as Marie Agnes Gillot, Laura Hequet, Mathieu Ganio and Jeremie Belingard. The costumes and makeup were ugly and as they had white makeup it was difficult to recognize the dancers. Pina Bausch's Sacre du Printemps, it was fairly good although lacked the brutality of Bausch. The chosen one was Letizia Galloni who is a young coryphee (and she is black) and was quite good although a little superficial. Etoiles such as Paquette, Abbagnato and Renavand were also in the performance.

[miliosr]

During my stay in Paris I heard some criticism of Millepied among fans there. One thing is that he is trying to remove the hierarchy in the ranks and also abolish the promotion competition. If you see the casting of La Bayadere, you would be surprised so few Etoiles are performing in this. There were some injuries of the etoiles, namely Ludmila Pagliero, Heymann, Hoffalt, but there are some etoiles capable of performing the leads and were not casted. Gamzatti was performed by Sujets and Coryphees. IMHO the hierarchy system is an important part of POB so this seemed strange to me.

Did Mathieu Ganio perform in La Bayadere? He is the senior most male etoile and he's only 31. I can understand male etoiles like Herve Moreau and Karl Paquette, who are on the other side of 35, opting out of it but Ganio not doing it (if, in fact, he didn't) would be perplexing.

Also people were complaining of BM's favoritism to certain dancers and ignoring the ones he does not like.

Well, all anyone in the company with eyes to see has to do is look at the casting of Millepied's manifesto, Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward, to see which way the wind is blowing in terms of casting. If I were a pure classical dancer like, say, Fabien Revillion and I saw who was getting cast over me and what kinds of semi-classical and non-classical choreographers Millepied was programming (Bausch, de Keersmaeker, McGregor, Wheeldon), I might consider touching up my resume and sending it off to Tamara Rojo in London or Kevin McKenzie in New York -- state pension or no state pension.

[naomikage]

Did Mathieu Ganio perform in La Bayadere? He is the senior most male etoile and he's only 31. I can understand male etoiles like Herve Moreau and Karl Paquette, who are on the other side of 35, opting out of it but Ganio not doing it (if, in fact, he didn't) would be perplexing.

No, Ganio did not perform in La Bayadere. As for the new McGregor piece Alea Sands, many etoiles, such as Ganio, Gillot, Hecquet (she was also in La Bayadere), and the very rarely seen Bélingard were in the cast (I heard this was a single cast this time). It does seem Ganio rarely performs in classical pieces these days. Also, it was strange about the absence of Stephane Bullion as Solor, because when the ballet was performed last time he was quite good in it and even partnered Zakharova. He was born in 1980 but I think he had the capability to do this.

Speaking about Fabien Revillion, he was performing as the Bronze Idol and he did a fine job.

And BM does express in his interviews that he does not like full length classics especially the Nureyev works. But the next season repertoire is not clear yet so we will see.

[volcanohunter]

Mathieu Ganio has never danced Solor, so I'll assume he does not consider himself suited to it.

http://www.memopera.fr/FicheArt.cfm?ArtNumInt=3933

Karl Paquette danced the part in the past, but it may be that he no longer feels up to it.

http://www.memopera.fr/FicheArt.cfm?ArtNumInt=3973

It is distressing to see how few etoiles dance in the classics now. I'm not objecting to guest artists per se, but a company this size shouldn't need them as substitutes.

[miliosr]

It is distressing to see how few etoiles dance in the classics now. I'm not objecting to guest artists per se, but a company this size shouldn't need them as substitutes.

This has been a problem for several seasons. There was that embarrassing situation several seasons ago where the POB came up short with male leads for a long Don Q run. Poor Karl Paquette ended up having to carry the company on his back by performing in a ridiculous number of shows -- something like 12-15. (I've admired him ever since for that.)

One of the problems the POB has right now is that there's a mismatch between what the male etoiles can do/want to do and the company's ability to present full-length classical ballets. Benjamin Pech is retiring this season, Jeremie Belingard only dances purely contemporary works now, and Herve Moreau and Karl Paquette are both nearing 40 and are probably happier in one acts these days. That leaves Stephane Bullion, Mathieu Ganio, Mathias Heymann and Josua Hoffalt to carry the classical load. But as it worked out with La Bayadere, Ganio has never performed in it, Bullion wasn't cast, and Heymann and Hoffalt were cast and then went down with injuries.

Presumably, the premiere danseurs should be picking up the slack but how many of them were cast as Solor? 2-3?? Even if Millepied liked the classics more than he does, the company is hard pressed at the moment to field a strong contingent of men in these top classical roles.

