A Day of Superlatives - Dutch National Ballet's Don Quixote

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Dutch National Ballet Don Quixote 28 Feb 2018 20:00 Music Theatre, Amsterdam

Wednesday was a day of superlatives. I don't think Amsterdam has ever looked lovelier than it did that night in the clear, crisp air with a full moon and the lights of the buildings, street lights and traffic twinkling in partly frozen canals and the river. I don't think I have ever seen a better Don Quixote even though I have seen artists like Isabella Boylston and Marianela Nuñez dance Kitri and Carlos Acosta dance Don Basilio. Above all, I don't think I have ever seen the Dutch National Ballet dance better.

One reason why I enjoyed that show so much was that nearly all the leading rôles were performed by dancers who graduated from Ernst Meisner's Junior Company.   Sho Yamada, who danced Don Basilio, had partnered Michaela DePrince in an extract of Diana and Acteon the first time I saw the Junior Company (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013). Riho Sakamoto was Kitri on Wednesday night. Jessica Xuan, who also joined the Junior Company in 2013, was queen of the Dryads. Yuanyuan Zhang, danced Juanita. Many more of their contemporaries including Cristiano Principato and Thomas van Damme supported them in the show,

Wednesday's show was their opportunity to impress and each of them grabbed it readily.  They danced with exuberance and verve.  Combined with imaginative sets that included a winking moon, costumes for ambulatory cacti and monsters more outlandish than Hieronymus Bosch's, the stage exploded with energy, movement and colour. Don Quixote had never been my favourite ballet because the story is so confusing.  Basically La Fille mal gardée except that it is dad rather than mum pushing daughter into an arranged marriage.  What has that to do with Cervantes? Or cactus men and beaked monsters for that matter?  The answer is "not much but who cares so long as the ballet flows".  Wednesday did flow to Minkus's jaunty score with spectacular choreography such as one armed lifts and daring fish dives. Ratmansky's production helped me understand the ballet and to appreciate it properly.

Yamada danced Don Basilio with style and swagger.  Tall, slender and athletic he commanded the stage.  Sakamoto charmed me with her coquetry and impressed me with her technique, especially with her fouettés in the final act. Though it is probably unfair to single out any artist for special praise, there were captivating performances by Xuan as queen of the Dryads, Suzanna Kaic as Cupid and Zhang as Juanita.  There was fine character dancing from Nicolas Rampaic as the slightly dotty Don Quixote and hilarious clowning by Frans Schraven as his squire.

I have already mentioned the imaginative sets and costumes.  I was not surprised to learn that they had been designed by Jérôme Kaplan who had impressed me several years ago with his designs for David Nixon's Gatsby. I have also mentioned Minkus's jaunty score.  Its interpreter on Wednesday night was Marzio Conti.  As I was seated directly behind the conductor only 5 rows back I experienced the music as he must have done. Perhaps that was yet another reason why I enjoyed the show so much.

Usually I come to Amsterdam for the day arriving on the first flight out of Manchester and returning on the last.  This time I had come to give a talk on patent litigation  at the Radisson Blu hotel in Russia.  Not really Russia, I should explain, but the street where the hotel stands is called "Rusland" which is Dutch for "Russia". On the way back from the theatre I felt transported to Petipa's Russia as I followed the frozen canals with the music resounding in my ears. That is just how I imagine St Petersburg to be.  One day, perhaps, I will find out whether I was right.

Talking of translations, a partner of the Dutch office of a leading international law firm invited me to dinner on Tuesday night at Hemelse Modder which translates as "Heavenly Mud".  The meal was scrumptious. I had croquettes of mussels, fennel and tarragon, lamb stew and a delicious lemon pudding with an excellent German red. I mentioned it on Facebook to which Ted Brandsen commented that it was his favourite restaurant.  I can quite see why.  It is now one of mine.   It is not far from the Music Theatre and I strongly recommend it.

Paris Opera Ballet's Don Quixote

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Opera National de Paris  Don Quixote Opera Bastille 25 Dec 2017, 19:30

Although Don Quixote is not one of my favourite Petipa ballets it does have some spectacular choreography. Similarly, while I greatly prefer his score to La Bayadère, Minkus's score has some lovely tunes including the Queen of the Dryads's solo and the rumbustious final pas de deux.  Also, Don Quixote makes a change from The Nutcracker which the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Scottish Ballet are all serving up for Christmas at home.

