Royal Danish Ballet
Summer 2008
When Frank Andersen hosted the annual outdoor performance at the Castel, his last duty as resigning Ballet Master, he complained to the audience that Kenneth Greve had refused to dance at the performance, as Greve would not dance following his glorious farewell performance a few weeks earlier. But as the performance showed Frank Andersen’s frustration had real reason. Save for Thomas Lund, who only danced the Tarantella in Napoli, all of the current male solo dancers were absent from the performance, mostly due to injury, but it was a significant marker that all is not well in the State of Denmark and particularly in the ballet company. Therefore the performance became an example on how you can create a performance without male stars. Instead, young dancers got a shot of the bravura roles; Don Quixote was represented by crowd scenes rather than the pas de deux etc.