The Norwegian Ballet

Opera Oslo House

Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage

Creative Commons Licence

Source Wikipedia

One of the highlights of the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's show in Amsterdam and London was Milena Siderova's Full Moon danced by the gifted young Dutch dancer Bart Engelen to Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet.  Well Bart now has a new job with the Norwegian National Ballet which is based in Oslo's new Opera House.

That building was opened in 2008 which must make it one of the newest and most advanced performing spaces in the world. I have not visited Oslo since the opera house was constructed so I have no personal knowledge of the building but I am very impressed by the pictures and description on the Norwegian Opera and Ballet's website. There is a short video of the building on YouTube. I shall certainly take a guided tour of the building on my next visit to Norway.

That may come soon because I am tempted by the new programme which includes box office staples like Kenneth MacMillan's Manon, Giselle and The Nutcracker as well as Anna Karenina, a new work by Christian Spuck to a score by Rakhmaninov, Lutoslawski, Tsintsadze and Bardanashvili. According to the company's website the Norwegian Ballet

"focuses greatly on new works created especially for the company by choreographers like Alexander Ekman, Liam Scarlett and Choreographers in Residence Jo Strømgren and Alan Lucien Øyen."  

Now I have heard of Ekman and I know Scarlett but Strømgren and  Øyen are completely new to me and I am curious. A chance to seen Øyen's work will come with Back to the Future which opens on 16 Oct 2015.  Also on my wish list is Jiří Kylián’s Black and White.

The company that Bart will be joining has some British dancers like Philip Currell, Lindsay Craig from Preston and Natasha Jones. Its principals include Currell and the Cuban dancer Yoel Carreño. The company made a good choice when they recruited Bart Engelen. I wish him and the Norwegian ballet all the best and I look forward to seeing them in the new season.