Piotr Stanczyk Retiring in November 2023

[Helene]

From the Ludwig van newsletter:

https://www.ludwig-van.com/toronto/2023/02/03/scoop-national-ballet-principal-dancer-piotr-stanczyk-retire-november-2023/?ct=t(RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN)&mc_cid=8780c56d98&mc_eid=170c6ba80f

 

Hope Muir, Joan and Jerry Lozinski Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada, has announced that Principal Dancer Piotr Stanczyk will retire in November 2023 after 25 years with the company. He will continue to perform during the winter and summer of 2023, with his final performance during the fall 2023/23 season.

“During his distinguished 25-year career with the National Ballet, Piotr has both touched and thrilled audiences with his magnetic stage presence, explosive technique and sensitivity,” said Muir in a statement. “It is my great pleasure to have watched and worked with such a nuanced and generous artist, and I am honoured to have acquired a special work, to be announced in February, in his honour for his farewell performances next November.”

Piotr also commented. “The National Ballet has been my creative home for many years, and I am so grateful for all the opportunities I have been given. This company allowed me to grow as an artist, dance so many challenging and rewarding roles and to work with the world’s greatest choreographers. I will truly miss my amazing colleagues, coaches and, of course, our wonderful audiences. I look forward to savouring these last performances and celebrating with everyone next November.”

 

There's also a link to YouTube to his part of The Men of National Ballet of Canada and list of career bullet points, ending with

Piotr Stanczyk’s farewell performances in November 2023 will be announced at a later date.

[Josette]

He was and no doubt still is a dancer of great intensity with superb concentration.  I was fortunate to see him in Wheeldon's  The Winter's Tale and as Diaghilev in Neumeier's Nijinski. 

[volcanohunter]

Stanczyk is indeed a very intense artist. Strangely, I don't have particularly strong memories of his Leontes, but I do remember his Diaghilev. He is among the finest Hilarions I've seen. He was sensational as Neumeier's Stanley Kowalski. I remember a Sleeping Beauty in which he and Sonia Rodriguez saved a fish dive that was about to go south. But I have a particularly strong memory of an Onegin with Greta Hodgkinson in Ottawa. Stanczyk, who'd danced Lensky most of his career, is not really a natural Onegin, and his performance wasn't refined or subtle. At that point Hodgkinson was not especially convincing in the first two acts. But her third act was thoroughly marvelous, and Stanczyk brought his Clark Gablesque power and virility to the final scene. I've seen a lot of starry Onegins in recent years, but that was the only performance that blew the roof off the theater and left me quaking at the end.

P.S. Recent National Ballet of Canada posts have made a lot of Guillaume Côté dancing Ratmansky’s Romeo, a part he originated, for the last time this season. Both Stanczyk and Côté graduated from the National Ballet School in 1998, and both of them have had very nasty injuries. So I'm inclined to think that Côté's retirement won't be that far behind.

[Helene]

Paula Citron interviewed Stancyzk on his impending retirement for the Ludwig Van newsletter:

https://www.ludwig-van.com/toronto/2023/11/08/interview-national-ballet-principal-dancer-piotr-stanczyk-talks-retirement/?ct=t(RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN)&mc_cid=029782462c&mc_eid=170c6ba80f

He's clearly a very thoughtful man.

[volcanohunter]

Michael Crabb had also interviewed Stanczyk about his forthcoming retirement.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/a-dancer-who-can-dominate-the-national-ballet-stage-just-by-walking-across-it-leaves/article_122eea4f-da6b-55a3-88de-b715e7e628bc.html

It warms the cockles of my heart that my favorite NBoC male principal directed the young Stanczyk to the National Ballet School, which ultimately led to his career with the company. 

I also remember an encounter between Stanczyk and my mother after a performance of Giselle in 2016, if it's not a violation of board rules. After complimenting his intense performance, she told him that she had missed him, because she had last seen him during the company’s final (for now) tour of western Canada in 2011. And that really got him going: It's a disgrace! How can we call it the National Ballet of Canada if it doesn't tour the nation?!!... (Nowadays the company typically gives three performances in Ottawa each year and calls it touring.)

 When it comes to the question of tights, the company has been navigating the issue of what color they ought to be rather clumsily, resulting in the bizarre spectacle of a bare-legged corps of swan maidens: like an Ivanov/Ek mash-up.