Dutch National Ballet's "Giselle" in the Cinema

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Dutch National Ballet Giselle UK screening 21 Jan 2024  14:00

We do not get to see enough of the Dutch National Ballet in this country which is a shame for many reasons. It is one of the world's great companies and it is the company outside the Anglosphere that is most similar to the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet.  There are many links between the National Ballet and the two Royal Ballet companies  For example, Northern Ballet's new Director, Federico Bonelli, danced with the National Ballet between 1996 and 2003 and the Junior Company's Artistic Director, Ernst Meisner, trained at the Royal Ballet School and danced with the Royal Ballet for many years.  The links between the companies go back to at least 1940.  The Sadler's Wells Ballet was touring the Netherlands when it was invaded by enemy forces.

Yesterday's screening of Rachel Beaujean and Ricardo Bustamente's Giselle in the United Kingdom enabled British balletgoers who did not already know the company to see just how good it is.   The lead roles were danced by former Bolshoi principals Olga Smirnova and Jacopo Tissi, This was the first time that I had seen them.  Both impressed me considerably with their virtuosity. Smirnova's Giselle reminded me strongly of Osipova's, particularly in the scene when she is summoned from the tomb by Myrtha where she rotates with the speed and energy of a Catherine wheel.

Giorgi Potskhishvili was possibly the best Hilarion that I have ever seen.  His passion was palpable.  In this production, he pulls a knife on Albrecht which causes Albrecht to reach for where his sword should have been.  I had never seen that detail before and it explains a lot.  At a pre-performance talk when I saw the ballet in  Heerlen I put it to Beaujean that Hilarion had a rather raw deal in the story (see "Mooie!" 16 Nov 2018). "He may have been jealous, even a bit stupid," I argued, "but he was not the one to deceive two women. Did he really deserve to die?"  I don't think I would have asked that question had I seen Potskhishvili's performance then.

Myrthe was danced by Floortje Eimers whose career I have followed closely for the last 10 years.  Although it is not regarded as the leading female role I have often thought that it makes or breaks the ballet because it is Myrthe rather than Giselle who dominates the second act.  Eimers danced the role well and the second act was gripping.  Particularly the last scene before the bell struck when Tissi lay exhausted on the floor.

There were many other commendable performances but as the programme listed only the four leading roles, I can't remember exactly who danced what,  The only one I can remember is Sho Yamada in the Peasant Pas de Quatre.   The other three who danced with him merit congratulations but while I remember their faces I cannot remember their names,  Similarly, I should commend those who danced Moyna and Zulma.

One of the reasons why this production is so impressive is that the sets and costumes were designed by Toer van Schayk.  His name was not on the cinema programmes but it should have been because van Schayk is a genius.  He is as distinguished as a painter and sculptor as he is as a dancer and choreographer.  He has designed the sets for many shows of all kinds.   Often a set is lost on camera.  In this film, the high peaks and meandering valley in the first act and the mysterious and menacing forest in the second were captured faithfully,

The ballet was filmed by Pathé Live which used to present the Bolshoi.  I tended to prefer Pathé's transmissions to the Royal Opera House's largely because of the skills of its presenter, Katerina Novikova.  She could switch effortlessly from one language to another and she charmed her interviewees with her smile.  She never used an interpreter and translated their replies as soon as her interviewees stopped speaking.  Pathé did not introduce Giselle and there was no interval.   Instead, the ballet started promptly at 14:30 and continued without a break until the reverence.

That was a missed opportunity.  The company is used to giving pre-performance talks when on tour or in Amsterdam as I mentioned above.   I usually learn something new about a ballet even though the talks are given in Dutch.   The company always gives a good account of itself on World Ballet Day.   I would have enjoyed short interviews with Beaujean about the choreography, van Schayk about his designs and Smirnova, Tissi and Eimers on their characters.  

Giselle may be a very short ballet but it is too long to appreciate in one sitting.   The contrast between acts one and two also requires some time for adjustment.  In the theatre, the audience would have at least 20 minutes to grab a coffee, visit the loo, read the programme, purchase an Igone de Jongh or Michaela de Prince tee-shirt or some other merchandise and chat about the performance.  Cinema audiences need that break too especially if it is their first experience of ballet.   If the Dutch National Ballet ever contemplates another  screening I hope it will include breaks and interviews with the artists and creatives,

Live Streaming of Beaujean's Raymonda

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Dutch National Ballet Raymonda Livestream 8 May 2022

Had I not broken my femur in warmup exercises for our Waltz of the Flowers workshop on 19 March 2022 I would have been in the auditorium of the Dutch National Balet and Opera on 6 April 2022 to watch Anna Tsygankova, Costa Allen and Artur Shesterikov dance Raymonda, Abd al-Rahman and Jean de Brienne respectively.  Watching today's live streaming on a Chromebook was a very poor second best.  But it was enough for me to see that Rachel Beaujean's production of Raymonda is a very significant work indeed. I can understand why it is described as the jewel of the Dutch National Ballet's 60th-anniversary celebrations.

