Benjamin Millepied to leave Paris Opera Ballet?

[Duck]

What struck me most in reading Luke Jenning's article in the Observer on Sunday is how much must have gone wrong in the hiring process.

 

In seeking out new employment, a jobseeker should explore the organisation's culture and values, and review whether there is a sufficient match (or for a senior role, whether there is sufficient possibility to influence culture and values) as otherwise a sense of disillusion is likely to kick in soon. Equally, the hiring organisation should explore whether the candidate is a cultural match to the organisation, and for senior roles also manage the candidate's expectations as to the possibilities of influencing the prevailing culture. For Millepied's role at POB, this would in my view include aspects such as e.g., hiring and promotion; if these were not explored/ discussed or related expectations managed, part of why it ended so soon for me lies in how it started.

[A frog]

La Sylphide (sic! ... a new production?)

 

They've had it in the repertoire since the 70s.

Edited February 9, 2016 by A frog

[kameliendame]

I tried to access the documentary a few times however it looks like behind closed doors unless I am subscribed to Canal Plus. Have you been able to see it?

Yes I did, but on tv (there was a rerun of it on a cultural channel in my country). It's definitely worth the watch, but more so for the exclusive footage of the dancers rehearsing than for Millepied. I wasnt impressed by his ballet but the dancers are all superb (especially Viikinkoski, Visocchi, Galloni and Barbeau - he has an eye for talent, i'll give him that). The documentary itself seems to be a continuation of what has been said about him in the press - young, ambitious new ad trying to bring some fresh air into a company supposedly stuck in the past. I wasnt too impressed by it.

 

Also, if its true it was his intention to improve the dancers technique by dancing the classics more often, you dont see anything of it in the leaked new programme. First you complain about your dancers technique, then you fill your new season with contemporary and neoclassic works. Totally makes sense. I dont know if im looking too much into this, but Marie-Agnès Gillot posted a picture that said 'you are what you do, not what you say youll do' -a quote by Carl Jung- on her instagram the day Millepied stepped down. Thats quite telling...

[Duck]

Yes I did, but on tv (there was a rerun of it on a cultural channel in my country). It's definitely worth the watch, but more so for the exclusive footage of the dancers rehearsing than for Millepied. I wasnt impressed by his ballet but the dancers are all superb (especially Viikinkoski, Visocchi, Galloni and Barbeau - he has an eye for talent, i'll give him that). The documentary itself seems to be a continuation of what has been said about him in the press - young, ambitious new ad trying to bring some fresh air into a company supposedly stuck in the past. I wasnt too impressed by it.

 

Also, if its true it was his intention to improve the dancers technique by dancing the classics more often, you dont see anything of it in the leaked new programme. First you complain about your dancers technique, then you fill your new season with contemporary and neoclassic works. Totally makes sense. I dont know if im looking too much into this, but Marie-Agnès Gillot posted a picture that said 'you are what you do, not what you say youll do' -a quote by Carl Jung- on her instagram the day Millepied stepped down. Thats quite telling...

 

Thank you, all I've been able to find here are short trailers of the documentary with a duration of between one and three minutes. I hope it will be released at some stage.

 

There was also a film about the health care for dancers at the Paris Opera on French television a few days ago, this is freeview in France however I haven't been able to access this from the UK.

[Naomi M]

 

There was also a film about the health care for dancers at the Paris Opera on French television a few days ago, this is freeview in France however I haven't been able to access this from the UK.

 

Edited February 9, 2016 by Naomi M

[Duck]

 

Thank you very much, I'll watch this tomorrow

[Melody]

From Luke Jennings's article I can see why he was frustrated - it doesn't sound as though the Artistic Director gets to do much directing, if he's at the mercy of all these committees and juries and doesn't have hiring, firing, or promotion responsibility. But Millepied must have known the score before he accepted the job and also must have known (at least I hope he had the sense and realism to know) that this wasn't going to change in any meaningful way, especially if it meant other people giving up power.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Melody

[kameliendame]

From Luke Jennings's article I can see why he was frustrated - it doesn't sound as though the Artistic Director gets to do much directing, if he's at the mercy of all these committees and juries and doesn't have hiring, firing, or promotion responsibility. But Millepied must have known the score before he accepted the job and also must have known (at least I hope he had the sense and realism to know) that this wasn't going to change in any meaningful way, especially if it meant other people giving up power.

