Liam Scarlett:
”Queen of Spades”
Royal Danish Ballet
The Old Stage
September 28, 2019
April 14, 2018 practically one and a half year ago, Liam Scarlett´ gave the Royal Danish Ballet and its audience an outstanding gift, his ballet version of Pushkin’s “Queen of Spades.” Probably the best ballet created for the company in many years.
For a long period, Royal Danish Ballet has seemed under a curse. While they have made outstanding performances of ballets created elsewhere, however when the guest choreographer came to create a ballet on the company, it often did not reach the expectations built up by the performance values of the borrowed material. Liam Scarlett certainly broke that trend by creating “Queen of Spades”, a perfect vehicle for the company and its dramatically gifted dancers.
The audience could then only enjoy a short run of “Queen of Spades”. The procedures of RDB is built on long term planning and while the subscription sale gives the company a steady income, it also makes it very difficult to capitalize on a hit like “Queen of Spades” or shorten the run of a production, who did not deliver as expected. Therefore, after a little more than a handful performances, “Queen of Spades” was to sit more than a full year out before getting a second run.
Shelfing good ballets has unfortunately been a practice at Royal Danish Ballet for a longer period. Certainly not from artistic reasons, but due to pressure from the political system. As many other companies RDB has a subscription program, giving the subscribers the guaranty that they will not get the same ballet twice in two seasons. The subscription is a steady income for the theatre; unfortunately, it is also more or less directing the artistic line. When “Queen of Spade” had its first run, it was obvious that many in the audience returned for a second or even third viewing. That is the hold; “Queen of Spades” has on its audience.
For this run, Liam Scarlett has brought back most of the casts from the first production. Unfortunately Andreas Kaas who was first cast as the key part, the officer Herman, is still out with a foot injury.
Second cast, Alexander Bozinoff was then promoted to first cast. He partners the ballerina, Ida Praetorius as Liza, the ward of the title role, the dominant countess, whom Herman believes holds the formula for winning.
Compared to his 2018 performance, Bozinoff has developed his character skills to a much higher level. In the first run, it was especially his acting in the final scene where Hermann has lost his wits that was impressive. Now he has every aspect of the role covered and communicated.
Bozinoff has very strong support from both Ida Praetorius as Liza and Kizzy Matiakis as the countess/ the queen of spades. Another outstanding performance is Principal Jon Axel Fransson as the officer Tomsky, a friend to Herman and a rival for Liza’s hand. With his equally strong acting and dancing skills, he could probably also have been an aze in the major role as Herman.
Following “Queen of Spades” the designer Jon Morrell has backed two more assignment at RDB. Last season he did the design for Gregory Dean´s “Cinderella” and later this year we will see yet another coproduction between Morrell and Gregory Dean in a new ballet, built on the life of Karen Blixen, the Danish author, primarily known for “The African Farm”, which became a vehicle for Meryl Streep.
I hope that the successful cooperation between Liam Scarlett and Royal Danish Ballet could also foster yet another smash hit.
Shelf Life
As mentioned above, the RDB has a significant numbers of good productions on the shelfs, but precious few opportunities to air them. Governmental financial cuts in the theatre’s budget limits both the number of productions and performances.
There are two big creations by Alexey Ratmansky, “Anna Karenina” and “The Golden Cockerel”, who had not had a second run. While Christopher Wheeldon´s “Alice” is aired as Christmas run every second and third year, his “Sleeping Beauty” has not been seen for several seasons.
The Neumeier portfolio might be opened every third year for “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Lady of the Camellias” still neither his “Hamlet” or “Little Mermaid” created on the RDB had seen another run. This season we will see Neumeier´s “Mahler´s third Symphony”.
There was some talks last season of a re-run of Kim Brandstup´s outstanding “Shaken Mirror”, yet nothing came out of it. Even last year´s festival could hardly muster an acceptable number of full Bournonville productions. Ib Andersen’s fine production of “Kermes in Bruges” from 2013 has only had six performances in all.
It is not that Nikolaj Hübbe favors his own productions. Neither his “Raymonda” nor “Bayadére” has been gifted re-runs. Hi co-productions with Silja Schandorff of “Swan Lake” has been aired regularly, still their “Giselle” is also missing in action, as is his controversial “La Sylphide”.
Forgetting Bournonville?
The result of the Bournonville drought is that precious few of even our leading dancers has had the opportunity to build a Bournonville portfolio.
Later this season, Nikolaj Hübbe will made a rerun of his own blown up version of “A Folk Tale”. It is something, but hardly enough to secure the company´s understanding and development of the Bournonville heritage.
All this examples may be one of the reasons why the Danish audience is so enamored by “The Queen of Spades” and Liam Scarlett.
Suddenly we see an outsider, who had little experience with the company being able to not only recognize the special skills of RDB, but also is able to turn that into an outstanding ballet, which somehow managed to be both classical and modern.
We want more and we want the hidden treasures back on the menu.
I hope that Nikolaj Hübbe can find the arguments and the sponsors to bring back the masterpieces from the attics.
Read my reviews on "Queen of Spades" at the premiere in 2017 here: https://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/page/7/ and
https://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2018/04/the-great-break-through.html
Photos by Henrik Stenberg. Copyright (c) Royal Danish Ballet
- Alexander Bozinoff & Kizzy Matiakis as Herman and the Countess
- Alexander Bozinoff
- Kizzy Matiakis
- Ida Praetorius as Liza
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