April 9, 2020
On Monday, our Prime Minister announced the next step in fighting the Corona Virus. Part of the plan is to ban big audience events and The Royal Danish Ballet is therefore effectively closed down, probably to the fall season.
This means that neither “A Folk Tale”, “Come Fly Away” and the anticipated “Mahler´s Third Symphony” will be performed this season. It is especially sad for the Mahler piece, as the production had reached the final rehersals. Regarding the two other ballets, it is a minor loss as they are both well known by dancers and audience.
One can hope that some of the three ballet may be performed next season. However, the Royal Danish Ballet as part of three-headed organisation, is subjected to longtime planning. It may not be possible to perform any of the three ballet next season.
We may be wiser, when next season´s repertoire will be presented, usually by the end of April.
Hurrah for Online
However, we are not totally left to our own devises. Royal Danish Ballet are sharing several ballets online, including “Napoli” with Alexandra lo Sardo and Alban Lendorf. This week RDB has added not only Gregory Dean´s children ballet’ ”The forgotten Children” but also Christopher Wheeldon´s “Alice”.
It has just been announced that "Romeo & Juliet" by John Neumeier will be screened on the RDB webside on Sunday. April 12.
The ballet s are available on the theatre´s website (www.kglteater.dk) .
The Copenhagen version of “Alice” was filmed in 2018-19 and shown in cinemas and planned for television later. In some respects, the filmed version make some scenes better, for example Alice growing bigger and smaller. The camera can visually remove the frame on the stage. However, in the scenes with the Cheshire cat, the camera cannot make the wranglers invisible, as was possible when seen from the auditorium, so some you win and some you loose.
Surprisingly, the tv production do not show the first cast, led by ida Praetorius and Andreas Kaas, who can look very young, an advantage in “Alice”. The popular duo has been televised within the last year´s in “Romeo & Juliet” and “Giselle” . It may be part of the reason why another cast , principals Holly Dorger and Jonathan Chmelensky got the chance. They do a fine, although more mature performance. However, it might have helped Holly Dorger´s Alice if the role of mother/Red Queen was cast with a dancer who were taller than her. It is difficult when the child daughter is significantly taller than her mother, danced by J´aime Crandall, who nevertheless created a very funny diva. Jon Axel Fransson was also outstanding as Lewis Caroll/The White Rabbit”
There were other dancers, whom I had not seen in their roles before, like Ryan Tomash, who presented a fine interpretation as the Mad Hatter. Andreas Kaas also delivered an elegant Catterpillar.
Royal Danish Ballet is not alone in opening the door to the visual library. Companies like Royal Ballet and John Neumeier´s Hamburg Ballet is also sharing their performances on internet.
In Denmark, Alexander Meinertz is currently writing interviews with 12 principal dancers from the Royal Danish Ballet on how they cope s with the current difficulties. Each days brings a new interview. The interviews can be found both in Danish and English at https://alexandermeinertz.dk.
So far interviews are available with Holly Dorger, Jonathan Chmelensky, Caroline Baldwin, Ida Praetorius, Astrid Elbo and Tobias Praetorius.
Photo Credits:
Scene from "Alice" by Costin Radu
Scene from "Napoli"by Costin Radu
Ida Praetorius in "Alice" by Costin Radu
Holly Dorger in "Weimar" by Camilla Winther
Copyrights(c) Royal Danish Ballet
T
Comments