Ernst Meisner's "Embers" - One of the Highlights of the Dutch National Ballet's Opening Night Gala

Cristiano Principato and Jessica Xuan in Embers

Author Michel Schnater
© 2018 Dutch National Ballet, all rights reserved
 Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Cristiano Principato and Jessica Xuan  Embers (Opening night gala of the Dutch National Ballet) 8 Sep 2018, 19:30 Stopera

For me the highlight of the Dutch National Ballet's opening night gala on 8 Sept 2018 was the performance of Ernst Meisner's Embers by Cristiano Principato and Jessica Xuan.  I love Max Richter's music.  I love Ernst Meisner's choreography.  Most of all I love the interpretation by Cristiano and Jessica. 

This is what I wrote in my review:

"Another personal highlight was Cristiano Principato and Jessica Xuan in Ernst Meisner's Embers. I fell in love with that piece the first time I saw it at the Stadsshouwburg in 2015 (see The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's best Performance yet 8 Feb 2015). In 2016 Principato brought his friends in the Dutch National Ballet and other leading companies to a tiny theatre in a small town half way between Milan and Turin to perform a Gala for Africa (see From Italy with Love 1 July 2016). I flew to Italy to support them. While I was there I had the honour of meeting Cristiano Principato's parents. It was a beautiful evening which ended with a performance of Embers by Principato and Priscylla Gallo. I wrote:

'Last year Meisner was my joint choreographer of the year for creating Embers. It moves me in a special way. I have now seen it four times and I love it a little more each time I see it. Thomas and Nancy Burer introduced me to the work and they dance it beautifully. I experienced it in a different way when Cristiano and Priscylla danced the piece on Tuesday night. Never has it seemed more beautiful.'

In July of this year, Principato and Xuan danced Embers at the Varna International Ballet Competition. For her performance in that piece, Xuan was awarded first prize. I am very fond of both of those dancers. When they took their bow on Saturday I felt compelled to rise to my feet. Wild horses would not have restrained me."

 I can't really add to that.

The Terpsichore Nominations

Just a bit of fun inspired by the National Dance Awards and not to be taken at all seriously but at the end of every year I do a review of the best work that I have seen in the previous 12 months (see Highlights of 2015 29 Dec 2015). At the end of the post I set out my favourites which were:

Ballet of the Year
Ballet Cymru's Cinderella, runner up Ballet Cymru's Tir

Company of the Year
Scottish Ballet, runners up Dutch National Ballet and the Royal Ballet

Small Companies of the Year
Ballet Black and Ballet Cymru

Contemporary Company of the Year
Phoenix Dance Theatre

Male Dancer of the Year
Denis Rodkin in La Bayadere, runner up Matthew Golding in the Royal Ballet's Onegin and the Dutch National Ballet's Cinderella

Female Dancer of the Year
Laura Morera as Lise runners up Anna Tsygankova and Bethany Kingsley-Garner as Cinderella

Choreographers of the Year
Christopher Hampson for Perpetuum Mobile for Northern Ballet and Ernst Meisner for Embers for the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company

Dancers to watch
Floor Elmers of Dutch National Ballet, Krystal Lowe of Ballet Cymru, Marie-Astrid-Mence of Phoenix Dance Theatre and Gavin McCaig of Northern Ballet

Promising Newcomers
Bart Engelen, Norwegian Ballet, Cristiano Principato and Emilie Tassinari, Dutch National Ballet Junior Company, Tim Hill of Ballet Cymru and Prentice Whitlow of Phoenix Dance Theatre

This year we shall do it a little differently. I invite everyone who has contributed to Terpsichore in the last year or so (that is to say Alison Winward, David Murley, Gita Mistry, Janet McNulty, Joanne Goodman and Mel Wong (happy birthday Mel by the way) to nominate for each category. Then I shall hold a ballot for the readers.

I have not quite made up my mind yet but provisionally Jean-Christophe Maillot is leading the way in the best full-length ballet stakes with his Taming of the Shrew for the Bolshoi pursued hotly by Ted Brandsen's Mata Hari, David Dawson's Swan Lake and Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre in that order.