I was surprised to read he had so much restrictions too. But then it makes me wonder how Lefèvre lasted for so many years (two whole decades!)? She must have known how to work her ways around Garnier very, very well. It makes me respect her even more now. I might not always have agreed with her programming but she knew how to run a company!

[barton22]

They've had it in the repertoire since the 70s.

 

I think their version is pre-Bournonville isn't it?  I have a dvd recording of them dancing it (Aurelie Dupont and Mathieu Ganio) but have never got around to watching it.  There's a Laura Capelle/FT review from what was probably the last time they staged it, back in 2013.

[toursenlair]

I think their version is pre-Bournonville isn't it?  I have a dvd recording of them dancing it (Aurelie Dupont and Mathieu Ganio) but have never got around to watching it.  There's a Laura Capelle/FT review from what was probably the last time they staged it, back in 2013.

 

It is based on the original Sylphide by Filippo Taglioni , music by Schneitzhoffer, but since none of that has survived, Pierre Lacotte created it "in the style of" after digging what he could out of the POB Archives.

[FLOSS]

A three hundred year old organisation is inevitably going to have a very strong culture of its own. It will have experienced all sorts of problems and difficulties during its existence and will have put systems in place to deal with them. No one taking charge of a company with a significant history and a strong organisational culture can expect to change much overnight.Complaining publically to the media about his dancers and venting his frustration in public suggests an extraordinary degree of naivety on Mr Millepied's part about the nature of the post he had accepted and almost complete ignorance of the organisation which he was running. I can't help thinking that he should have realised that POB was not going to be like NYCB and it certainly was not going to be like the Californian company with which he has been working.

 

Perhaps he was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that his predecessor had been in post for twenty years but it seems to me that Mr Millepied should have done a bit of research before he was appointed to the post of Artistic Director of the POB. If he had done he would have discovered that the post of director has been a bed of nails for most of its directors during the twentieth century and that even Nureyev who is currently revered by dancers of a certain generation had a pretty tough time making the changes he wanted.

 

As far as the committees and the concourse are concerned if he had done some research he might have discovered that many of the institutional barriers which so frustrated him were devised to deal with historic abuse of their position by previous directors and to deal with problems which earlier directors had encountered.The concourse was instituted to combat favouritism when it comes to promotion while the annual audition enables the director to ensure that dancers who have guaranteed employment until they reach compulsory retirement remain capable of performing the functions for which they are paid.

 

A company which has survived for three hundred years and has habitually abandoned its current repertory in favour of the latest choreographic fashion clearly has enormous institutional strength. Anyone who wants to change its structure and operational systems is clearly going to have to work a lot harder than someone who merely wants to change its repertory. Anyone wanting to make fundamental changes to an organisation like the POB needs great diplomatic skills and inordinate patience neither of which Mr Millepied seems to possess. It will be interesting to see how easily his successor adapts to managing dancers who were so recently her colleagues and whether she proves to be something more than merely a safe pair of hands.

Edited February 11, 2016 by FLOSS

[Bruce Wall]

.... I can't help thinking that he should have realised that POB was not going to be like NYCB and it certainly was not going to be like the Californian company with which he has been working.

 

I think it might be more accurate to say - certainly in reference to the LA Dance Project -  'which he founded' - given that Millepied was the 'Founding Director'.  

 

... Perhaps he was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that his predecessor had been in post for twenty years but it seems to me that Mr Millepied should have done a bit of research before he was appointed to the post of Artistic Director of the POB. If he had done he would have discovered that the post of director has been a bed of nails for most of its directors during the twentieth century ..

 

If my memory accurately serves (which it often doesn't nowadays) Millepied beat Roland Petit's record as POB Director of Dance given that Petit's 1970 tenure in that post was I believe less than six months in total.