I had only seen the Paris Opera ballet once before in the Palais Garnier some 45 tears ago. I remember a grand défilé by the ballet students. I was told by my companion, Pamela (who had some to Paris to study with Madame Preobrajenska at the Salle Wacker) that the students were referred to disparagingly as les petits rats.  The stage seemed massive. Much bigger than Covent Garden's.  However, I can't remember anything else about the show which means that it could not have impressed me very much.  My second experience of the company came last night when it performed Don Quixote at the Opera Bastille.  I can safely say that I won't forget that show in a hurry.

Spectacular choreography needs virtuoso dancers and Isabella Boylston is a virtuoso par excellence.  She launches into grands jetes almost as soon as she appears on stage and hers seemed as graceful and effortless as any I have seen before. She danced Kitri who ends the show with spectacular fouettés.  I have seen plenty of those from lots of Odiles but the excitement that Boylston generated with hers at the Bastille last night could not have been exceeded by Legnani herself.

Boylston was partnered by Mathieu Ganio who was magnificent. He danced Don Basilio in which I had previously seen Carlos Acosta. Though I greatly admired Acosta in that role, Ganio surpassed him both as a soloist with the spectacular jumping and turns in his final solo and in the way that he helped Boylston to shine. That is the sort of partnership of which legends are made like Sibley's with Dowell.  Whether it can develop and flourish with Ganio in Paris and Boylston in New York is anybody's guess but if I ran the Paris Opera Ballet or American Ballet Theatre I would do my best to make sure it did.

We saw lots of other excellent performances last night: Erwan Le Roux as Sancho Panza, Fanny Gorse  as the street dancer, Amandine Albisson as the queen of the Dryads and Yann Chailloux as Don Quixote himself. Everyone was impressive not least the corps de ballet which was one of the most polished and disciplined that I have been fortunate enough to see.

With costumes  by Elena Rivkina and sets by Alexandre Beliaev the production was gorgeous. The Opera Bastille was designed as an ideal venue for ballet and although it lacks the charm of Covent Garden or the majesty of the Garnier it is probably one of the best places in the world to see a full length ballet by a major company. 

I sat towards the back of the stalls and enjoyed a perfect view.  The theatre has been designed to ensure easy access and egress.  If you want a drink you enter a cordon where you wait your turn.  No ostentatious waving of bank notes or sharp elbowing here. Having paid about £10 less for seats in the stalls than I was charged by Covent Garden for the back amphitheatre I was ready to sing the Bastille's praises .................  until I was stung for €5 for a tonic water and €12 for a programme (albeit a very thick and informative programme much of it in English).  Like a budget airline the essentials are cheap enough and if that's all you want well all well and good. But if you want any extras - even a postcard from the well stocked theatre shop - caveat emptor.

Bolshoi's Don Quixote

Honoré Daumier's Don Quixote

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Bolshoi Ballet, Don Quixote, streamed live from Moscow, 10 April 2016

It is very easy to enjoy a performance of a ballet one loves. It is very much harder to enjoy a performance of a ballet to which one is indifferent. A good test of a company is whether such indifference can be overcome by the quality of its performance, Yesterday, by its performance of Alexei Fadeyechev's Don Quixote, the Bolshoi Ballet passed that test.

The reasons why Don Quixote has never appealed to me despite such choreographic pyrotechnics as Kitri's fouettés, Basilio's one handed lifts and fish dives are that the story is weak and except for the final pas de deux the score is undistinguished.  The libretto, which owes very little to Cervantes, is not very different from La Fille mal gardée, a much shorter, tighter and generally more entertaining work with its clogs and dancing poultry and Alain swept into the storm by his umbrella. Instead we have some dryads who, despite their prettiness, are something of an irrelevance as they interrupt the flow of the story.

What saved the ballet for me were primarily the performances of Ekaterina Krysanova and Semyon Chudin as Kitri and Basilio which were outstanding. There were also strong performances by Denis Medvedev, Anna Tikhomirova and Kristina Karasyova as Gamache, the street dancer and Mercedes.  There was some great character dancing by Alexei Loparevich as the Don, Roman Simachev as his squire and Andrei Sitnikov as Lorenzo.  If we must have dryads in this ballet, there could be no more delightful dryad queen than Olga Smirnova.  Other aspects of the show that I liked were the sets by Valery Leventhal, particularly the townscape in the first act and the windmills in the second. I also admired Elena Zaitseva's costumes.