In the one-act ballets category, it is a dead heat between Ernst Meisner's No Time before Time  and Christopher Hampson's Storyville.

My classical company of the year is the Durch National Ballet though I was impressed by the Australians and the Bolshoi when they came to London and the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet are always near the top of my lists.

My nominations for best small company are Ballet Black and the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company,

Having seen a lot of contemporary dance, this year I can't make my mind up between Netherlands Dance Theatre and Rambert though Phoenix and the National Dance Company of Wales are also on my list. I am not sure how to classify Alvin Ailey but they definitely deserve an award.

Best male dancer this year has to be Federico Benelli for his Albrecht in Giselle and Lauren Cuthbertson as best female in the same production, However, I would make special personal awards to Bethany Kingsley-Garner for her Odette-Odile in Liverpool and Anna Tsyganlova for her Mata Hari.

Dancers to watch? There are so many but I think we shall be seeing a lot of Cristiano Principato of the Dutch National Ballet who proved his worth as a choreographer, artistic director and chief cook and bottlewasher as well as dancer in Trecate earlier this year, Daniele Gould in Hungary who was an enchanting Puss in Boots and Mthuthuzeli November here.

I would also like to add a special adult ballet education award to Karen Sant of KNT Danceworks for organizing wonderful intensive workshops for adult ballet beginners in Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, La Bayadere and The Nutcracker and Jane Tucker for teaching them.

Alison, David, Gita, Janet, Joanne and Mel are invited to let me have their nominations (if any by 17:00 on 30 Nov) and then we shall offer it to the readers for a vote.

Highlights of 2015

Ballet Cymru's Cinderella


In Looking Forward to 2015 - My Choices 29 Dec 2014 I tipped Queensland Ballet's La Sylphide for ballet of the year with the Dutch National Ballet's Cool Britannia, the Royal Ballet's Fille, Ballet Black's triple bill, Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet and Scottish Ballet's Nutcracker as likely runners up. They were all good and I enjoyed them all tremendously but none of them was the ballet of the year in my book. That accolade belongs to Ballet Cymru's Cinderella by Darius James and Amy Doughty (see Ballet Cymru's Cinderella 15 June 2015).

James and Doughty also choreographed the second best show which was Tir, an arrangement of Welsh folk songs sung on stage by Cerys Matthews (see "The Pride of Newport and the Pride of Wales" 8 Nov 2015 and Ballet Cymru in London 1 Dec 2015). The performances that I saw were charged with emotion because the company had recently lost Mandev Sokhi, one of the most attractive dancers on the stage (see Mandev Sokhi 10 Oct 2015). Matthews had added the Rev Eli Jenkings's prayer from Milkwood to her medley in Sokhi's memory. I doubt that there was a dry eye in the house. How the dancers carried it off with memories so raw is  remarkable.

Ballet Cymru have some wonderful dancers and this was the year I got to make their acquaintance (see Ballet Cymru at Home 5 Oct 2015). I visited their studios in Rogerstone with the London Ballet Circle and watched their company class and a rehearsal of Cinderella. At the end of the company class James invited each of his artists to perform their party piece. The women showed off their fouettés and the men their jumps and turns.

This was a vintage year for Cinderella as the panel agreed in the State of the Art Panel Discussion: Narrative Dance in Ballet during Northern Ballet's Choreographic Laboratory 2015 (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015). There were great productions by Christopher Hampson for Scottish Ballet and Christopher Wheeldon's for the Dutch National Ballet (see Scottish Ballet's Cinderella 20 Dec 2015 and  Wheeldon's Cinderella 13 July 2015. They both had their strengths and I liked them a lot but it is the Welsh version with Jack White's glorious score that stands out like a beacon.

Ballet Cymru shows that a company does not have to be big to be great and two of my other favourite companies, Ballet Black and Phoenix Dance Theatre, emphasize that point. I saw them both at the Linbury - Ballet Black's triple bill on 14 Feb 2015 (see Ballet Black's Best Performance Yet 17 Feb 2015) and Phoenix's on 12 Nov 2015 (see The Phoenix Soars Over London 13 Nov 2015).