But then, I don't have a great sense of what Millepied wants the company to be. The world's foremost and richest contemporary dance company? A neoclassical ballet company in the manner of the New York City Ballet? A classical ballet company with a very traditional repertory? The one thing I do have a great sense of is that a steady diet of Bausch/de Keersmaeker/McGregor/Wheeldon isn't going to help you with the classics.

[kbarber]

But then, I don't have a great sense of what Millepied wants the company to be. The world's foremost and richest contemporary dance company? A neoclassical ballet company in the manner of the New York City Ballet? A classical ballet company with a very traditional repertory? The one thing I do have a great sense of is that a steady diet of Bausch/de Keersmaeker/McGregor/Wheeldon isn't going to help you with the classics.

But surely this is not new. Brigitte Lefevre also programmed a lot of non-classical stuff: Bausch, Ek, de Keersmaeker, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Neumeier, Carolyn Carlson, etc.

[miliosr]

But surely this is not new. Brigitte Lefevre also programmed a lot of non-classical stuff: Bausch, Ek, de Keersmaeker, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Neumeier, Carolyn Carlson, etc.

Well, I might argue that Millepied is just completing the revolution that Madame started.

Seriously, though, the school is still producing talent "in the grand manner". Hugo Marchand is proof of that. And even during Madame's reign, she still programmed the Nureyev full acts and the Lacotte reconstructions, which were all very demanding of classical technique. What remains to be seen is how much Millepied sticks with the full-acts in his second season and, if he doesn't, what does that mean for the company? I don't know. The result may be wonderful and Paris may become home to the greatest contemporary dance company the world has ever seen. But it would be a shame if the classical purists in the company find themselves with less and less to dance.

[naomikage]

Millepied's choice would not be this controversial if he chose more French choreographers. But you can see that his choice is Balanchine, Robbins, his own, Justin Peck, which are all very NYCB-ish. And for the promotion competition, the majority of the dancers chose Robbins or Balanchine and the imposed pieces were Robbins. I don't understand the point of making a NYCB Paris branch here.

[mussel]

When's the premiere of the new Nutcracker? The one with several contemporary choreographers. It seems Millepied just carries on Lefevre's vision. Let's see next season programs to confirm this trend.

If a guest company is to bring a classical work like Beauty, does POB feel less compelled to schedule more classical works? Since the guest company fulfills some of the classical quotas. Is there any precedent where POB dancers guested with a guest company at their own home theater?

[silvermash]

The new Nutcracker will Premiere March 9 with only three choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock and Arthur Pita. Millepied and Scarlett have disappeared from the cast on the POB website without any announcement.

[miliosr]

The new Nutcracker will Premiere March 9 with only three choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock and Arthur Pita. Millepied and Scarlett have disappeared from the cast on the POB website without any announcement.

Interesting. Having 5 choreographers working on The Nutcracker always sounded like a disaster in the making, so I guess this is an improvement in that respect. But the POB will now have a purely contemporary Nutcracker?

[silvermash]

We will see… the idea when it was presented last year by Lissner and Millepied was to reunify Iolanta and Nutcracker as when they were created in 1892 in St Petersburg. The staging of both works is to be done by Dmitri Tcherniakov.

However, I remember Millepied said it didn't mean it would replace Nureyev Nutcracker, even when he was still involved in the project

[miliosr]

That's clever on Millepied's part. If this Nutcracker-by-committee succeeds against all odds, then he can jettison the Nureyev version. If the new version bombs, he can always say that we never had any intention of doing away with the Nureyev version.

Nice to have Nureyev as a backstop!

[silvermash]

Perhaps I should start a thread but accoding to POB website, this evening Iolanta/Nutcracker is produced by Bel Air Media and will be live in cinemas March 17 with a following broadcast on Culturebox March 19, 2016.

[bcash]

Millepied's choice would not be this controversial if he chose more French choreographers. But you can see that his choice is Balanchine, Robbins, his own, Justin Peck, which are all very NYCB-ish. And for the promotion competition, the majority of the dancers chose Robbins or Balanchine and the imposed pieces were Robbins. I don't understand the point of making a NYCB Paris branch here.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but are there many French choreographers working in the neo-classcial tradition with similar international profile and status as Wheeldon/Ratmansky? If not, and BM wanted to introduce more high-caliber neo-classical works into the rep, then he didn't have that many choices.