The Royal Ballet now has its own version of Don Quixote which was staged by Carlos Acosta. I have not yet seen it on stage but I reviewed the HDTV transmission from Covent Garden in ¡Por favor! Don Quixote streamed to Huddersfield 17 Oct 2013.  I was somewhat underwhelmed by that production too and tried to work out why in More Thoughts on Don Quixote 29 Oct 2013. I can't decide whether I prefer the Fadeyechev version or Acosta's. On the whole I incline towards Fadeyechev who has simplified the work and improved its flow by cutting the tavern scene though he has included elements like the guitar dance and bull fighters without a bull that add nothing to the story.

Fadeyechev was interviewed in the first interval by Katerina Novikova who presents all the Bolshoi's transmissions.  Elegant and fluent in English and French she is a great asset to the company and one of the reasons why I have generally preferred the Bolshoi's transmissions to the Royal Opera House's. Fadeyechev spoke about those inclusions and the music of other composers that has been added to the score which are said to be unique to the Bolshoi.

Novikova also interviewed Makhar Vaziev who is described on the Bolshoi's website as "Ballet Director." He has recently taken over that job title from Sergei Filin who remains with the company as the "Director of Young Artists Ballet Program" though it is not clear from the articles by Ismene Brown Bolshoi abolishes Filin’s job 30 July 2015 Arts Blog and Makhar Vaziev appointed Bolshoi ballet head 26 Oct 2015 Arts Blog what either man's job description will be. Tactfully Novikova avoided that question and asked Vaziev about the differences between the Mariinsky where Vaziev started his career and the Bolshoi which he joined three weeks ago. Vaziev, who seems to be quite a jovial chap, replied that they both had their pluses and both had produced great artists. Galina Ulanova had started in St Petersburg and Maya Plisetskaya in Moscow. For those who are interested in that question, a more detailed answer is given in The Bolshoi Ballet (12 Aug 2010) by The Ballet Bag.

As the Bolshoi are coming to London between 25 July and 13 Aug 2016 (see Bolshoi Ballet Diamond Jubilee) I have found this season's HDTV season particularly useful for selecting what to see (see Live Performances streamed from the Bolshoi and Covent Garden 20 Sept 2015). If I lived in London and had all the time in the world I would have chosen to see all five shows. As I live 200 miles away and have a demanding albeit rewarding full time job I have to confine myself to two. I have chosen to see Swan Lake on 30 July 2016 and The Taming of the Shrew on the 3 Aug 2016. Even though booking has been restricted to Friends of Covent Garden many of the best seats for both shows seem to have been taken. I am not sure how many tickets will be left for the public when the tickets go on general sale later today.

Prosit Neues Jahr

Musikverein Vienna, Golden Hall

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Television over the New Year used to be decked out with tartan, accordions, Scottish country dancing and Glaswegian comics. That tradition seems to have waned even in Scotland with a new emphasis on fireworks and fun fairs. Probably a good thing as Hogmanay was often accompanied by excessive drinking which must have placed an enormous strain on traffic patrols and the National Health Service. Nowadays the world wakes up for the annual New Year's Day concert from Vienna.

Not everyone enjoys that concert. Writing in The Spectator Norman Lebrecht described the concert as "an annual jellybox of waltzes, polkas, galops, marches and any old tritsch-trash" in "The Nazi origins of the Vienna Phil’s New Year’s Day concert". He described the music as "strictly bar-room, written by members of the Strauss family as social foreplay for the soldiery and serving classes in low taverns."

I am afraid that I do not agree with him.

Great orchestras are allowed to let their hair down once in a while. On Thursday I attended The Hallé's Abba concert where the orchestra including the conductor appeared in big hair wigs and 1970s costumes to act as a backing group for largely inaudible singers attempting to belt out Dancing Queen and Fernando to an audience of swaying sexuagenarians. If I were unkind I could have described the experience as akin to listening to a tribute band in a retirement home, but I won't because it was still good fun and everyone including yours truly had a great time.  The Strauss family are at least the artistic equals to Abba and for my part I greatly prefer them.

Mr Labrecht's main concern lies in the origins of the concert:

"The tradition, however, is decidedly pernicious. This concert came into being as a gift to Nazi criminals, a cover for genocide. The Vienna Philharmonic was quick to sack Jewish and leftist musicians when Hitler came to town. More than a dozen were sent to concentration camps; seven of them perished. The orchestra unanimously endorsed the Anschluss with Germany, exhorted by the conductor Karl Böhm to declare ‘a 100 per cent “yes”’, and proved a willing executioner of cultural cleansing, removing Mahler and other giants from its walls and histories."