There are of course big companies that are also great and one of the greatest is Scottish Ballet. Last year was a succession of successes: the revival of Peter Darrell's Nutcracker in Edinburgh (Like meeting an old friend after so many years 4 Jan 2015), A Streetcar named Desire at Sadler's Wells (see Scottish Ballet's Streetcar 2 April 2015), Marc Brew's Exalt and van Manen's 5 Tangos at the Tramway (see No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet 26 April 2015) and Christopher Hampson's magnificent Cinderella which I mentioned above. Scottish Ballet was the first ballet company I got to know and love and it is still special to me. Yesterday I tweeted that if I could see only one ballet company this year it would have to be Scottish Ballet.

Scottish Ballet owes much of its success to its artistic director in Christopher Hampson. I was lucky enough to see him in the flesh in the State of the Art Panel Discussion which I mentioned above. He choreographed Perpetuum Mobile for Northern Ballet which accompanied Madame Butterfly on its mid-scale tour which was the best thing I saw from that company last year (see Nixon's Masterpiece 22 May 2015) and Four for Ballet Central (see Dazzled 3 May 2015).  I look forward to his Sextet for Ballet Black very much.

I saw two great performances by the Royal Ballet in 2015:  Cranko's Onegin on 16 Feb 2015 with Matthew Golding and Natalia Osipova in the leading roles (see Onegin: the most enjoyable performance that I have seen at the House since Sibley and Dowell 21 Feb 2015) and La Fille mal gardée with Laura Morera and Vadim Muntagirov as Lise and Colas (see The Best Fille Ever 18 April 2015). Morera was a lovely Lise and Muntagirov was the best Colas ever and I got the opportunity to tell Morera how much I enjoyed her performance when she and Ricardo Cervera spoke to the London Ballet Circle in August (see Laura Morera 25 Aug 2015).

Cranko is my favourite choreographer of all time but he died so young. Two young choreographers who remind me of Cranko are Christopher Marney and  Ernst Meisner, I had an opportunity to compare Cranko and Marney back to back when the Chelmsford Ballet Company performed Cranko's Pineapple Poll and Carnival of the Animals, a work that Marney created specially for the company (see A Delight Indeed  22 March 2015. Meisner created Embers for the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company of which he is artistic coordinator. In my review of the work danced by Nancy Burer and Thomas van Damme I described it as "one of the most beautiful ballets I have ever seen" (see The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's best Performance yet 8 Feb 2015).

We were lucky enough to see the Junior Company in London in June (see Junior Company in London - even more polished but as fresh and exuberant as ever 7 June 2015) and the main company's Cinderella in July. I also saw their Cool Britannia, a mixed bill of works by British choreographers at the Stopera in Amsterdam (see Going Dutch 29 June 2015) and the opening gala of the Amsterdam ballet season (see The Best Evening I have ever spent at the Ballet 13 Sept 2015). There was  a party after the gala at which I met many of the company's choreographers and dancers including Ted Brandsen, Juanjo Arques and Michaela DePrince.

Another splendid evening at the Birmingham Hippodrome on 20 June 2015 marked the 25th anniversary of the Birmingham Royal Ballet's move to Birmingham and the 20th anniversary of David Bintley's appointment as artistic director of that company (see In Praise of Bintley 20 June 2015). The company performed David The King Dances, Bintley's latest work, and his Carmina Burana (see A Special Ballet for a Special Day 23 June 2015 and Oh Fortuna 23 June 2015). Bintley spoke about both works on his visits to the London Ballet Circle in May and November.  The Birmingham Royal Ballet also danced a magnificent Coppelia in Salford on 5 March 2015 (see Sensational 6 March 2015 and Swan Lake on 24 Sept 2015 (see Birmingham Royal Ballet's Swan Lake at the Lowry 26 Sept 2015)