In "Raymonda" from Moscow on 29 Oct 2019, I summarized the story as follows:

"Raymonda is betrothed to Jean de Brienne who visits her in Castle Doris just before he is due to go on crusade. After he has left she falls asleep and dreams of an eastern prince called Abderakhman who declares his love for her. She wakes up in a cold sweat and finds that it was all a nightmare. In the second Act, however, the real Abderakhman appears and offers to carry her away. She politely turns him down but Abderakhman will not take "no" for an answer. He and his followers try to adduct her but are interrupted by de Brienne. They fight each other with swords and de Brienne kills his rival. In the last Act, Raymonda weds de Brienne and they all enjoy a long Hungarian divertissement."

Beaujean has changed that story but not as much as Tamara Rojo who has set her ballet in the Crimean war of the mid-19th century (see Raymonda An epic journey of love and courage on the English National Ballet website). In Beaujean's version, Abd al-Rahman is a friend of Raymonda's grandfather and she falls in love with him.  There is a sword fight between Jean and al-Rahman when Jean finds out that the latter has won Raymonda's affections but Raymonda stops the fight before anyone is killed.  Jean slopes off and Raymonda marries al-Rahman in Hungary. 

In my review of the Bolshoi's performance, I mentioned that Raymonda had been created for Pierina Legnani who pioneered the 32 fouettés in the seduction scene in Swan Lake. It is not surprising that there is some very demanding choreography for the leading lady.  In today's streaming, Raymonda was danced by Maia Makhateli with grace but also breathtaking virtuosity.  I was particularly impressed by a sequence in the second act where, after several fouettés, she was gathered up by Young Gyu Choi, performed what looked like a grand battement and was immediately flung into a fish dive.

Sadly the company did not publish a downloadable cast list and I was not quick enough to write down the names of artists and roles as they flashed across the screen at the beginning and end. I have already commended Makhateli. She was ably supported by Young Gyu Choi who danced Abd al-Rahman and Semyon Velichko. I recognized several of the other principals and soloists but I can not remember their roles except Sandor who was danced by Jozef Varga.  Everyone danced well.  All are to be congratulated.

Although much of Petipa's choreography seems to have been preserved there were some obvious additions.  My guess is that the dance by al-Rahman's retainers in the second act had more in common with Jerome Robbins than Petipa was created for this production.  If so, I make no complaints about it because it worked.

Even on a small screen Kaplan's sets and costumes shone through.  I had been impressed by his work on The Great Gatsby but the designs for Raymonda were on an altogether different order of lavishness.

One of the compensations for watching this live streaming was that a camera was placed at the back of the orchestra pit.   It enabled viewers to watch the conductor from the musician's angle and the audience beyond for a few moments during the overture to the third act.  That is a view that an audience would never see in a theatre or indeed in most screenings.  It felt briefly like being inside the performance.

Watching live streaming has left me with conflicting emotions.   On the one hand, I now know what I missed which saddens me.  On the other hand, it is better than not seeing any of the show at all which cheers me.  I don't think this emotional conflict can be resolved until I see the show on stage.  With any luck, I will get another chance in the next few years.

The Dutch National Ballet's "Raymonda"

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As I said in my review of the live-streaming of the Bolshoi's performance on 27 Oct 2019, Raymonda is not performed in this country very often.  Indeed, as English National Ballet noted on its website, no local company had performed the work in its entirety until its production opened at the Coliseum last month.  As ENB's version is set in the 19th-century Crimean war rather than the medieval crusades, it could be argued that we still have to wait for a British company to dance the whole work.

But if we want to see a full-length performance of the traditional ballet, we do not have to go very far or wait very long to see one.  That is because the Dutch National Ballet will premiere a new production of Raymonda at the company's auditorium in Amsterdam on 3 April 2022.   It has been created by the company's assistant artistic director, Rachel Beaujean, in collaboration with the artistic director, Ted Brandsen, and Grigori Tchitcherine of the National Academy.  Beaujean produced Giselle which impressed me greatly when I saw it at Heerlen on 9 Nov 2018 (see Mooie! 10 Nov 2018). Tchitcherine gained a thorough knowledge of Raymonda first as a student at the Vaganova, later as a dancer with the Mariinsky and most recently from his research into the original and subsequent productions of the ballet.   As the sets have been created by Jérôme Kaplan who also designed the sets for David Nixon's The Great Gatsby and as the orchestra will be conducted by Boris Gruzin I have very high hopes for this production.  

