Giselle
Nikolaj Hübbe/Sorella Englund
The Royal Danish Ballet
September 13 -14 2008
New York City Ballet
in Copenhagen
September 2008
For his first production in Copenhagen, Nikolaj Hübbe chose Giselle in
a version by himself and the two former Royal Danish ballerinas Sorella
Englund and Anna Lærkesen and dedicated the production to the present
prima ballerina, Silja Schandorff, who danced the first night. Even
though Schandorff was on THE top of her game, had I only viewed the first
night I would have written that the production was beautiful, but
rather bland and no patch on Hübbe's rightly celebrated production of La Sylphide. I
might even have concluded that Hübbe did not have the in depth
knowledge of the secrets of Giselle. But at the second performance with
Gudrun Bojesen and Mads Blangstrup, the production came miraculously to
life and showed details and interpretations almost surpassing La
Sylphide.
How was that possible? A lecture demonstration the previous week demonstrated how meticulously Hübbe and Englund worked with Silja Schandorff and her partner Canadian Nehemiah Kish and Yao Wei and Ulrik Birkkjær (first cast 1st act Pas de Deux and third cast Giselle and Albrecht). Yet save Schandorff, these dancers turned in lacklustre performances on the first night. Kish, who recently joined RDB as a principal, has the technique for Albrecht, but lacks the requisite dramatic presence and flair. He partnered Schandorff carefully but was not able to match her dramatic presence.
Schandorff has come to Giselle by the way of Myrtha. With her tall frame, long lines and powerful acting she is an über-Giselle, taking both the part and dancing into new territory. She needs a strong Albrecht who can balance her performance. She had previously created magic with her former partner Kenneth Greve, who resigned last season to become ballet master in Finland.
What Kish was missing was very prominently displayed in Mads Blangstrup's Albrecht. From the first entrance Blangstrup oozed dramatic presence and built his character though a myriad of details. At his entrance he was bursting with energy and almost childlike in his relationship with the old couple. Knocking on Giselle's door was a full process of knocking, anticipation and listening. Not once did he depend on stock gestures. Every sequence was analyzed, interpreted and communicated clearly to the audience. His dancing was beautifully phrased and styled. His relationships with all of the characters were carefully worked out. I was extremely impressed with his scenes with Tina Højlund´s Myrtha — the eye contact, the pleading, the inability to understand her game plan.
Like Blangstrup, his Giselle, Gudrun Bojesen has a clear line back to the great Danish dancers of the 50s. You feel their presence in their dancing. At present Bojesen is going from strength to strength. Her Giselle follows an equally impressive Tatiana. She is clearly outgrowing her ingénue employ. Compared to Schandorff, Bojesen is a more traditional choice for Giselle, yet her performance is as ground breaking in her choices as Schandorff's and Blangstrup's. What the three dancers share is their ability to combine their technical skills with an actor's vocabulary. They can build believable characters through dancing and acting. If we take away the acting and concentrate on the dancing, they all phrases beautifully, have strong line sand a wonderful three dimensionality in their dancing. These are the key ingredients in the Danish style, and they are as difficult to emulate for the foreign import of dancers as the dramatic skills.
Not only did the second cast have the benefit of the perfectly cast starring couple but also strong cards in Tina Højlund's pained and elegant Myrtha and Morten Eggert's multi-layered Hilarion, who both added to keeping the drama alive. The act 1 Pas de Deux was well performed by a stellar Diana Cuni and young Charles Andersen, who may grow into a second Lloyd Riggins with a youthful energy, fine lines and presence.
Hübbe, Englund and Lærkesen have worked carefully and diligently with the corps. The result is a very beautiful and romantic interpretation of the wilis. The interpretation makes the wilis less scary and the second act lost some of its drama and spookiness on the first night. Choosing the softly dancing Amy Watson as Myrtha emphases the sylphlike qualities, and as Hübbe has chosen to limit the stage effects to a minimum, the drama in second act is lacking.
With the second cast the drama is restored trough the strong acting and commitment of mainly Blangstrup and Eggert, who really make this a matter of life and death. Blangstrup even makes Hübbe's ending with an Albrecht who can bury his ghosts work.
In all this production shows that Hübbe is well on the way in his plans for the Royal Danish Ballet and that Giselle is a production that can bring out the best in the company and its stars.
Looking back and forward
Fate has given us the opportunity to view Nikolaj Hübbe's immediate past in the same month as he takes up the reigns of the Royal Danish Ballet as NYCB visited Copenhagen earlier this month.
The company is clearly in better shape than it had been on the two previous tours by break out groups. In the PR much was made of the fact that the average age in the corps is only 22. In my opinion this is not a fact to boast about. The company clearly lacks the stability of experienced corps members who know the repertoire in depth and can set the tone as experienced dance captains. The result of the rather inexperienced corps was messy lines and lack of coordination in Serenade and Symphony in C. Even in Agon the four male dancers could not hold the same arm pose when standing in the signature position with their backs to the audience. It was also evident that NYCB cannot attract or develop dancers on the same level as they could a few generations back. Especially the male wing is weak. It made it very clear to me that there were two components in the greatness of NYCB: The choreography of Balanchine and Robbins and the high standard of soloists. Today the NYCB dancers do a better job of dancing Martins, Wheeldon and Ratmansky than Balanchine.
In gaining Hübbe RDB gets an on hand source to the best of Balanchine, which we will enjoy later this season with a programme of Symphony in 3 movements, La Sonambule (with Mads Blangstrup as the poet I hope) and Symphony in C. Losing Hübbe, NYCB misses a principal who could build a much needed rapport with the audience and present a strong virility on stage â qualities that are much missed in the present line up.
One could say that NYCB has come down to earth and is now facing the same challenges as other ballet companies. Where I clearly can see Hübbe's game plan for the RDB, I cannot see any clear direction for NYCB. It looks like keeping to same strategy: Preserve Balanchine and Robbins as the calling card. Produce more or less the same ballets by the same choreographers as all other companies (three out of the four featured non-Balanchine/Robbins choreographers is also on the RDB-rooster) and hope that youth itself will give a boost. It does not look like a recipe for development and growth to me.
photos (all by Henrik Stenberg):
Silja Schandorff and Nehemiah Kish, as Giselle and Albrecht.
Gudrun Bojesen and Mads Blankstrup, as Giselle and Albrecht.
Rose Gad (Bathilde) and Erling Eliasson (Prince of Courtland).
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