He complains of the exclusion and under representation of women and non-white musicians in the orchestra:

"The orchestra has, until recently, excluded women. One of the perverse pleasures of watching the New Year’s Day broadcast is to count how few females are permitted to take part. The orchestra has just seven women members out of a roll call of 130, the lowest in any 21st-century symphony orchestra."

True but that was also a criticism that could be levelled at many British institutions including a well known watering hole in Fleet Street frequented by journalists and out of work barristers for many years. He concludes:

"So long as appearance defeats substance — so long as the world oohs and ahhs at the musical sweetmeats and ignores the dirt in the kitchen, New Year’s Day from Vienna will remain a family favourite, a testament to our human ability to look the other way."

With all respect to Mr Lebrecht, I rather hope it does.

Anschluss was reversed over 70 years ago. There was pretty thorough de-Nazification by the allies who partitioned Austria for a while immediately after the end of the war. Very few if any of the players could have been born during the second world war. Modern Austria is our democratic partner in major international and European institutions including the United Nations which was celebrated by Robert Stolz's UNO March, the first piece in yesterday's programme.

The Vienna Philharmonic is raising money for asylum seekers. Next year's concert is to be conducted by Gustavo Dudamel of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. Sorry but I want to hear that concert. Indeed, if I could spare the time and money I would rather like to be in Vienna this time next year.

Before reading Mr Lebrecht's article I had intended to write about the ballet sequences which were performed by dancers of the Vienna State Ballet (Wiener Staatsballett). There were only two of them this year - one danced at the Prater race track and the other at the Schönbrunn Palace. Not surprisingly, these are the bits of the TV transmission that I like most. I enjoyed both pieces very much and I wish I could find out the names of the dancers and choreographer in order to congratulate them. I can, however, report that the company is directed by Manuel Legris who was one of the stars of the Paris Opera Ballet, that the company is dancing Ashton's La Fille mal gardée until 20 Jan 2016 and that it has some lovely works in its current repertoire and that some of those performances are streamed live over the internet.

Vienna's connection with the ballet is often overlooked but it was the birthplace of Ludwig Minkus who gave us La Bayadère and Don Quixote (see More Thoughts on Don Quixote 20 Oct 2013). It is also the setting for Lichine's charming Graduation Ball which I really wish someone would revive.

Frohes neues Jahr

Musikverein Vienna    Source Wikipedia

Like the Scots, we Mancunians make (or at least did make) a fuss of New Year. My family kept the tradition of "letting in the New Year" even in suburban Surrey where I lived from the age of 6 until I went away to St Andrews for university and to Los Angeles for graduate school. Indeed I have kept up the tradition even in those exotic places where they have their own ways of celebrating the New Year. The head of the household (so long as he has or had black hair) slips out at 23:55 on 31 Dec with a gift wrapped slice of bread and lump of coal symbolizing a hope for food and warmth in the coming winter and returns at about 00:02 on 1 Jan to be greeted by mother with a slice of Christmas cake, a mince pie and a glass of sherry.

I love New Year even more - or rather very much more - than Christmas with its tarnished tinsel, moulting pine needles, re-cycled turkey, bad temper, insincerity and utter extravagance. I celebrate it quietly with family or friends. I have tried the American way with a party, the Scots way with wall to wall whisky, the London way freezing for fireworks, even the Sierra Leonean way with a watch night service followed by wild rejoicing "Happy new year me no die-o, Tell God tenke for life" but I like the Mancunian way best.

Before the New Year is even out of nappies there is the New Year's Day concert from the Musikverein in Vienna. It is one of the few television programmes I endeavour not to miss. I hope one day to attend the concert in person. I was actually a guest at a function in the Musikverein when the City Council invited the International Bar Association for which the Austrian post office actually issued a special stamp. And as a balletomane the best part of the whole concert is the dancing.

We tend to overlook Austria's contribution to ballet but it is not insignificant. Ludwig Minkus, the composer of the score for Don Quixote came from Vienna and indeed died there in 1917. There is Lichine's delightful Graduation Ball to the music of Johann Strauss which used to be part of Festival's repertoire but has sadly been dropped. There are the dancers of the Vienna State Ballet which include our very own James Stephens of Huddersfield. As I said in my review of The Choral's Messiah we dance as well as sing in Huddersfield and we have David Bintley to prove it. Indeed, I think a little bit of our Huddersfield music may be played occasionally to the 12 dance superstars of the future.

