danceview
a quarterly review of dance

Reviews

Rebirth in Stuttgart

by Sylvia Kargl
Summer1996

When Reid Anderson took over the directorship of the Stuttgart Ballet, like John Neumeier at Hamburg Ballet, he did not have an easy start. Both companies are leading ballet companies in Germany, with strong identities and strong followings. Anderson's predecessor, Marcia Haydée (who had been the company's director from 1976), gave two farewell performances in July 1996, shortly before her sixtieth birthday. Many fans and admirers of one of the leading dramatic ballerinas in the world showed their appreciation. In the audience were not only the Lord Mayor of Stuttgart, but also several local government ministers who presented Haydée with honorary member-ship of the State Theaters. The company dedicated a performance of Haydée's Sleeping Beauty, considered one of her best productions, to her. There were three Auroras; a real baby Aurora (the daughter of two company members) was baptized on the stage. There were also two princes, and the fairies were dressed in the costumes of Haydée's most successful roles. However, the tribute was not to be a happy end to a great career. At the end of the performance, a speaker from the company suddenly started to read the names of twenty-one dancers who were leaving, many of them long-time favorites of the audience, and who did not want to go. Everybody on the stage was in tears, many of the audience as well, and the applause did not end until "La Haydée" left the stage on her husband's (a young German yoga guru) motorbike.

Although there is no doubt about her outstanding qualities as a dramatic ballerina, it cannot be denied that she was not equally gifted as a director. So it did not come as a surprise when she announced her retirement at the end of the 95/96 season in May 1994, allowing enough time to find a successor. Reid Anderson, a former dancer with the Stuttgart Ballet who gained international recognition as director of the National Ballet of Canada, was the first choice. He came to Stuttgart in the spring of 1996 to prepare his next season, and there was much talk of the dancers who were dismissed and about the schedule for his first season. Because of the rumors, some thought Anderson would have to face boos on his first night in September. However, thanks to the fair audience, which is well informed about the quality of ballet productions, there were ovations.

The new dancers were well received, Reid Anderson became the talk of the town, and there were interviews in all the German papers and TV specials. He started with John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet, the production which gave the company its international fame and reputation. It is one of Cranko's masterpieces, with vivid characters, spectacular pas de deux, and more than a dash of humour. The piece seemed to inspire the new dancers in the company. With Yseult Lendvai and Vladimir Malakhov, and Margaret Illmann and Robert Tewsley, Anderson showed two controversial couples. The contrast between the leading ballerinas remind one of the conflict in Stuttgart years ago between Marcia Haydée and the German ballerina Birgit Keil. For the audience it is interesting to see different interpretations: On one hand the romantic, elegant, emotional version of Lendvai and Malakhov; on the other, the somewhat cooler, noble manner of Illmann and Tewsley, who are also technically convincing principals. These four stars have done much international guesting: Illmann in Toronto and Rome; Lendvai in Milan, Naples and Rome; Tewsley in Canada and Vienna. Malakhov also appears in Vienna, Munich, Toronto, Japan, and New York. Next season he will continue in Stuttgart as guest principal, because he is away too often to belong to the Stuttgart company as a full member.

Besides some new members of the administrative staff, there is also a new music director of the Stuttgart Ballet, James Tuggle. There were promotions, as well. Julia Krémer was appointed principal dancer; of her, Anderson said, "I follow a dream which came from John Cranko: a German dancer, educated in Stuttgart, who made her career in the company." In January, Sue Jin Kang from Korea, a popular ballerina of the Stuttgart Ballet during recent years, and the German Roland Vogel were appointed principals; in July, Sonia Santiago, who had followed. Krzysztof Nowogrodzki from Poland, a dancer with a strong personality on stage, and American born Bridget Breiner were appointed soloists.

Many of the company's dancers are graduates of the John Cranko school, which celebrated its twenty-five-year jubilee in 1996. Director Alex Ursuliak ensures a proper classically based education in combination with modern technique. Students are also required to finish academic high school. Ursuliak has engaged some outstanding teachers, among them Petr Pestov from Moscow, who led thirteen classes in Moscow through to the final exams. Among his students were Gordejev, Vetrov, Malakhov, and Tsiskaridze. When watching Pestov's class you can learn a lot more about classical ballet than in many performances. He uses unusual combinations at the barre, demands concentration, exhausting jumps, and gives no break for two hours. He teaches ballet as an art form, not as a sport: "Do not jump so high, it is better not to hear you coming down...I want to see the music in your movements," he tells the children. The school has a lot of performances and tours to foreign countries. Students also take part in company performances. Reid Anderson is happy to have the opportunity to use them.

Besides the school, Anderson can also rely on the "Noverre Society," which concentrates on supporting young choreographers. Many of the most important choreographers in Europe, such as William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, John Neumeier, and Uwe Scholz, started their career in Stuttgart. Among the latest discoveries have been Marco Santi and Christian Spuck, both of whom have already worked with the Stuttgart Ballet. In his second program, Anderson again showed the roots and the tradition of the company. He started with Fokine's Les Sylphides, to show the classical basis of the dancers. This was followed by Cranko's Opus 1, one of his most successful ballets, set to music by Anton Webern and depicting the creation of human beings. Uwe Scholz, who began as a dancer in Stuttgart and is now director of the Leipzig Ballet, created a solo for Vladimir Malakhov. Notations is set to Pierre Boulez' Notations I - IV, a rather complicated piece of modern music, but was the evening's highlight. Scholz shows more than the structure of the music. Malakhov, dressed only in short red trousers, fights against unseen forces. It is a demanding piece, a twelve-minute variation with a lot of difficult jumps and steps. In later performances, Roland Vogel and Alexander Zaitsev took over the role. The last piece on this program, Glen Tetley's Voluntaries, was created in Cranko's memory six months after his sudden death in 1973. The ballet both praises the past and shows the way to the future, and was long a signature piece for the Stuttgart Ballet, although it had not been performed since 1988.

