Hail the
For the first time in its long history, the Hamburg Ballet is coming to Australia. Denise Richardson talks to its artistic Hamburg!director and patriach, John Neumeier. W O GER BADEK L HO Photo:
14 dance australia | AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012 www.danceaustralia.com.au O pposite: Alexandre Riabko (with Silvia Azzoni) in the title role of ‘Nijinksky’, choreographed
W by Neumeier. O
Left: Here ballerina Alina Cojocaru GER BADEK
L performs in
HO ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
Photo: with the ensemble.
he Hamburg Ballet has press conference and rehearsals, the era, like Jean Baptiste Lully and Georg performed at the Bolshoi Theatre, very busy Neumeier admits that he Telemann, may have often been staged, Tthe Mariinsky Theatre and the never intended to remain this long. but ballet performances were spasmodic Opéra Garnier in Paris. In August this “I still don’t,” he laughs. and rather crude. celebrated German company will for the Neumeier relates his main reason for And while the new opera house became first time be performing in Australia, staying to the concept of “movement” a drawcard for big names of both opera along with the Hamburg State Opera and (also the focus of a collection of his and ballet in the first half of the 19th the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, at essays called In Movement). “Although century, with guest stars like Marie the Queensland Performing Arts Centre I have been in Hamburg almost 40 Taglioni, Fanny Elssler (who later made in Brisbane. years, I still feel that I am ‘in movement’ Hamburg her home) and Lucile Grahn The Hamburg State Opera and because not only does the Hamburg receiving critical acclaim, the poetic Hamburg Ballet, like many other Ballet tour a lot, but I also work in many scribing of one Hamburg critic that companies in Europe, are historically different companies around the world,” “the garlands one throws to (Elssler) will tied to the building in which they usually he explains. always remain fresh, drenched in the dew perform, in this case the Hamburg Opera “This idea of moving is extremely of the joyous tears of the invigorated,” House. While most opera houses were important for me, not only moving give some insight into the still parlous originally conceived as places for the outside of the city but moving inside; status of ballet as a serious art form. nobility to see the finer arts, the city the fact that we now have a building of Hamburg proved the exception when (housing the company and the school) In 1865 the Viennese ballet dancer in 1678 their culture-loving merchants with nine studios and a dormitory – and prolific choreographer, Katti Lanner, founded an opera house, or Bürgeroper, this is unique – but it did not happen led the company on its first tour to for the people. Anyone purchasing a like a fairy tale. It happened because Berlin, but otherwise for the remainder ticket could attend. I worked, we worked, very hard. of the 19th century the ballet repertoire It was Germany’s very first public The season that we’ve started with was inauspicious. By the 1950s the opera house and quickly became one of the national youth company, with company, now known as the Hamburg Europe’s leading musical centres. Today financial aid from the (German) Federal State Opera Ballet and led by Helga the Hamburg State Opera is the oldest Government, this is another dream Swedlund, was considered little more non-royal company in Europe, its rich of mine. So if I ever felt that I was than an adjunct to the flourishing opera. history saying much about the dominance quite comfortable here, I would start With the appointment of Rolf of the performing arts in Europe, quite seriously to look around.” Liebermann as general manager in 1959 especially Germany. The Hamburg and his subsequent collaboration with Ballet, for nearly 40 years under artistic Throughout its long history, the Peter van Dyk from 1962, ballet finally director John Neumeier, has become one ballet in Hamburg has seldom seen such took centre stage. Although van Dyk’s of the world’s leading ballet companies. growth. In the years preceding the 1827 own choreography was unremarkable, Neumeier is the world’s longest serving inauguration of a new 2500-seat theatre he developed a company capable of artistic director, next to Alicia Alonso of on the site of the today’s State Opera in performing the works of George Ballet Nacional de Cuba. In a last minute Dammtorstrasse, operas by some of the Balanchine – the first European company phone interview squeezed between a most famous composers of the baroque to have a solid Balanchine repertoire.
www.danceaustralia.com.au AUGU ST/SEPTEMBER 2012 | dance australia 15 A nother scene from ‘Nijinsky’, which is being performed in Brisbane: the dancers are (from left) Alexandre Riabko, Anna Polikarpova and Otto Bubenicek.
ballet does now, so there was a strong sense of each of these artists wanting to develop themselves and perhaps some of them feeling they didn’t have enough to do, but it was a very, very exciting time.”