Yet another gala too place in Leeds on the 14 March 2015 to mark Northern Ballet's 35th anniversary (see Sapphire 15 March 2015). Thirteen works were performed that night by artists from Northern Ballet and many other companies. The highlight of my evening was the pas de deux from the White Act of Swan Lake by Muntagirov and Daria Klimentova.  They were a remarkable partnership and I had thought that I would never see them dance again. It was also good to see Xander Parish again in Eric Gauthier's Ballet 101, Phoenix's Shift and Javier Torres's Dying Swan. That was the first time I had seen a male dancer attempt Pavlova's iconic piece and Torres succeeded handsomely. My mother saw Pavlova dance the Dying Swan in the same theatre many years ago (see In Leeds of all Places - Pavlova, Ashton and Magic 18 Sept 2013). I also enjoyed Jonathan Watkins's Northern Trilogy and in particular his Yorkshire Pudding. It promised so much for 1984 but although that ballet grew on my the second time I saw it, it fell a long way short of my expectations (see My First Impressions of 1984 12 Sept 2015 and 1984 Second Time Round 24 Oct 2015).

I saw 3 productions of Romeo and Juliet in 2015. One was by Northern Ballet, another by Ballet West and the third by the English National Ballet in 2015. Northern's version by Jean Christophe-Maillot with its emphasis on Friar Lawrence was interesting but the production that I enjoyed the most was Nureyev's version which ENB danced at the Palace on 28 Nov 2015 (see Manchester's Favourite Ballet Company 29 Nov 2015). Max Westwell and Lauretta Summerscales danced the title roles magnificently and I was particularly pleased to see Sarah Kundi as Lady Capulet.

ENB also performed Lest We Forget at the Palace on 24 Nov 2015 (see Lest We Forget 25 Nov 2015). This was a triple bill of works by Liam Scarlett, Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan in memory of those who took part in World War 1. This was not an easy programme to watch but it was intensely moving. I admired all three works, particularly Scarlett's No Man's Land,

The centenary of World War I was also marked by the Royal New Zealand Ballet in Andrew Simmons's Dear Horizon and Neil Ieremia's Passchendale which they performed at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre on 4 Nov 2015 as part their A Passing Cloud mixed bill (see Kia Ora! The Royal New Zealand Ballet in Leeds 5 Nov 2015). This was one of two antipodean companies that visited us in 2015 of which I for one would liked to have seen more. I did catch the New Zealanders' Giselle in High Wycombe on 7 Nov 2015 (see Royal New Zealand Ballet's Giselle 10 Nov 2015).

The other antipodean company that we welcomed was the Queensland Ballet which danced La Sylphide at the Coliseum in August (see A Dream realized; the Queensland Ballet in London 12 Aug 2015). Australia used to send its best dancers to us starting with Sir Robert Helpmann but is now a power house of dance in its own right attracting talent from around the world. One of its brightest stars is the legendary Li-Cunxin who has carved an impressive career in stockbroking as well as dance. Meeting him at the London Ballet Circle and hearing his life story was an unforgettable experience (see Li-Cunxin at the London Ballet Circle 5 Aug 2015).

Another foreign company that visited us in August was the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre which brought the Mariinsky's Denis Rodkin to our shores. I saw him in La Bayadère with Irina Kolesnikova as Nikiya (see Blown Away - St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's La Bayadere 24 Aug 2015). I had previously seen him in HDTV transmissions from Moscow as the Nutcracker (see Clara grows up- Grigorovitch's Nutcracker transmitted directly from Moscow 21 Dec 2014). Siegfried in Swan Lake (see Grigorovich's Swan Lake in Bradford 26 Jan 2015) and Ferhad in The Legend of Love (see The Bolshoi's "A Legend of Love" streamed from Moscow 27 Oct 2014) but he is even more impressive in real life.

I saw some great performances last year by some outstanding dancers from the world's most famous companies and it is probably unfair to select any for special praise but here is my list for what it is worth:

Ballet of the Year
Ballet Cymru's Cinderella, runner up Ballet Cymru's Tir

Company of the Year
Scottish Ballet, runners up Dutch National Ballet and the Royal Ballet

Small Companies of the Year
Ballet Black and Ballet Cymru

Contemporary Company of the Year
Phoenix Dance Theatre

Male Dancer of the Year
Denis Rodkin in La Bayadere, runner up Matthew Golding in the Royal Ballet's Onegin and the Dutch National Ballet's Cinderella

Female Dancer of the Year
Laura Morera as Lise  runners up Anna Tsygankova and Bethany Kingsley-Garner as Cinderella 

