Cinderella in the Stopera

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Dutch National Ballet Cinderella 22 Dec 2018 , 20:00, Stopera, Amsterdam

In July 2015 the Dutch National Ballet performed Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella at the Coliseum. It played to full houses and audiences seemed to like it but though not all critics did.  In my review, Wheeldon's Cinderella 13 July 2015, I wrote:

"I enjoyed the show. I liked Wheeldon's treatment of the story, the dancing, Julian Crouch's designs and Natasha Katz's lighting. I prefer it to The Winter's Tale to which I was indifferent when I first saw it on stage but warmed to it when I saw it in the cinema and on television. It may be that Wheeldon is an acquired taste and that his critics will come round. I look forward to seeing the show again and I think it will look even better on the stage of the Stopera."

Well, I saw it in the Stopera on Saturday 22 Dec 2018 and was bowled over by it.  At the end of the second act, I wrote on my Facebook page: "Christmas has been made for me by  DutchNatBallet's Cinderella even if I never get a single present, a Christmas card, a slice of Turkey, a smidgeon of plum pudding, a mince pie or a whiff of mulled wine."

Why the difference?  The answer came when I joined a tour of the Stopera for new Friends on my birthday in 2016 (see Double Dutch Delights 17 Feb 2016).  One of the senior technical staff welcomed us to the stage and showed us some of the computer equipment at his command.  I mentioned that I had attended a performance of Cinderella in London the previous summer and asked him how the company found the Coliseum.  He replied that the company enjoyed their visit to London very much through the Coliseum lacked the state-of-the-art equipment and facilities that they enjoy at the Stopera. That equipment enabled the tree over the grave of Cinderella's mother to grow and change colour with the seasons. It showed birds in flight and falling rain at the funeral of Cinderella's mother.

I noted the similarities between Cinderella and The Winter's Tale in my previous review.  In both, the lead characters were introduced as children and both features a massive tree.  In a strange sort of way, Cinderella was actually more Shakespearean than the ballet that was based on a Shakespeare play.  Excitement was ratcheted up as in a Shakespearean play.  When Cinderella's appeared in a golden gown the lights on stage were cut and the house lights switched to full brightness.  That moment was matched at the end of the next act when Cinderella ran off stage right into the stalls and through the audience to the exit.

There was also plenty of humour that provided dramatic relief.  Cinderella's stepmother, Hortensia, became tight at the ball as the evening wore on much to the embarrassment of her husband.  Benjamin, the prince's friend, fell head over heels in love with the plainer of Hortensia's daughters.  The most unpromising candidates queued to try Cinderella's abandoned slipper including a Balinese princess with long nails and a spiked headdress, a forest spirit with an outsized head and a knight in full armour brandishing a battle axe.  Levity is not easy to induce in ballet.  Ashton managed it his Cinderella in his pairing with Robert Helpmann as Cinderella's ugly sisters and Wheeldon succeeded in his version of the ballet.

In London, I had seen Remi Wörtmeyer as Benjamin, the prince's friend.  On Saturday he was promoted to prince, a role that suited him well.  Benjamin was danced by Sho Yamada who has impressed me twice this year.  Cinderella was Anna Ol. She commanded the audience's respect from the start and not our pity.  She showed her spirit from the moment her father (Anatole Babenko)  introduced her to Hortensia.   Hortensia had offered her a bunch of flowers that she tossed to the floor.  I sensed fear on the part of the stepmother and her sisters rather than simple malice. Hortensia, a difficult role, was danced impressively by Vera Tsyganova. Luiza Bertho danced Cinderella's stepsister Edwina and Riho Sakamoto, her other stepsister Clementine. Finally, it was great to see Jane Lord on stage again as a dance teacher.

As I had benefited from attending Rachael Beaujean's talk on Giselle last month, I attended the introductory talk on Cinderella.  That took the form of a Powerpoint presentation in a lecture room `below the auditorium between 19:15 and 19:45.  Although it was given in Dutch which is a language I have never studied I think I got the gist of it as Dutch is closely related to Engish and German. I learned that this ballet is a co-production with the San Francisco Ballet, about Ashton's influence over Wheeldon, the significance of the tree and all sorts of other useful facts.

The ballet will run to 1 Jan 2019 and is playing to full houses.  Readers who miss it this month in Amsterdam will have a chance to see English National Ballet perform a version in the round in the Albert Hall between 6 and 16 June 2019.

Mooie!

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Dutch National Ballet Giselle Theater Heerlen 9 Nov 2018, 19:30

I overheard the word "mooie" a lot in snatches of conversation in the bar of Theater Heerlen during the interval and after the show last night so I looked it up. I found that it means "beautiful".  Tonight's performance of Giselle by the Dutch National Ballet was indeed beautiful but it was also so much more.  It was outstanding.  It was one of the best performances of that ballet that I have ever seen and I have attended a lot of performances of Giselle in my 50 years of regular ballet going. I have seen some of the world's best dancers and many of the world's greatest companies.  The rest of the audience was aware of something special for we rose to our feet at the curtain call as one and clapped until our palms were raw.

"So what was so special about this performance?" I hear you ask.  I don't know where to begin.  There was so much that impressed me.

Obviously, there were two excellent principals in the lead roles:  Qian Liu as Giselle and Young Gyu Choi as Albrecht.  She was a perfect Giselle for she balanced virtuosity with charm.  She communicated winsomeness and innocence in the early scenes of act I, passion and despair in the mad scene and an ethereal quality in the second act.  Young Gyu Choi is now my favourite Albrecht of all time and I have seen Nureyev and Acosta in that role.  He had previously impressed me with his strength and athleticism. Yesterday he showed he could act as well.

