Royal Danish Ballet streaming

[CHazell2]

5 hours ago, Jane S said:

New to the RDB's streaming list today is a rarity - Bournonville's A Folk Tale.  I don't think this film has ever been shown before and it's a very long time since any verions of this near-legendary ballet has been aired.

 

It's a recording from the last revival, in 2014, and the cast includes Hilary Guswiler as Hilda, Gregory Dean as Junker (Count) Ove and Alba Nadal as the changeling Miss Birthe.

 

NB this is a Hubbe production (with Sorella Englund) and if you have seen and loved earlier versions you need to adjust your expectations.

 

My review of it went down with ballet co but if you're interested in the background I'll post it here later.

Hi

 

Please post the background and your review - it sounds a very interesting production and one that I always wanted to see. Am I right in thinking that there are a few differences between this production and previous productions?

 

Also, has it been filmed before in any of its previous incarnations - I seem to remember that Queen Margerethe herself designed a very well received production? 

[Lizbie1]

Would anyone be kind enough to give a bit of background about Hubbe and RDB for those like me who haven't been paying much attention? I've picked up the impression that he is not universally admired, but apart from his apparently not programming much Bournonville I don't really understand the situation!

[Jane S]

21 minutes ago, CHazell2 said:

 

Also, has it been filmed before in any of its previous incarnations - I seem to remember that Queen Margerethe herself designed a very well received production? 

 

I think it's been filmed for television several times but nothing has ever been released on tape or DVD so far as I know.

 

Queen Margrethe designed a production in 1991 which many liked but some still preferred an earlier version

 

 

[Jane S]

This is my review from the first performances of this production in 2011. The remarks about the dancing are no longer of relevance but I left most of them in as I thought it might give some idea of performance tradition.

 

_______________________________________________________

 

At the last Bournonville Festival in 2005, A Folk Tale was billed as 'an enchanting comedy of mistaken identity' - a description which might apply very well to Coppelia, say, but which ignores the darker side of this strange, unique masterpiece. One of the aims of Nikolai Hubbe's new production is to restore the balance: traditionalists and historians may wish he'd done it by reverting to an earlier version, but there simply aren't enough traditionalists and historians to fill the big Opera House night after night, and Hu;bbe needs something that can hold its place in the regular repertoire rather than being brought out as an occasional treat. Compromise was inevitable, and the price of opening the ballet up to fit its new home and widen its appeal is the  loss of some of its particularity and power.

But let's be clear what's happening here. Hübbe is not throwing away a hallowed staging which goes back to the original in 1854: the version he's replacing is only twenty years old and was itself the fourth new production in 40 years; and with its brightly coloured, picture-book décor by Queen Margrethe it came in for some strong criticism of its own. Nor, so far as I know, has Hübbe cut one single step which could possibly be attributed to Bournonville. He's added a few new bits, to music borrowed from other works by the ballet's two composers, and he's changed some of the stage business and some of the mime; and more importantly than any of these, he's changed the period in which the story happens.

A Folk Tale is about the conflict between normal everyday existence and the sinister underworld where the trolls and the elf-maidens live; the plot involves changeling girls and a young hero who falls in love with one of them whilst being engaged to marry the other. The original version turns on the moment when the girl stolen by the trolls encounters Christianity in a dream: but Hübbe, whose humanist leanings we've already seen at work in Napoli, has moved the action forward three hundred years or so to the later part of the nineteenth century - 'God is dead', and the girl dreams instead of the handsome young man she's briefly met in the forest. Freud is starting work around now, too, and Hübbe and his dramaturg, Ole Nørlyng, are keen on the theory that the trolls represent the unconscious dark side of the human characters. Of course they're not the first to have thought of that, but perhaps the idea hasn't been spelt out so clearly before. The programme notes go beyond the general to suggesting relationships between particular human/troll pairs - understandable in the case of the changelings (serene young lady and volatile troll), much more difficult to justify in other instances.

