Letter
from Copenhagen
The Third Bournonville Festival
Opening
night:
“La Ventana” and “The Kermesse in Bruges”
by
Eva Kistrup
copyright
©2005 by Eva Kistrup
[Editor's note: Eva Kistrup covers the Royal Danish Ballet for Danceview magazine; her interview with the great Danish dancer Arne Villumsen appeared in our Winter issue. She will be reporting regularly from this week's Festival in Copenhagen. Please check back often for new pieces. Readers may also want to check the official web site for the Bournonville Festival, which has lots of background information on the ballets and on Bournonville.]
Danish
Ballet tradition is spelled and pronounced August Bournonville. Born in
1805, the son of the Ballet Master of the Royal Danish Ballet, and educated
in Paris, he became the dominant figure of 19th century ballet in Copenhagen
and the creator of a large number of ballets that miraculously have survived,
whereas most of the romantic ballets of the Paris opera have been totally
forgotten. Bournonville was here, there and everywhere in Europe. He created
his own version of “La Sylphide,” saw the general rehearsal
of “Giselle,” knew Richard Wagner very well and directed his
operas. He left a heritage of ballets and a dancing style that has ever
since been the background of The Royal Danish Ballet.
In 1979, balletmaster Henning Kronstam produced the first Bournonville Festival. It was a revelation that showed the world not only what a fine and multifaceted choreographer August Bournonville was but also The Royal Danish Ballet as a unique group of dancers and dance actors, with individual dancers on a world class level. It fully demonstrated the richness and value of a tradition stretching back more that 150 years and explained how such a small country could produce so many outstanding male dancers.
The second Bournonville Festival in 1992 could not help being a pale imitation of the first. The new productions were not particularly good, some of the legacy productions had lost their sparkle. Dancers seemed less assured of their heritage, and in spite of a few individual stars, it looked like the Bournonville tradition was on a downward slope. It was difficult to pinpoint directors of talent. The ballets were either too nitty gritty, directed with too much reverence to history and too little attention to the theatrical side, or painted with a large brush and little understanding of their complexity.
After the Festival, from being on a downward slope, the company took a full tumble. Following Frank Andersen’s first tenure as Ballet Master, which had actually included some fine productions, like Cranko’s “Onegin” and Helgi Tomasson’s staging of “The Sleeping Beauty,” the management board of The Royal Theatre decided to go for an internationalisation of the company and chose Peter Schaufuss as Andersen’s successor. Schaufuss’s reign was short and unfortunate, and he was followed by a string of other poorly judged appointments; the RDB had four ballet masters in six years. Finally, in a surprise move, Frank Andersen was reinstated; this has given the company some calm and a strategy aimed to position the RDB as the world’s leading story telling ballet company. This time around, Frank Andersen is a much more careful ballet master. Gone is his mantra on concentrating on the younger dancers. Gone is the tendency to put inexperienced dancers on in larger parts without proper rehearsal and little consideration for their technical ability to do the part. Looking at the RDB today, it is a company dominated by an experienced (and very talented) group of dancers in their thirties: Silja Schandorff, Rose Gad, Christina Olsson, Caroline Cavallo, Gitte Lindström and Gudrun Bojesen on the female site and Kenneth Greve, Mads Blangstrup, Thomas Lund together with imports Andrew Bowman and Jean Lucien Massot in the male wing. The soloist category includes no dancers under 23 and the supporting parts are shared by a small group of dancers. The hierarchy is back and people have to wait their turn almost to a fault, actually.
Compared to the second Bournonville Festival the third one has been well
prepared. There have been investments in new productions, even of ballets
which are only presented in a festival year. The key question is has the
RDB been able to find the directors who can carry the mantle of Henning
Kronstam and Hans Brenaa, who together with Kirsten Ralov directed the
bulk of the first festival
“The
Kermesse in Bruges”
The
centrepiece of the opening night program of the 2005 Festival was a new
production of “The Kermesse in Bruges” by Lloyd Riggins, which
had been given its premiere on May 21, 2005; this was its fourth performance.
As Riggins was more or less promised the job as Ballet Master after Frank
Andersen, when Andersen was reinstated three years ago, his production
of “Kermesse in Bruges” was eagerly anticipated as a test
of whether he could deliver the goods as director on the same level he
did as a very popular dancer, before he defected to John Neumeier and
the Hamburger Ballet approximately ten years ago during the short reign
of Peter Schaufuss. Unfortunately his years as a Hamburg principal in
the Neumeier repertoire seems to have made more impression on him than
his tenure at the Royal Danish Ballet, and what he chose to present was
a Neumeieresque take on a Bournonville classic. Not an appealing sight.
Riggins’ take on “The Kermesse in Bruges” has passed
through the John Neumeier grinder for updating a ballet. And indeed the
first act especially was full of Neumeieresque effects, like turning the
slovanka dancers into a band of jesters. For preparation Riggins has spent
time in Bruges trying to capture the feeling of the city to bring into
his version, but apparently no one had explained to him, that Bournonville
had no relation to Bruges, nor had he any intention of creating a piece
about Bruges. What Bournonville wanted was to use Flemish paintings as
backdrop for a light comedy. The story is a simple fairytale: three brothers
are given, respectively, a magic sword, which can defeat anyone in battle;
a magic ring, which makes every woman he meets fall in love with its owner;
and, to the youngest brother, the simplest and most important gift: a
magic fiddle that makes people dance.