The other great female role in this ballet is the Queen of the Wilis.   Maria Chugai was a formidable Myrtha, one of the most chilling but also one of the most elegant I have ever seen. I was on tenterhooks as she drew back from Albrecht and Giselle their arms splayed in the form of a cross even though I knew how the story ends.

Dario Elia came to my attention for the first time yesterday with his portrayal of Hilarion.  In a Q and A after a talk by Rachael Beaujean just before the show, I suggested that Hilarion had a very raw deal compared to Albrecht.  He may have been jealous, even a bit stupid, but he was not the one to deceive two women.  Did he really deserve to die?   Beaujean agreed with me "but then the world's unfair", she observed.  I think Elia communicated the character of the gamekeeper and disappointed suitor well.  I shall follow his career with interest.

There were many other good performances last night. It is probably unfair to single any of them out for special praise.  But I cannot ignore the peasant pas de quatre and in particular the powerful performances of Sho Yamada and Daniel Silva.  Yamada first impressed me when he partnered Michaela DePrince the first time I saw the Junior Company at the Staddshouwburg in 2013 (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013) and he impressed me again as Don Basilio earlier this year (see A Day of Superlatives - Dutch National Ballet's Don Quixote 1 March 2018).  I have been a fan of Silva ever since he opened No Time Before Time in Ballet Bubbles at the Meervaart on my birthday in 2016.  He impressed me again later in that year with his bronze idol in La Bayadère.  I must also congratulate their partners Salome Leverashvili and Emanouela Merdjanova for they were impressive too. In Merdjanova's case, she impressed me again as Moyna in act II.

Finally, I must commend the corps and Beaujean and Ricardo Bustamente's deployment of them in both acts.  I particularly liked the circling of the Wilis which was mesmeric.  Combined with Toer van Schayk's backdrop of a gorge in the Rhine and James Ingalls's lighting they were the spookiest but also the most realistic depictions of the tormented vengeful spirits I have ever seen.

I saw that performance, not in Amsterdam or some other major city, but in Heerlen, a town in the southeast Netherlands approximately the same size as Doncaster. Like Doncaster, Heerlen had once been a mining town and there was much about the landscape, the style of the buildings and many other things that reminded me of South Yorkshire.  One thing in particular that Heerlen has in common with Doncaster is a fine repertory theatre which no doubt played a part in the town's regeneration after the collieries closed much in the way that the CAST did in Doncaster. The Heerlen theatre is somewhat bigger than the CAST but it looks and feels very similar.

I see a lot of the Dutch National Ballet. This is my fourth visit to the Netherlands this year and I am coming back on the 22 Dec to see Cinderella.  Usually, I see them in Amsterdam though I have also seen them at the Coliseum in London.  This is the first time that I have seen the Dutch National Ballet on tour in its own country. That is something that other great companies like the Royal Ballet hardly ever do.  I chose to see it in Heerlen for two reasons.  First, it was very good value - €39 for one of the best seats in the stalls - a fraction of what I paid on tickets, rail fares and refreshments to see La Bayadere last week in Covent Garden last week even after taking my return airfare, airport parking and an overnight stay in Heerlen into account.  Secondly, and much more importantly, it treats its provincial audiences with exactly the same respect as it does its metropolitan ones.  How many other of the world's great ballet companies  around the world can say the same?

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.

Ballet's Accelerator: Crowdfunding the Junior Company's Fifth Anniversary Ballet

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Next year will be the fifth anniversary of the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company. I was fortunate enough to see one of its first public performances at the Stadsshouwburg in Amsterdam on the 24 Nov 2013 (see
The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Nov 2013).

The Junior Company has launched the careers of outstanding young dancers in the Dutch National Ballet and elsewhere. Of the dancers I saw in November 2013, Michaela DePrince is already a soloist, Jessica Xuan and Sho Yamada are coryphées and several others are in the corps. Although the Central School of Ballet has Ballet Central, the Northern Ballet School has Manchester City Ballet and Ballet West has a company that tours Scotland at the beginning of each year, we don't have an equivalent in the UK. In fact, off the top of my head, I can't think of another company anywhere in the world that has anything quite like the Junior Company. All the analogies that spring to mind lie outside dance.  The closest that springs to mind is the famous Y Combinator accelerator of Silicon Valley.

The analogy with Silicon Valley accelerators can be taken a stage further in that the object of such programmes is to enable the young companies to attract investment. The Junior Company has used crowdfunding in the past to train young dancers (see Crowdfunding for the Ballet 25 May 2016). Now the company is using crowdfunding to raise money for a brand new ballet.

On the Dutch giving site Voordekunst (which I guess means "For the Arts") the company is appealing for €30,000 for a new ballet by Juanjo Arques to celebrate its fifth anniversary (see Maak een ballet met de Junior Company (so like English that I am not going to insult my readers' intelligence by translating it)). The choice of choreographer is a good one because Arques has already created Blink and Fresas (Strawberries) for the young dancers.

This is a rare and possibly unique opportunity for members of the public to participate in the creative process (see "The First Ballet by the Junior Company and You"). Contributors can attend the first meeting with the artistic team at the beginning of September where they will be "brainstorming about the ballet, the music, the lighting, the costumes and the dancers." The company's website describes it as "a unique moment, as this is where the very first ideas for the ballet are conceived" and adds appealingly "you can be part of it." Contributors will also be among the first to see the costumes and to witness the rehearsals.

So far €3,045 has been raised for the project from 29 donors which is not a bad start and there are still another 33 days to go. I invite all my readers to dig deep for Juanjo Arques, Ernst Meisner and his talented young dancers.