It may seem strange to find trolls still around at all as late as the 1880s - in the original version they leave for Norway for ever at the end of the piece - but part of Hübbe's thesis is that they never left Denmark and indeed are still there, as 'we can't do without them'. (And as the hero, Junker Ove, is presented as a bookish young man - a budding scientist, perhaps - for whom there are no certainties, perhaps he sees  trolls and elf-girls as just some of the odder by-products of evolution.) A big troll wedding party forms most of the second act, and I was disappointed that designer Mia Stensgaard (who did the RDB's Manon) chose to present the many guests as the sort of freaks - a headless giant, and so on - who wouldn't frighten anyone over the age of 4. Her elf-maidens are a lot more scary, especially after you discover that what distinguishes these wraiths from wilis, dryads etc is that every one of them has a jagged hole in the middle of her back. Stensgaard borrows inspiration for her 'real life' interiors from the famously cool paintings of Vilhelm Hammershøi, and the trolls' hall is a huge, appropriately distorted and deconstructed version, brilliantly lit by Mikki Kunttu.

One of the first things one learns about A Folk Tale] is that the hero was originally a true danseur noble role - 'walk and stand', with no actual dancing at all. That's been gradually eroded over the years, and with this production it disappears completely, as Junker Ove now has a big solo in the first act. It doesn't work for me, not because it's nothing like Bournonville - I'd rather have something totally different than a poor pastiche - but because it's too like countless other solos we've seen for young nobles yearning for their romantic ideal in the woods at night. It's part of the reason the ballet seems less Danish than it did before. It also affects the casting, which now goes to a couple of jeunes premiers who handle it well but might not yet have the gravitas needed for the non-dancing version. Marcin Kupinski, the first cast, looks good and has the technique he needs - his characterisation is still somewhat generic but he has plenty of time to find a more individual approach. Meanwhile he was rewarded by an on-stage promotion to solodanser (principal) at the end of the first night. (The Danes do that sort of thing really well.) At the next performance Ulrik Birkkjær really surprised me  by how much his acting has improved: he seems to have learnt to use his eyes, especially, to excellent effect.

The stolen heiress, Hilda, is one of those apparently very simple roles which must be really difficult to get just right. She has to be the embodiment of innocence and virtue but with enough spirit to plot her escape from the trolls when they try to force her into marrying the evil Diderik. Susanne Grinder is sweet but almost too self-effacing, Hilary Guswiler (still in the corps de ballet and a real hope for the future) shows a stronger character. Both of them have to fight to assert themselves against the very strong competition from Kizzy Matiakis and Maria Bernholdt, respectively, as the scandalously indecorous Miss Birthe, the changeling troll-girl unable to stop her true nature bursting through the conventional society she's been abandoned to. (The new time frame, incidentally, opens up an obvious feminist interpretation of her plight, not so clearly apparent in the medieval setting.) She ends up in a hastily arranged marriage with Sir Mogens, very dashingly played by Mads Blangstrup on the first night. But that leads on, through (... plot details too complicated to transcribe ...) to what for me is the one really bad mistake of the production. Birthe has aspirations to be a dancer and bursts into the middle of Bournonville's lovely pas de sept with a brash new solo; worse, as the other dancers make their sweetly unassuming bow at the end, hand in hand, she pushes through the line for a big curtsy with lots of comic flourishes. It gets a laugh, true, but it's a horribly bathetic intrusion and spoils the whole atmosphere. If she must have a solo, let her do it before the pas de sept starts; and maybe if she then watches the others she will learn enough grace from them to keep out of the way at the end.

The 'real' pas de sept dancers on the first night were a fine team - if I had to pick my favourites they would be Nikolaj Hansen, for his fluid stylishness, and Diana Cuni, for her amazing speed and attack. From a rather more mixed cast the next day I very much liked Alexandra lo Sardo and the always interesting Lena-Maria Gruber. Oh, and Alban Lendorf.

That leaves the trolls. Morton Eggert was a powerful Muri, mistress of the troll-hall and mother of Hilda's rival suitors, Diderik and the good-natured Viderik. He could lose the over-exaggerated limp, though, and still dominate. Lis Jeppesen's Viderik was one of the star-turns of the last production, very sweet but steering dangerously close to cute. She seems to have changed very little for the new staging - just a little less sentimental, perhaps, but amusing all the same. Thomas Lund goes instead for a quieter interpretation - he's a nice troll rather than a dancer doing a big number. He's really touching in the scene where he has to watch Hilda, his unattainable love, finding happiness in a long (and new)romantic pas de deux with Ove: the dark night of his soul, if a troll had a soul.

