John Cranko: Onegin
Tim Rushton: Cinderella
Royal Danish Ballet
New casts
New principal dancer American Nehemiah Kish has certainly been put to work. Following leading parts in Giselle and Cinderella he is now also cast as Onegin.
His previous roles has showed him to be a technically strong dancer with dramatic limitations. Therefore Onegin could be considered something of a stretch.
When entering the stage Kish, who has previously danced Onegin with the Canadian ballet, looked like he had build his Onegin closely on the great Danish dancer Arne Villumsen´s interpretation. He had even adopted Arne Villumsen's hairstyle. If you got to imitate, imitate the best, but although he could mimic the mannerisms of Villumsen's Onegin it is impossible to get the motivation and the first half of the ballet showed Kish as a very bland Onegin. Even when standing in front of the curtain he did not register. But beginning with the duel scene he suddenly stepped into character and grew as a performer culminating with a very fine third act with equally strong acting and dancing. I like to believe I have seen the turning point and that Kish can develop into the mould of a Danish leading man, equally strong in dancing and acting.
Another highlight of the evening was the return of Gitte Lindstrøm as Tatiana after more than a year's absence due to injury. Lindstrøm' Tatiana has always managed to avoid being the victim and to communicate the strengths of the character. She was in excellent form and will, together with Gudrun Bojesen, set the standard for the female wing when Silja Schandorff retires later this season.
The ballerina qualities of Gudrun Bojesen were equally demonstrated when she took the lead in Tim Rushston's Cinderella. Bojesen was able to enhance the role and to clarify the dramatic contents including the development from child to adult. Dancing wise she added coherence and musicality to the otherwise messy choreography. it was a triumph of true ballerina ship.
Bojesen was supposed to dance with Kristoffer Sakurai, but that was prevented by injury. Instead Sebastian Kloborg took on the part of the prince. Kloborg is very strong dramatically and created a real living prince, but his dancing is flawed by a very tense posture which ruins his ability to flow and produce really good classical dancing. He need to lose the tension and work on creating a better line and fluidity in his dancing. Fair enough Kloborg had had very few opportunities since his debut as Romeo. He has a real talent that can be developed and he has a strong stage personality, not often seen in young dancers. But with the present repertoire, consisting of Onegin, Cinderella and Giselle supplemented by Silk and Knife, there are but few meaty roles save the leads. And they have been concentrated on a very small numbers of dancers. Without Sakurai's injury, Kloborg would have had little opportunity to develop. I am sorry to say that the upcoming Nutcracker will not change the patterns, as there are few good dancing parts there as well to develop the younger dancers. Ind an interview Nikolaj Hübbe stated that he wanted to accustom the Danish audience to triple bill programmes . That seems like a good idea because it will present opportunities to more dancers and hopefully also to the large group of stars who had not really been used during the fall season, with its dependence on the pure classical princes and princesses, Dancers like Thomas Lund, Morten Eggert and Diana Cuni is as much a factor of the RDB magic as the danseur nobles. Please let them shine soon.
Copyright (c) Photos Henrik Stenberg Royal Danish Ballet
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