Mariinskij Ballet:
"Swan Lake" and "Fokine" Programmes
The Royal Theatre Copenhagen
January 13 - 19 2014
If I look back to the performances I have seen with The Mariinskij Ballet over the last years, very few have been the heritage repertoire. Instead I have seen the company moving toward a more international repertoire. Two years ago the their London performances included three works also done by the Royal Danish Ballet: "In the Night", "Ballet Imperial" and Ratmansky's "Anna Karenina" choreographed for the RDB. The programme also included "Scotch Symphony", although never done by RDB but a work with a strong Bournonville link.
It is an ongoing trend that the major ballet companies gravitates to the same repertoire. I have earlier seen Mariinskij and Paris Opera Ballet in "Jewels". This season I caught Royal Ballets production and it has been announced that RDB will perform the work within the next couple of years. So everybody is more or less doing the same repertoire. There are two reasons behind the trend. The major one is that there are few good choreographers around and secondly each company want to shake their claim to the international classics. "Jewels" in particular is seen as the test of a truly great company with strong soloists and corps. It is more and more regarded as the ballet that define the upper layer in the market.
Stock Pieces
When a company broaden the repertoire as abowe one would naturally assume that it would lead to some kind of reflection regarding the heritage repertoire. But obviously not in the case of Mariinskij who this time around brings the old warhorse, the 1950 Sergeyev production of "Swan Lake", complete with paper mache swans, jester, a gladiator Rothbart and a happy ending. In short a production where the sublime mix with the ridiculous.
The sublime is represented by the glorious female corps, still probably the best in the world. Seeing the swan segments, it is pure joy when the 32 dancers move as one stream in perfect syncronisation in the legato movements. The rest of the production is defined by quantity. All the small and bigger examples are maximixed peoplewise. Why make a quartet, when there are room for sixteen dancers? Everything is on maximum volume. This is a serieus non Freudian "Swan Lake".
All that make it a challenge for the leading couple left to fight to battle for nuances, style and dephts in a production with coarse acting and circus effects. The choice of going with the happy ending and the way that is concieved, makes the task even more difficult.
First team out Soloist Anastasia Matvienko and Principal Yegeney Invanchenko was technically strong but did not manage to put in character and feeling. Second cast Prima Uliana Lopatkina and Principal Danill Korsuntsev was much more convincing in second act as the star crossed lovers, but somehow both seemed to loose the confidence during the break and was frankly not that impressive in the last half of the evening.
Fokine Triumph
"Swan Lake" has been the audience drawer and havee been sold out lonhg ago. But the real revelation proved to be the Fokine program, where Andris Liepa and Isabelle Fokine has directed "Shérérazade" and "The Firebird" and created two wonderful performances that really get al the qualities of the "Ballet Russe" period and style. Acting was strong and appropriate, dancing spot on and even the pantomime parts was delivered with nuances and control. The balance was right and it was probably the best Ballet Russe performances, I have seen in a very long time.
The evening began with "Les Sylphides" starring british dancer Xander Parish in his second outing. He also did the pas de trois in "Swan Lake" Act One. Bringing "Les Sylphides" to Copenhagen is a bit like selling sand in Saharah, and to a Danish eye the body pose and arm movements of the Sylphs seem akward and forced. As it was, "Les Sylphides" in its painted wood and demure lightning had some difficulty in competing with the full Ballet Russe colour scheme.
Death of the Sylph
Earlier this month media reported that the great Danish Sylph of the 40ties to 60ties Margrethe Schanne had died at age 92. Although Schanne danced a full ballerina repertoire, she became synonomous with the romantic repertoire, mainly the Bournonville Sylph, a role she owned from 1945 to 1966, where she retired from dancing.
Schanne was formed as a dancer under Harald Lander's reign and she was of the few dancer who kept supporting him under and after the Lander scandal with ended his reign at RDB. It could had made her later career difficult, but instead she got some of her best roles during the 50ties, especially "La Sonambule" with Henning Kronstam as the poet.
When Vera Volkova joined the staff of RDB ( she was hired by Lander, but he had left shortly before she came) the RDB's style became more Russian and international, Schanne did not emulate the new ideas but kept fatefully to what she was taugh, and it is therefore posible to see pre-Volkova Bournonville style in several televised segments of Schanne dancing.
She also scored personal hits in the works of two Swedish female choreographers. As Medea in Birgit Cullberg's ballet and as the elderly dance teacher Irene Holm in Elsa Marianne von Rosen's ballet based on a novella by Danish author Herman Bang. She also became the first Danish Lady of the Camillias in a ballet by Kirsten Ralov.
The Lady and the Stamp
No orbitorary on Margrethe Schanne has failed to mention that she is the first dancer portraited on a postage stamp. This is not what she should be remembered for. Her dedication to the Romantic style and her intepretations of the great romantic roles has probably kept the link longer than would otherwise have been possible.
Dear Eva, thank you so much for your opinion on the guest performances of Mariinsky ballet in Copenhagen; I myself was present there - at Uliana Lopatkina/Danila Korsuntsev performance and the first night of Fokine's ballets. I share the greatest part of your thoughts about the "Swanlake" as well as agree about the superb performance of "Sheheresada" And "Firebird", but I'm a bot at a loss - why do you call "Shopeniana" performed by Mariinsky ballet "Les Sylphides" (or is it just another, danish or international name for the ballet?) I myself wasn't impressed by it much though agree that the female corps did a great job here.
Once again, thank you for your articles that I find extremely interesting and am avidly awaiting.
Posted by: Elena Kelly | January 23, 2014 at 12:08 PM