Hamburg Ballet is now primarily a creative company of 58 dancers with over 90 per cent of its vastly diverse repertoire choreographed by Neumeier. He has reworked the Tchaikovsky trilogy of classics – The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker; his Shakespeare-inspired ballets include Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet Connotations, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Othello; and he has creatd a large group of ballets set to the music of Gustav W O Mahler (who coincidentally was principal musical director in Hamburg for six years from 1891), including several of his GER BADEK
L symphonies. Outside these thematic
HO constructs are many other diversely different works, like his Bernstein-based
Photo: pieces, Songfest and Age of Anxiety, his Streetcar Named Desire, and his works Subsequently, as part of Hamburg’s needed more dancers and a bigger frame set to sacred music, such as Bach’s St official celebration of Igor Stravinsky’s in terms of financial help,” Neumeier Matthew Passion and Magnificat and 80th birthday in June 1962, the company remembers. “I had studied the company Mozart’s Requiem. performed a triple bill of three of and there were 16 dancers whose contract Neumeier has been described as an Balanchine’s ballets, Apollo, Argon and I did not renew. This was done legally, expressionist choreographer, a label he Orpheus, all conducted from the pit by they had one and a half years notice, but doesn’t deny. “I think that ballet, as an art, the composer himself. certain people were upset, the press was is an expression of a kind of secret, because Van Dyk left in 1970 and standards very negative, and it was clear that we you cannot adequately explain in words once again deteriorated, until the had to prove ourselves.” what you have seen in dance,” Neumeier appointment of Neumeier in 1973. The cry of outrage from almost the clarifies. “This secret has to do with Neumeier came from the Frankfurt whole of Hamburg, in particular the music, with movement and with emotion. Ballet, where he had been director for four years, successfully reinterpreting ballets such as The Nutcracker and I think that ballet, as an art, is an expression of Daphnis and Chloe. Previously he had danced with Stuttgart Ballet, along with a kind of secret, because you cannot adequately Francois Klaus, now the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet. explain in words what you have seen in dance. When Neumeier arrived in Hamburg, along with several of his very devoted dancers’ union, lasted only until the first It always comes down to ‘what am I seeing, Frankfurt dancers, he was only thirty- of Neumeier’s workshop matinee lecture and do those emotions that I’m seeing in one. Klaus had preceded him by a few demonstrations where, as Klaus puts it, motion move me?’ This to me is always the months and describes the company in the “John impressed with his creativity and important question. It’s not a question of years since van Dyk’s departure as almost his remarkable way of letting people telling stories but of expressing the “faceless”: without clear direction and know what he was doing – audiences and emotion, which is either part of the music run more or less by committee. Neumeier dancers alike.” or a feeing I have about a certain theme. soon stamped his authority. Neumeier quickly set to work building I think that you can construct a ballet so “The reason I went to Hamburg was a company, a repertoire, an audience and that when you look at it you can see the that I felt my work (including) my ultimately a school. “To start with we had score, and they may be well-made ballets experiments with the classics and new a very rich company,” he remembers. “We – but not necessarily inspired. interpretations of the Diaghilev works did not have as many performances as the “The Mahler Symphonies do not need
16 dance australia | AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012 www.danceaustralia.com.au me, they do not need to be danced, but by listening to them I can express my subjective feelings and the choreography becomes my reaction to those feelings. If we put these together it becomes something else, it’s a different experience to just hearing the music; it’s a hearing and seeing experience. I don’t try to think if what I am doing is what Mahler intended because I don’t know. Creation is not a rational process.” Klaus, who was principal dancer with Hamburg Ballet for 16 years, creating many roles, describes Neumeier’s way of working as being “a mixture of inspiration and calculation” and