This year the State Ballet performed three dances, two from the Liechtenstein Palace and a waltz from the Musikverein itself. Much of the attention this year was on Vivienne Westwood's costumes for the dancers - very Graduation Ball and very La Syulphide - but I think Ashley Page's choreography deserved a cheer. I particularly liked his arrangement of Lanner's Die Romantiker and the Blue Danube. I was distracted from the choreography for Delibes's Sylvia by the tartan which did not seem to relate to the ballet at all.

Before writing this post I read Dave Tries Ballet's Goals for 2014 and had a few reflections of my own. Whereas Dave looks forward I have looked back at some of the many delights of the year.

Sarah Kundi's Depouillage which led me to the magnificent Ballet Black and from there to MurleyDance with its talented dancers. I can't watch Kundi without tears welling up though, having said that, I am an equally passionate fan of the other 5 dancers.

Much the same thing happened with the Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet. Because I was married to a Sierra Leonean for nearly 28 years I was intrigued to learn about Michaela dePrince and was thrilled by what I saw of her virtuosity on YouTube. But seeing her on film was nothing compared to seeing her on stage. She is quite the most exciting dancer I have seen in years. And she is one of 12 outstanding talents.   I love them all.

Other highlights of the year? I saw the Stuttgart Ballet dance Taming of the Shrew at last, a ballet that I have wanted to see for the last 44 years.  I rekindled my love for Scottish Ballet through watching Hansel and Gretel.  I experienced something remarkable at the West Yorkshire Playhouse when my beloved Northern Ballet danced A Midsummer Night's Dream. And I saw Nixon's Cinderella less than a week ago which was a triumph.

I have seen a lot of ballet in 2013 and I look forward to some more this year. I am looking forward in particular to seeing Antoinette Sibley again at the Royal Ballet School on 2 Feb.

At the end of the concert in Vienna the conductor and orchestra wish the world "Frohes neues Jahr" and that gentle readers is my wish to all of you.

More Thoughts on Don Quixote

Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev of the Bolshoi   Source Wikipedia

The performance of Don Quixote which was streamed to my local Odeon last Wednesday has prompted me to think about the ballet generally and to ponder why it is not staged more often (see ¡Por favor! Don Quixote streamed to Huddersfield 17 Oct 2013). Lots of companies dance Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker and Giselle but not so may include Don Quixote in their repertoire.  It is one of those ballets like La Sylphide that everyone has heard of but not actually seen. I have only seen one version of Don Quixote on stage and that was London Festival's at the Coliseum in the late 1960s or early 1970s.  Dame Ninette de Valois tried to stage the ballet for what is now the Royal Ballet in 1950 but it does not seem to have been very popular. 

Although the ballet takes its title from Miguel Cervantes's well known novel it is very much a Russian work (or perhaps, more accurately Eastern European as the score was contributed by an expatriate Austrian).  It is one of Petipa's earliest works having been staged for the first time in 1869 and that may be one of the reasons.  It provides scope for some brilliant dancing by the principals and soloists but it does take liberties with the novel. The ballet really ought to be renamed Basilio and Kitri for that is what the story is all about - a Hispanic Fille mal gardée with a touch of Carmen.  

Save for the coda in the last Act, the music is not very well known.  I had (and possibly still have) a vinyl LP somewhere which I bought from the old Ballet Bookshop in Cecil Court. Does anyone else remember that wonderful source of ballet memorabilia? I played that disc often when I was a student - particularly when I had an essay to write.  The composer Ludwig Minkus wrote a lot of music for the ballet. After many years service at St Petersburg, Minkus returned to his native Vienna where he subsisted on a pension from Russia.  That remittance ended with the First World War as the Austro-Hungarian empire and Russia were on opposite sides.  He died in 1917, the year of the Bolshevik revolution, in very straightened circumstances. Having to cope with such circumstances poor old Minkus had more than a little in common with with Cervantes's creation. 

From what I could see from the images that were streamed from Covent Garden, Carlos Acosta has reworked substantially the Petipa ballet.  By dancing Basilio himself and casting another Marianela Nunez, another Latin American dancer, as Kitri he has reclaimed the work for the Spanish speaking world. As I said in my review, the screening left me dissatisfied. All the remaining performances of the ballet this season are fully booked.  I hope Acosta's version stays in the Royal Ballet's repertoire rather longer than de Valois's because I should really ought to see it.