I'll admit that even as someone who prefers the American/English neo-classical tradition, the amount of woks by anglo choreographers seems surprisingly high. On a second thought though, none of the choreographers are new to POB. Balanchine created works for the POB himself and is, after all, the overarching figure of 20th century ballet. The works presented this season, like Theme and Variations, is probably much more "purely classical" in its language than all those full-lengths reworked by Nureyev. Robbins the POB already danced under Lefevre, and perhaps BM thought the inner theater and emotional depth of his choreography would be closer to the French neo-classical tradition, if there is one. Opus 19/The Dreamer and Goldberg Variations I feel are both great vehicles for the POB dancers. Mcgregor I never really liked and consider his works as contemporary dance en pointe, but he too, was invited to create works for the company by Lefevre. Wheeldon again is a choreographer working with the classical vocabulary whose ballets could arguably better showcase the dancers classical training than many "contemporary spectacles" the company danced in in the past.

[bcash]

Did Mathieu Ganio perform in La Bayadere? He is the senior most male etoile and he's only 31. I can understand male etoiles like Herve Moreau and Karl Paquette, who are on the other side of 35, opting out of it but Ganio not doing it (if, in fact, he didn't) would be perplexing.

Well, all anyone in the company with eyes to see has to do is look at the casting of Millepied's manifesto, Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward, to see which way the wind is blowing in terms of casting. If I were a pure classical dancer like, say, Fabien Revillion and I saw who was getting cast over me and what kinds of semi-classical and non-classical choreographers Millepied was programming (Bausch, de Keersmaeker, McGregor, Wheeldon), I might consider touching up my resume and sending it off to Tamara Rojo in London or Kevin McKenzie in New York -- state pension or no state pension.

I just got to watch the video of the broadcast of the night when CLBF, Opus 19, and Theme and Variations were performed. I thought CLBF was a very accomplished piece of work, with many brilliant passages that demonstrated both formal craft and emotional complexity. It's much more enjoyable than some of the other high-profile working choreographers' recent works and invites re-watching. More importantly I thought all the young dancers did admirably well, the dancing was fluid, musical, crisp and nuanced. A number of them showed great stage presence. If it's indicative of the quality of the dancers coming up through the ranks then I feel POB devotees should have great confidence in the company's future.

[miliosr]

are there many French choreographers working in the neo-classical tradition with similar international profile and status as Wheeldon/Ratmansky?

I don't know if you were asking this rhetorically or not but I'll give it a shot in case you wanted an actual answer.

Other than Benjamin Millepied, I can't think of another French choreographer working in the neo-classical tradition (if by neo-classical you're referencing the kind of aesthetic you would find at the New York City Ballet.) (There's also a lively debate about how culturally "French" Millepied really is given that he has lived and worked in the United States since he was a teenager. But that's a discussion for another thread.)

The prevailing trend in France seems to be in the direction of contemporary dance with plenty of opportunities available to French and non-French choreographers alike. There are choreographers interested in making dances in the classical tradition; people like the former Paris Opera Ballet (POB) etoile Jean-Guillaume Bart (who has made narrative and non-narrative pieces at the Opera and elsewhere) and the current sujet Nicolas Paul. You also have the former etoile, Kader Belarbi, who leads the Toulouse troupe and makes dances.

But the problem, as Bart pointed out ten years ago in a series of interviews, is that there are very few places left in France for classically-minded choreographers to find work. Whatever his other faults might be, Millepied has launched the choreographic training program for company members at the POB and the first four participants will show their work in 2016-17. (Whether Aurelie Dupont maintains the program remains to be seen.) There's Toulouse, where Belarbi replaced Nanette Glushak, who was neo-classically oriented (she danced at New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre.) Former POB etoile Charles Jude heads the Bordeaux troupe but I don't have a sense that he takes a lot of risks on unknown classical choreographers. Beyond those three, though, there aren't a lot of places for French classical choreographers (especially young French classical choreographers) to find work in France.

Maybe some of our French correspondents can weigh in with their own thoughts about opportunities for classical choreographers in France. You might want to look up an old thread on this board titled 'New direction for the Ballet de Marseilles' which discusses a lot of the challenges for classicism in France. Happy hunting!

[miliosr]

I would add that Madame Lefevre did try, somewhat fitfully, during her long regime to provide opportunities to Paris Opera Ballet dancers to make new works. Not only did she present Jean-Guillaume Bart's La Source and Nicolas Paul's Repliques but she also showed Kader Belarbi's Wuthering Heights and Nicolas Le Riche's Caligula. I don't know that I would classify any of the works shown as "neo-classical," though.