Choreographers of the Year 
Christopher Hampson for Perpetuum Mobile for Northern Ballet and Ernst Meisner for Embers for the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company

Dancers to watch
Floor Elmers of Dutch National Ballet, Krystal Lowe of Ballet Cymru, Marie-Astrid-Mence of Phoenix Dance Theatre and Gavin McCaig of Northern Ballet

Promising Newcomers
Bart Engelen, Norwegian Ballet, Cristiano Principato and Emilie Tassinari, Dutch National Ballet Junior Company, Tim Hill of Ballet Cymru and Prentice Whitlow of Phoenix Dance Theatre

My Personal Ballet Highlights of 2014

Choosing  highlights from 2014 has not been easy. I have seen a lot of ballet over the last year and have even danced in one (see The Time of my Life 28 June 2014). I've seen several of the world's most famous companies and many of the world's most acclaimed dancers. I've taken class from some wonderful teachers some of whom have danced principal roles. I've seen some of the great names of ballet at events organized by the London Jewish Cultural Centre and the London Ballet Centre. As it is impossible to compare these experiences objectively I have used just one criterion. What experiences in ballet have given me most pleasure in 2014?

I have to start with Ballet Black because I saw their triple bill no less than four times last year. It consisted of three works: Limbo by Martin Lawrence, Two of a Kind by Christopher Marney, and A Dream within Midsummer Night's Dream by Arthur Pita. I loved them all but my favourite was the Marney. Marney is a choreographer I particularly admire (see my appreciation Christopher Marney 15 March 2014). I was thrilled to meet him when he spoke to London Ballet Circle and again at the premier of Dogs Don't Do Ballet in Harlow in October. I saw Ballet Black perform those works in London, Southport where I was lucky enough to meet Cassa Pancho and several of her dancers for the first time,  Nottingham and Leeds. They got better and better each time so it was their last performance at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds that I enjoyed the most. That was the first of my personal ballet highlights of 2014.

The Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre was the venue in which my over 55 class danced as part of the end of year show. To dance on the same stage as some of my favourite artists was a terrific experience. Literally the time of my life but I doubt if it was for anyone else so I shan't count that. Instead I shall mention Northern Ballet's mixed bill which consisted of Lubovitch's Concerto 622, van Manen's Concertante and Kenneth Tindall's The Architect. I am a fan of all those choreographers, particularly Hans van Manen who is one of the resident choreographers of the Dutch National Ballet of which I am now a Friend.  But it was Tindall's The Architect that thrilled me most that day. A few days earlier I had contributed to an appeal by Hannah Bateman to raise funds on Kickstarter to film The Architect which I supported  (see They Made It!  20 June 2014). It was a great pleasure to meet Bateman and Tindall at the 10th anniversary gala for the CAT gala. 

Tindall like Marney trained at Central. Another talented young choreographer from that school is Paul Chantry who is one of the founders and artistic directors of Chantry Dance Company. I owe them and in particular their dance director Gail Gordon a personal debt of gratitude for coaxing me onto stage at Lincoln Drill Hall on 9 May 2014 (see Chantry Dance Company's Sandman and Dream Dance 10 May 2014) for that was the first time I had danced in public. Without that experience I would never have have put my name forward for the Northern Ballet Academy end of year show. That day was memorable in several other respects. I met Mel Wong and two other talented young dancers. I helped make and dance in a ballet which is now on Vimeo. I saw a great performance of Sandman by Paul Chantry and his wife Rae Piper. But best of all I got to know Chantry Dance Company which does great educational and outreach work as well as great shows (see Chantry Dance - Making Connections 30 Aug 2014).

Another company that does great outreach work as well as great shows is Ballet Cymru which has a close connection with the London Ballet Circle. In June I saw their Beauty and the Beast in Lincoln which was a great show but an even better show was Stuck in the Mud which they performed on the streets and by the beach of Llndudno in collaboration with Gloucestershire Dance. Ballet Cymru has some wonderful dancers and it was a great pleasure to see them again but it was the contribution of the Gloucestershire dancers that impressed me on that occasion. It was my first experience of accessible dance and I immediately saw its value for an audience. Instead of overcoming disability the dancers add a new dimension to dance. Seeing that performance and later meeting the choreographer Marc Brew was definitely a highlight of 2014.