So that's the profits and losses balance sheet: the bottom line, should you go? If you've never seen A Folk Tale] before, yes, definitely – it's fun and you'll see some fine performances. If you have particularly fond memories of a production before the last one, yes, probably - there are lots of good things in it - but prepare yourself for a very different experience.

 

[Jane S]

Today's streaming release from the RDB is Balanchine's Emeralds. Although they performed the whole of Jewels, this is the only piece they have been given permission to show, and unlike the rest of the company's offerings it is only available until June 19th.

 

It is an internal archive film not made for public release.

 

Lots of extra features about it. and a cast list, on the same page

[Bruce Wall]

Jane, it is my imagination or is there something wrong/off with the final measures of this streaming/archival tape of Emeralds you kindly linked to.  There seems to have been a cut for some reason at the very end and it puts the music out of sync ... leaving the strings playing into the curtain call.  At first I thought It was just my computer playing up .... but then I played the end again and the same thing happened.  Does this happen for you as well? Grateful for your kind advice. 

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Bruce Wall

[Jane S]

I haven't watched it all the way through yet, Bruce, but someone on another site has also noticed the same problem - so not your computer's fault!

Edited June 5, 2020 by Jane S

[Jeannette]

The same thing happened as I watched, Bruce. A few seconds were cut from the visual film, just before the ladies run offstage, but the music plays on. The three men kneel to the earlier music. It’s a beautiful rendering of the ballet, nonetheless. These RDB dancers do it justice, IMO.

[li tai po]

Lizbie1 asks for a bit of background about Hubbe and RDB. 

 

I have no knowledge or opinion myself about this matter. 

 

The Dancing Times, however, in its February 2020 edition, published the following letter from the ballet critic Gerald Dowler, under the title "The death of Bournonville?"

 

Dear Editor - It was with at first dismay and then mounting anger that I read Paul Arrowsmith's interview with Royal Danish Ballet director Nikolai Hubbe in last month's magazine,  I have rarely encountered such self-serving, disingenuous cant from a former dancer who should, frankly, know better.

 

The Bournonville tradition in Denmark is/was truly precious, a direct link to the world of Romantic ballet and a surviving repertoire that, until recently, continued to entertain and satisfy its audience and form dancers of the highest artistry.  What Hubbe has done in the name of updating is to break a line which took us back to the early days of the 19th century; the Bournonville tradition is now quite clearly dead, with the internationalisation of both the company and its repertoire and the vital link between the school and the ensemble severed.

 

Auguste Bournonville, until so recently at the heart of Danish ballet, is, from the words of Hubbe, whose responsibilites as director must surely include the curation of something unique for future generations, now a resource merely to be plundered at will, all integrity, all respect gone.  The Bournonville technique and style have produced male dancers in particular who have been loved, respected and sought after the world over;  to claim that classes in them were sparsely attended and for that reason discontinued only serves to highlight the lack of importance accorded by the company director - not to dance Bournonville would never have been an option under any previous incumbent.  It was Bournonville who made the ballet world turn towards Copenhagen from the 1950s onwards; the trashing of his legacy by Hubbe means Denmark risks becoming an irrelevancy in terms of dance.  That will be Hubbe's legacy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lizbie1]

Thank you, li tai po! Obviously this is one side of the story, but it's very powerfully expressed - and I suspect might reflect my own preferences if I knew more about it.

[Jan McNulty]

I've been reading rumblings on Ballet Alert for the last couple of years and Eva Kistrup (who does a blog for Danceview Times) hasn't always commented favourably on his directorship.

 

No ballet company can be a museum as we have long discussed on this forum in respect of RB and BRB but surely there is room for the heritage and style as well as introducing new work and styles.  

 

I was introduced to Bournonville in my very early days of ballet-watching when one of the first productions I booked for in 1985 was Peter Schaufuss' production of La Sylphide and a couple of years later Napoli.  Of course he also covered Bournonville style in his programme Dancer on the BBC in the 1980s.  I just love the style and I also think it informed my love of Ashton.

 

The Bournonville Festival held in Copenhagen in 2005 has been a highlight of my ballet-watching years fondly remembered.  I hope there is some way forward.  Perhaps Bournonville will need the equivalent of a Sarasota Ballet...

[Jane S]

And now its Giselle - a recent production by Hubbe and Schandorff, with Ida Praetorius and Andreas Kaas in the leads, Kizzy Matiakis as Myrthe and Sebastian Haynes as Hilarion