Anderson has the opportunity to perform in three houses, not only in the opera house, but also in the Kleines Haus and in the Kammertheater, where he often presents contemporary works like company member Jean-Christophe Blavier's Cinderella, a videodance performance, or short pieces by Forsythe, Kylian, Santi, the young German choreographer Stefan Thoss, or by Renato Zanella, who also began as a dancer and choreographer in Stuttgart before he was appointed director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet in 1995. Another interesting program comprised Balanchine's The Four Temperaments and Tschaikovsky Pas de deux and Ashton's Monotones, as well as a new piece by Mauro Bigonzetti (who had been a dancer in Stuttgart some years ago), Kazimir's Colours. It was interesting to see pieces by Balanchine and Ashton on one evening. Bigonzetti's piece was one of the audience's favorites this season. Set to Schostakovich's piano concerto No. 1, the choreography is inspired by the paintings of the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich (1878 - 1935). Twenty dancers are shown in a struggle between joy and melancholy.

The biggest risk for Anderson was the revival of Cranko's full evening story ballet The Taming of the Shrew. Created in 1969, the piece is also danced by the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. Though the musical arrangement by Kurt Heinz Stolze after Domenico Scarlatti is not really satisfactory and Cranko did make some changes to Shakespeare's plot, the ballet still proves popular. It contains some exciting roles, and there is a lot of humour. Yseult Lendvai and Maximiliano Guerra, as a guest, were a big success in roles which many Stuttgart fans could not imagine any cast other than Haydee and Cragun. Another full-length ballet had a mixed reception. Cranko's Swan Lake was revolutionary in 1963, because Cranko gave the prince more to dance and denied the happy ending. This influenced Nureyev when he made his version for the Vienna State Opera in 1964. Cranko's Odile makes fun of Siegfried and is very cruel, taunting him by imitating the movements of Odette. The company proved how good it can look in a classical piece. Margaret Illmann received ovations, but Robert Tewsley had an off day. The better Illmann got, the more mistakes he made. Although Tewsley has previously proved to be one of the leading dancers of the company, and in the following performances he was in better shape, the audience's and critics' reaction to him were rather hard. Sympathies in Stuttgart can turn on one performance! There was another black day in April, when Anderson had to cancel a new work by Serge Bennethan due to local governnent's financial cutbacks : "If these cutbacks continue, I must rethink all the first nights for the next season. My budget for our staff cannot be reduced, so I can only save money in the field of new productions. Next season I have already reduced the dancers in the company. The audience are expecting so much from the "new" Stuttgart Ballet but how can we make more out of less?"

After strong words like these, accompanied by the fear of a sudden withdrawal, Anderson was granted enough money for next season. Instead of the new piece, Cranko's Jeu de cartes was returned to the repertory, together with Forsythe's Herman Schmerman and a new work by the Swiss choreographer Martino Mller, R.A.M., which deals with the human memory and how it works. Among the new creations last season was Landscape and Reminiscences by David Bintley, the director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Bintley chose Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, quite unusual for a ballet, continuing a tradition started by Jerome Robbins with Dances at a Gathering and Goldberg Variations. Although Bintley has a good feel for the music, he cannot match Robbins. Bintley demands a lot from his dancers, but they remain anonymous, and too many ideas overload the choreogaphy; there are as many steps crammed into this one-hour ballet as others would use for a full-length ballet.

The Canadian choreographer Jean Grand-Maitre added another new piece to the program. His style is already quite distinctive, not influenced by the European choreographers like Kylian or Forsythe. The scene for Grand-Maitre's Exilium is set in a destroyed theatre in Sarajevo. The spirits of the people who have once worked there appear. Sometimes they think about their roles, most of the time about personal problems, culminating in a duet danced by Robert Tewsley and Alexander Zaitsev under a sword which hangs down from the ceiling. It might be a symbol for war as well as for AIDS. Grand-Maitre exposed new sides to some of the Stuttgart dancers. Only one third of the company was used in that evening, which started with Kylian's Stepping Stones, one of his most striking pieces, made for Stuttgart Ballet in 1991. Now also in the repertoire of the American Ballet Theater, the Australian Ballet, and the Nederlands Dans Theater I, it deals with the traditions and the way of life of the natives of Australia.

The variety of the Stuttgart Ballet's repertoire is striking. Central is keeping tradition with Cranko, but the addition of contemporary works by known and unknown choreographers makes Stuttgart Ballet one of the most interesting ballet companies today. In October 1997 there will be a Cranko Festival celebrating Cranko's seventieth birthday. One evening will present new pieces by Forsythe, Scholz, Neumeier, and Kylian, all of them former Stuttgart dancers, together with Initials R.B.M.E., one of Cranko's most personal balllets. Another Cranko mixed bill will be shown in the Kleines Haus, and Onegin, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, and Swan Lake will be performed in the Groses Haus. The Noverre Society is organizing a Cranko exposition, and Anderson will lead a workshop presenting works by Cranko. The festival will end with a Gala to which all the friends who knew Cranko and the dancers who worked with him are invited. There is no doubt that during the festival Stuttgart will be the center of the dance world.