Neumeier agrees. “I study the music W before, but I’m not someone who can sit O and dictate choreography. I have to move myself, because that is the only
GER BADEK way to find the particular language that L fits my feelings towards the music.” HO The dancers also have input, but John Neumeier: Neumeier insists, “The dance language Photo: expressionist comes from me, but in trying to replicate choreographer. my movements the dancers may unconsciously suggest something else. N eumeier and Nijinsky Neumeier has created three works about In other words, it is a dialogue. I do not The Hamburg Ballet is performing two the great legend, although he insists there is work with the dancers’ improvisation works for its Brisbane season, Nijinsky no thematic or conceptual link between any and say, ‘well that works, let’s put that (2000) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream of them. The first, Vaslav, premiering in in there as a piece’.” (1979), both choreographed by artistic 1979, was originally made as a series of Although Neumeier, now 70 years old, director John Neumeier. As Neumeier is dances for a gala. “I wanted to unite certain will be celebrating his 40th year at the an avid collector of all things relating to couples with music that Nijinsky had chosen helm of Hamburg Ballet (he is now also the great but tortured dancer, including at one time for a ballet which was never general manager) next year, there is little many of his drawings, it is Nijinsky, choreographed. But as we began, without talk of succession. In fact Neumeier, is created to commemorate the 50th my willing it, a sort of portrait of Nijinsky faintly amused at any notion of his being anniversary of his death, that is did appear, so I decided to call it Vaslav.” “allowed” to stay. sparking most interest. Neumeier’s latest work, Le Pavillon “I think the city is quite grateful to Nijinsky has been repeatedly performed d’Armide (2009), is both a new and an have an organisation that is as successful on international stages to sometimes quite old piece at the same time, linked to the as we are. We have approximately 97 per polarised reviews. Danced to music that Ballets Russes and also the Hamburg cent attendance in Hamburg. If I felt includes Chopin, Schumann and Ballet’s past. It was the first work of the that the interest in ballet was deflating I Shostakovich, it is a densely layered and Ballets Russes, initially choreographed by think that would be an indication that it complex work which, according to Fokine for the Maryinsky Ballet in 1907, was time to go, but I feel that there is Neumeier, explores the man “as a whole, with a score by Nikolai N. Tcherepnin and quite an interest in ballet and in my including his artistry, his spirituality, his set and costumes by Alexandre Benois. work. I’ve looked around and thought emotionality, (and) his conflict”. While the original steps are long since where would be better, but because of He insists that the work is not a lost, this Pavillon contains the now- the development in Hamburg, my documentary, by which you can gather famous pas de trois recreated by decision has been to renew my contract.” that the dramatic construction is not Alexandra Danilova for Neumeier’s first And what keeps Neumeier motivated, linear. Rather it has been described as Nijinsky Gala in 1975 and some of the in what must be a gruelling work a series of sweeping, ever unfolding backcloths Benois designed for the schedule? “Just my love of what I’m episodes that explore Nijinsky’s original production. As well, the whole doing, that is the inspiration.” subconscious and conscious thoughts in score is used to create a complementary flashbacks as he makes his final public piece to the earlier ballet, Nijinsky. The Hamburg Ballet is performing appearance in St Moritz. “We see his While Brisbane will only see Nijinsky, Neumeier’s ‘Nijinsky’ from August personality as expressed in the famous for those fans willing to make the trip to 26 to 28 and ‘A Midsummer Night’s roles he performed,” explains Neumeier. Hamburg, as part of the festival Dream’ from August 30 to September “His sensuality in the Golden Slave, his celebrations in June 2013 of Neumeier’s 40 5 at the Queensland Performing androgenous quality in The Rose, his years with Hamburg Ballet, all three ballets Arts Centre in association with the violence in the interpretation of the will be performed – two in the one day. ■ Brisbane Festival. Rite of Spring.” – DENISE RICHARDSON
18 dance australia | AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012 www.danceaustralia.com.au