Marc Brew works in Glasgow which is the home of Scottish Ballet, the first ballet company that I got to know and love (see Scottish Ballet 20 Dec 2013). Last year I saw two great performances by that company, Romeo and Juliet in May which promoted me to become a Friend of the company and The Crucible with Ten Poems in October. If I allowed a company more than one highlight they would be five and six from last year. I anticipate that Peter Darrell's The Nutcracker which I shall see next week will be one of the highlights of 2015.  As I have to chose one from Scottish Ballet it has to be Krzysztof Pastor's Romeo and Juliet.

Two other performances of Romeo and Juliet were highlights for me in 2014, First, the Mariinsky's at Covent Garden with Xander Parish in the leading role. I was lucky enough to meet Xander Parish when he spoke to the London Ballet Circle a few days after the show. My ballet teacher's daughter's birthday fell just a few days afterwards. I presented him with two cards - one from the Royal Ballet's shop and the other from Northern Ballet's and he paid us the compliment of choosing the Northern Ballet one.

The other Romeo and Juliet that thrilled me was English National Ballet's Romeo and Juliet in the round at the Albert Hall. The principal roles were danced by Friedemann Vogel and Alina Cojocaru. It was a bittersweet moment for me because I feared that would be the last time I would see Sarah Kundi whom I have followed ever since she was with Northern Ballet. I was overjoyed to learn that she had been recruited by English National Ballet (see Saved for the Nation 17 July 2014). In November I saw her and my other favourite dancers from the company in company class (see Coppelia in Oxford  2 Nov 2014), Kundi is not just a fine dancer but also an entertaining blogger and I strongly recommend her notes on tour.

For a while Kundi danced with MurleyDance and it was she who drew that company to my attention. I saw their triple bill in Leeds on 1 Dec 2013. Although I had come to see Kundi I was impressed by the other dancers and David Murley's choreography. I saw the company again in October when they danced Hail Britannia 28 Oct 2014. They had evolved tremendously.  It was almost a different company.  I liked all the works but my favourite was Anaish Parmar's Shaadi.  That was about an Indian wedding and I loved the way the choreographer combined east and west. There was Indian music but also I'm getting married in the Morning. There were wonderful jumps and pointe work.

I mentioned van Manen and Pastor above. They are two of the reasons why I have become a Friend of the Dutch National Ballet. A third is the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company who came to London in May. I had already seen them in Amsterdam and they were even better at the Linbury.  As before there were superb performances by Michaela DePrince and Sho Yamada and my favourite ballet of the show was Ernst Meisner's Saltarello. I have featured the Junior Company earlier this month and I am looking forward to seeing them again in their opening show in Amsterdam on 6 Feb 2015.

I saw the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden twice last year as well as several HDTV transmissions in the cinema. Because they are the gold standard I expect a lot from them and my reviews have been a little more critical than those of other companies.  It goes without saying that two of the best performances of the year by a country mile were Giselle in January and The Winter's Tale. As I have to choose one show from each company it has to be Giselle  with Carlos Acosta and Natalia Osipova. I think that is because I already knew Giselle and although I find Act II superstitious and creepy it contains the most sublime choreography I know. Although I was a trifle disappointed when I first saw Winter's Tale I got to appreciate it when I saw it in the cinema and on TV on Christmas day and I now like it very much indeed.

My favourite ballet of 2014 was Gillian Lynne's re-creation of Robert Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals for Birmingham Royal Ballet which I was at Sadler's Wells in October. I had seen Helpmann dance with Frederick Ashton in Cinderella and he also presented the gala to Sir Frederick which I saw when I first became interested in ballet. Miracle in the Gorbals broke new ground in many ways just as its almost exact contemporary Appalachian Spring did in the USA. Even though Lynne's production was a re-creation rather than a revival its performance was something of a miracle in itself and a joy to behold.

Post Script

What will be my ballet highlights for 2015? Here are some of my suggestions: Looking Forward to 2015 - My Choices 29 Dec 2014.