Riggins is very well aware of the great 1978 version by Hans Brenaa with costumes by Lars Juhl; he had danced the role of Carelis as handed down from Ib Andersen, Brenaa's original Carelis. The Brenaa version was the toast of the first Bournonville Festival, an elegant, witty and extremely well cast ballet with Ib Andersen, Mette-Ida Kirk, Niels Kehlet and Kirsten Simone leading a perfect cast. It might be matched but it could not be bettered. But after the original cast outgrew their parts, it became difficult for the company to maintain the high level and suddenly the ballet lost its sparkle. An attempt to change “Kermesse” but keep the costumes failed. That production, by Dinna Bjørn shown during the Bournonville Week in 2000, was built on an effort to bring out the darker and deeper content of the work.
So
enter Riggins and scenographer Rikke Juellund. Like the last attempt,
Riggins tries to downplay the comedy. He also tries to simplify the glamour,
a fine theory but forgets that “Kermesse” does not deliver
substance, but style and details, and when you cut down on those, there
is little left. The pale colours makes it difficult for the main characters
to register, especially in contract to the noisy red slovanka dancers.
Neither do pastel-clad noblemen register when hiding in the back wings.
From the best intentions, Riggins deals his cast a very difficult hand.
He is not alone in his wish to distance himself from the successful Brenaa
production. In the catalogue entry in the current exhibition on Bournonville
costumes, Anne Marie Vessel is critical of the opulence of the 1978 Brenaa/Juhl
production, but like Riggins misses the point that the steps demand volume.
When Trutje parades her daughters downstage, you need three full skirts
to build the picture, but now you have a small long shirt and two 1950
styles suits and it neither registers, nor helps the dancers make standout
characters.
I
cannot help compare Riggins’ strategy to Nicolaj Hübbe’s.
Hübbe respects the tradition and builds on it in his production of
“La Sylphide” (which will be presented later this week); Riggins
wants to challenge the tradition, but has little to offer other than turning
the ballet into a copycat Neumeier work. Riggins has however reinstated
some of the elements from the Brenaa version, including the pas de deux
and divertissements attributed to Gustave Carey, a contemporary of Bournonville.
Unfortunately Riggins and Rikke Juellund decided to dress the divertissement
à la greque, which means that the soloist (Caroline Cavallo) and
her corps were made to wear tunics that made them look like the chubby
dancers of the late 19th century captured in silent films, and Andrew
Bowman struggled with the elegant and difficult male variation in white
bicycle pants and a pleated shirt. This and, I am sorry to add, the costumes
for the leading couple Carelis and Eleonora, danced by Kristoffer Sakurai
and Susanne Grinder at the Festival opening night, made it very difficult
to present beautiful classical Bournonville dancing. This latter pair
could really have used the help of a well made costume to sell an earnest
but not totally brilliantly danced Pas de Deux.
It may be said that “Kermesse” shares traits with “Klodshans,” a fairy tale by Bournonville’s friend and contemporary H.C Andersen, but the naïve character should not be Carelis but his brother Geert. However, Rikke Juellund has dressed Carelis as the country lad. Thomas Lund reprised his finely tuned Geert, but is as little helped by the costumes as the rest. There is no visible difference in the costumes he wears before and after the change in his social fortunes. Christina Olsson is the rich widow who falls for his magically improved charms; it’s a downplayed character, and again you really miss the tours de force of the Brenaa version.
After the performance the applause was limited, but was raised when Frank Andersen and RDB's director Michael Christiansen came onstage and appointed Kristoffer Sakurai to principal dancer. There has probably been little doubt that Sakurai would become the next male principal, but I could have wished it had happened on a night where he was dancing on top of his game instead of after a somewhat lacklustre performance. I would not be surprised if Sakurai's alternate Carelis, David Kupinsky, gets his place in the soloist category.
"La Ventana"
The
evening had opened with “La Ventana,” but although the decor
was striking I could not help noticing that the title prop of the ballet
“La Ventana” (the Window) was strangely missing. The Décor
was heavily inspired by Spanish painting and the senorita must be from
a wealthy family, as her boudoir included several paintings by Goya. “La
Ventana” has not been presented since the early 1980s and it is
a welcome return, but as directed by Frank Andersen and Eva Kloborg, too
much effort is put on quantity rather than quality of the movements. Gitte
Lindstrøm is capable but not outstanding as the senorita; Jean
Lucien Massot is too sturdy and angular to reach Bournonville heaven.
In the pas de trois Gudrun Bojesen, who will take most of the leading
female parts this week, showed beautiful dancing and has the personality
to sell Bournonville. Caroline Cavallo fought hard to make an impression
in the second female part. (Eric Bruhn danced that solo himself when he
once restaged the pas de trios for two men and a woman, the other dancers
being Cynthia Gregory and Rudolf Nureyev). The man’s solo was danced
by newcomer Tim Matiakis, who joined RDB from Royal Ballet, and who supplemented
this pas de trios by adding characters touches that really reminded one
of Frank Andersen himself in younger years.
In short, I must conclude that Bournonville made two ballets inspired
by Spanish dancing and Flemish painting, and the Royal Danish Ballet has
just presented the two pieces as inspired by Spanish painting and Flemish
dancing.
Read Second night : “Napoli”, Bournonville School DVD and miming lecture
Photos:
First (and on front page): the official festival poster, by Peter Bonde.
Second: "The Kermesse in Bruges"; photo by Martin Mydtskov
Rönne)
Third: Trutje and her daughters. From left, Tina Højlund,
Jette Buchwald, Marie-Pierre Greve; photo by Martin Mydtskov Rönne
Fourth: The pas de deux from "Kermesse," Susanne Grinder and
Kristoffer Sakurai; photo by Martin Mydtskov Rönne
Fifth: Gudrun Bojesen in "La Ventana"; photo by Martin
Mydtskov Rönne.
Volume 3,
No. 21
June 4, 2005
copyright
©2005
Eva Kistrup
www.danceviewtimes.com
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