 

Edited February 11, 2016 by Bruce Wall

[FLOSS]

As far as Pierre Lacotte's work on historically significant ballets is concerned it is better to consider them as re-imaginings rather than reconstructions. It is not simply the fact the choreography has not survived that makes it difficult to describe them as reconstructions but the fact that they tend to owe far more to current performance practice and style and meeting current audience expectations than any anything else.

 

In La Sylphide Lacottte ignores the fact that the ballet's fame rests on the fact that it was the first ballet in which pointe work was used for artistic effect rather than as a tour de force. It was not the fact that Taglioni went up on pointe that was significant but the fact that pointe work was used to establish her ethereal nature and to distinguish her from the mortals in the ballet. Lacotte allows his villagers to dance on pointe which rather reduces the impact that act one should have. I believe that he was asked about this aspect of his "reconstruction" and the fact that it was at variance with what we know about the Taglioni original and answered that he had done it because that was what the audience expected. So at best the revival of La Sylphide represents a mid century re-imaging of a nineteenth century original and as such it is difficult to categorise it as a "classic".

 

But the same problem applies to Nureyev's productions of the Russian nineteenth century classics which are based on productions which he danced in or at least knew from hos time at the Kirov. All of those ballets were revised during the Soviet period so much of their choreography is probably better regarded as a re-imagining of Petipa's originals. Perhaps Nureyev's classics are not so "classic" either.

Edited February 11, 2016 by FLOSS

[FLOSS]

Reading accounts of Mr Millepied's departure on various French websites has been very enlightening. Several people on Dansomanie have drawn parallels between his directorship and that of Viollete Verdy who was the director of the POB in 1977-1980. The parallels are striking both were born far from Paris; neither was trained at the POB; both danced with NYCB which inevitably influenced their views of the POB and its dancers;both identified major weaknesses within the company and both had the temerity to suggest that POB is not the greatest  classical ballet company in the world.

 

As far as I can see Aurelie Dupont  has said all the right things. She loves the company. The heirachy is there for a reason  and will be retained. The  younger dancers will be given work to do, not to keep them happy, but to prepare them for the possibility of promotion and one day becoming an etoile. Her words have a very different emphasis from the sort of thing that Mr Millepied has been saying. What she has said so far is very emollient and soothing as far as the current etoiles are concerned. She mentions giving young dancers roles but manages to make it sound onerous and character building rather than pleasurable for  the dancers involved. But whether the dancers will be given roles for the good of the company or for their own good  the effect will of course be the same. Young dancers  will be given opportunities for development. 

 

Her ringing declaration about the nature of the company that the POB is a classical ballet company and  not a company which only gives two classical ballets a year marks a real change of direction for the company. She is not just  moving away from Mr Millepied's programming policies for the company but seems to be abandoning the policies  of his predecessor  Madame Lefevre.

Edited February 11, 2016 by FLOSS

[kameliendame]

Perhaps Nureyev's classics are not so "classic" either.

I think when people say 'classic', they mean the big three act Petipa ballets like Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake etc., and not necessarily the age of the production. If we're going to see ballet that way, then none of the companies are performing classics since almost all of them were tinkered with over the years. If you compare these productions with the original Petipa ones that have been reconstructed so far, you can see that a lot has been cut or changed to fit the technical standards of the time (the famous fish dive lifts in the wedding pdd in the Sleeping Beauty werent in the original for example). This doesnt make the production any less classical imo, the foundation is still very much Petipa even if a new production was made decades later.

Edited February 14, 2016 by kameliendame

[FLOSS]

The POB is a company which has had a tradition of jettisoning the old in favour of the fashionable and new. Giselle received its last nineteenth century revival there in 1867 or 1868.It was Lifar who restored it to the company's repertory in the twentieth century. The most important nineteenth century ballet which survived in its repertory was Coppelia which was still performed with Franz danced en travesty as late as the early 1950's.

 

In the context of a company whose tradition, until recently, has been to drop ballets from the repertoire when they are thought to be old fashioned perhaps the definition of a "classic" is a ballet danced by my teacher and my teacher's teacher.

 

Perhaps the French are not as sophisticated as they like to believe themselves or as Mr Millepied thought them.In the context of the recent events at the POB perhaps "classic" is code for three act story ballets.

Edited February 15, 2016 by FLOSS