Hamburg Ballet, The Song of the Earth & Nijinsky, Baden-Baden, October 2017

[Duck]

There’s been a discussion recently in the thread about ENB’s performances of Song of the Earth/ La Sylphide about John Neumeier’s choreographies to music by Gustav Mahler. The Song of the Earth is another example, one of a total of 15 ballets that he created to Mahler’s music. I saw Neumeier’s The Song of the Earth in Baden-Baden on 8 Oct, together with his Nijinsky on 15 Oct.

The Song of the Earth was created for POB in 2015 and premiered in Hamburg in a revised version at the end of 2016. I wondered at the start of the performance whether I’d seen MacMillan’s version too many times and tried not to get into comparison mode, and yet it was maybe inevitable that I visualised some of the movements that MacMillan created while I was watching Neumeier’s version. The view from my seat wasn’t the best, and so I’ve kept the following to a broad outline, together with the intention to see Neumeier’s version again some time. The work contains a prologue that starts in silence and continues with extracts of the music from subsequent scenes. Adding short interludes between the scenes, the piece amounts to 90 minutes (including applause and curtain calls). I marvelled at the lead man (Alexandr Trusch) who, as participant and observer of the flow of life, is on stage throughout the performance. Other key roles are for a woman (Xue Lin) and another male dancer (Alexandre Riabko). Recurring motives are those of a tea cup as symbol of hospitality and support (real tea cups being carried by dancers; the lead man takes up the offer of a cup of tea), and of lotus flowers (dancers opening their hands so as to depict the opening of the flower). An item of scenery looks like a piece of lawn, to which the lead man retreats from time to time to observe the surrounding events. The ending felt more upbeat to me than in MacMillan’s version - the lighting during the final poem, which had become increasingly dark, brightens up towards the end, together with dancers slowly rising from the floor, reminding me of a new start, a renewal, the beginning of a new cycle.

If Neumeier’s The Song of the Earth grew on me over the course of the performance, his Nijinsky was love at first sight as and when the work started with dancers having conversations on stage and loud shouts could be heard off stage, all representing the events in a hotel in Switzerland in 1919, moments before Nijinsky appears on stage, initially dressed like a Roman emperor, for his final public performance. What follows is a combination of Nijinsky’s memories – and increasingly his nightmares and delusions. Nijinsky’s former roles are represented through solos by other dancers e.g., Harlequin and Spectre de la Rose (Alexandr Trusch), Golden Slave and Faun (Marc Jubete) and Petrushka (Konstantin Tselikov). Key figures from his life are also present e.g., Diaghilev (Ivan Urban), a ballerina, his wife Romola, his sister Bronislava, his brother Stanislav, his parents. While his memories of his former roles are shown one by one in the first part of the work, the memories, nightmares and delusions become increasingly intertwined in the second part. It ends where it starts, in the ballroom of said hotel in Switzerland. Nijinsky was performed by Alexander Riabko, and I was fascinated by his ability to express thoughts and emotions through the rising of a single eyebrow, the indication of a smile, the lighting up of his eyes. I also loved the solo for Nijinsky’s brother, played by Aleix Martinez, and the solos by Marc Jubete as Faun and as Golden Slave. A good part of the first act is performed to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherezade, and for the past week, I haven’t been able to get the music out of my head.

What I found captivating is that the two works had the lead dancer both providing the framework and being an active part within it. Also, Neumeier’s first encounters with both Song of the Earth and Nijinsky go back a very long time - he performed in MacMillan’s Song of the Earth in Stuttgart in 1965, and he became interested in Nijinsky at a very young age when he came a across a book about the dancer. I found it mesmerising to see how such long-term and detailed interest and involvement got transferred into the two works. I really look forward to seeing the company in Baden-Baden again next year. So do many others, I guess – as on both nights, the applause turned into standing ovations.

Links to the English-speaking versions of the trailers that are on the web site of the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden

The Song of the Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqOwVBvkx_Y

Nijinsky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1z85cVl7Rc

 

[Vanartus]

Brilliant - you've convinced me I've got to try and go see them both!

[toursenlair]

No one can match Alexander Riabko as Nijinsky!