Although Beaujean will depart from Countess Pashkova's libretto in one regard in order to "devise a crown and setting that are relevant to today" HNB's website emphasizes that the "choreographic splendours" will be retained. Further reassurance in that regard is provided in an interview with Beaujean and Tchitcherine. They describe how they delved into the history of the ballet over the last two years. They examined the records of the original choreography that had been made by Vladimir Stepanov. He devised one of the earliest systems of ballet notation which he explained in Alphabet des mouvements du corps human, essai d'enregistrement des mouvements du corps humain au moyen des signes musicaux published in Paris in 1892.  They also examined Konstantin Sergeyev's choreography for the Kirov's revival in 1948 and concluded that it was probably closest to Petipa's. A member of HNB's cast who also knows the Mariinsky's version well tells me that it follows tradition.    

Beaujean's modification to the story is to characterize Raymonda as "a young woman who makes her own choices on the path of love" rather than tamely accepting her marriage to Jean de Brienne as inevitable.  She justifies the change on the ground that Petipa and Glazunov were not happy with the original libretto and made changes to it.  That is altogether different from writing a story about a different war, in a different country in a different century.

In making these observations I do not disparage Tamara Rojo's version in the least.   I missed the season at the Coliseum only because of pressing professional commitments and soaring omicron infections in London.   I am a Friend of English National Ballet and have attended its performances regularly ever since I was enchanted by one of its performances of The Nutcracker in the Festival Hall.  New versions of familiar ballets can work as David Dawson has shown with his Swan Lake for Scottish Ballet.  I look forward to watching Rojo's version when English National Ballet brings its Raymonda to Manchester or Liverpool.

I will see ENB's Raymonda after HNB's.  I have my ticket for the centre of the stalls 6 rows from the stage, a return rail ticket to Amsterdam via St Pancras and a reservation at my favourite hotel in Amsterdam.   I shall publish my review in early April.

"Live" - Van Manen's Narrative Ballet?

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inplayer Dutch National Ballet Live  10 Oct to 7 Nov 2020

Hans van Manen made it very clear that he does not do story ballets in a discussion that followed the first screening of the latest filming of Live.   To emphasize the point he added that that was why he had never created a full-length ballet.  It is true that there is no synopsis or libretto but you don't need a plot for a narrative ballet.  That was about the only point upon which a panel of experts on narrative dance was agreed when I asked that question at the "State of the Art Panel Discussion: Narrative Dance in Ballet" in Leeds some years ago.   For me, Live tells the story of a relationship at least as eloquently as any ballet.

It is also much more real and immediate.  Unlike the storybook ballets, Live is not confined to the stage.  It starts there bit spills into the audience's world.   It proceeds into the lobby of the Music Theatre and finally the streets.  The last scene shows the woman in red walking slowly along the banks of the Amstel towards the Waterlooplein underground station.  

Van Manen's Live is therefore just as much a work of cinema as it is of ballet.  On his foundation's website, van Manen lists Live as a "video ballet" rather than simply as a ballet.  He gives the cameraman equal billing with the dancers. That is likely to be because the cameraman is very much part of the action.  The interplay between dancer and cameraman is best appreciated in Altin Kaftira's film Diana Vishneva in 'LIVE' of Hans van Manen.  The cameraman is in the dancers' faces, particularly the woman's. At one point, she repels him by pressing her palm against the camera lens.  The other important element of the film is the music. Van Manen chose the following pieces by Liszt:  Sospiri, Bagatelle sans tonalité, Wiegenlied,  Vier kleine Klavierstücke and Abschied.

Live was filmed for the first time in 1979  Colleen Davis and Henny Jurriëns were the original dancers and Henk van was the cameraman.  It was filmed in the Carré because the Music Theatre had not been constructed at that time. The video has been remade several times with different dancers including, of course, Vishneva.  The film that has been released between the 10 Oct and 7 Nov 2020 casts  Maia Makhateli as the woman in red and Artur Shesterikov as her partner. 

I have long admired Shesterikov and Makhateli for their virtuosity but in the film I also saw superb acting.  There were moments when sparks seemed to fly.  The drama was heightened by the accompaniment of Olga Khoziainova.  After the screening, there was a short conversation about the film between van Manen, Rachel Beaujean and Davis.  Clips from the 1979 film were shown.  I was amazed to learn that Davis was only 19 when she danced the lady in red. Particularly as her successors in the role have included Vishneva and Makhateli.

Though he was much younger than the other choreographers and his work was very different, van Manen was one of the recurring names in the 1960s when I first started to follow ballet.  His works were reviewed in almost every issue of Dance and Dancers and The Dancing Times which I devoured when I was at university. His name was mentioned as frequently as those of Ashton, Balanchine, Cranko, Darrell, MacMillan and van Dantzig.  All those great choreographers have gone.  Only van Manen is left.  He must be well into his 80s but he still knows how to excite, surprise and delight.

The film may be viewed on the Dutch National Ballet's website until 7 Nov 2020.  The access charge is €2.95.