Angelin Preljocaj:
An then a Thousand Years of Peace
at the Royal Danish Theatre
Royal Danish Ballet's repertoire
October 2011
With this season two opening programmes "The Lesson/La Sylphide" and "Virtuoso Steps", Royal Danish Ballet caters for the refined and dedicated balletomanes. It is ballet performance on a very high level. But as a state company RDB has other commitments at well and that is taken care of in the next programmes.
The commitment includes making a ballet performance for younger children, another for teenagers and students and present guest performances by other European companies, make something for the Opera stage and do a family-oriented Christmas show. For these commitments Nikolaj Hübbe - recently prolonged as ballet master for five more years- has juggled the dwindling budget and his high ambitions and selected to feed the young children with Thomas Lund's "Teddy goes dancing" from a few seasons ago. For the student audience Esther Lee Wilkinsson will make a ballet version of a popular Danish novel with Hübbe himself in the role of harsh teacher professor Blomme. The opera stage will get a high dose of Jerome Robbins ballets and the Christmas family audience gets the luxury of the Balanchine "Nutcracker".
Hübbe may agree to these commitments but he also use them to push the case for good choreography. His argument is. " If we have to do "The Nutcracker" we will do the best available".