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Bayerisches Staatsballet: Ratmansky's Tchaikovsky Overtures Premiere December 2022

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Sabine0308

Sabine0308

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2 hours ago, Angela said:

Here's a first review in German by the Bavarian Broadcast Company:

 

https://www.br-klassik.de/aktuell/news-kritik/kritik-bayerisches-staatsballett-tschaikowsky-ouvertueren-alexei-ratmansky-100.html

 

Google Translation

I wish "journalists" would work more accurate these days but... well...Shale Wagman did open this evening with one of his long solos, but in the piece "Elegy", not "Hamlet". He wasn't part of Hamlet at all. 

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Sabine0308

Sabine0308

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2 reviews, in German only, but deepl translation  or google is your friend 😉

https://onlinemerker.com/muenchen-bayerisches-staatsballett-tschaikowski-ouvertueren-premiere/

Süddeutsche  (behind paywall, PM me when interested)
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/bayerisches-staatsballett-tschaikowski-ouvertueren-ratmansky-ballett-1.5722127

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Sabine0308

Sabine0308

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I'd like to add: in all reviews I've seen, Shale Wagman gets rave reviews for his stunning solos. Yet not a single picture of him is included in the articles. Most of you know of my admiration for this dancer, so yes, I roll my eyes. It's bad press work, imo. Well, at least two posters of him were put up at the opera house.

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Angela

Angela

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Some more reviews, there should be no paywalls:

 

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeirung

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/tschaikowski-ouvertueren-von-alexei-ratmansky-in-muenchen-18559840.html

 

Frankfurter Rundschau

https://www.fr.de/kultur/theater/tschaikowski-ouvertueren-in-muenchen-hamlet-muss-springen-koennen-91995976.html

 

Kulturvollzug, a Munich theatre website

https://kultur-vollzug.de/article-68011/2022/12/28/kleine-mischung-mit-groser-welle/

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Christine

Christine

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I would have liked to write sooner but just couldn’t find the time, so I am writing this on a train from India where we are currently for a friend’s wedding.

 

Before Christmas I took a very spontaneous decision to attend the premiere in Munich. 

I should perhaps say for a start that I had never seen any original Ratmansky choreography before and haven’t got nearly as much ballet viewing experience as other BF members. Also, my tastes are probably very much shaped by Stuttgart ballet performances. I am writing this as since my comments will, of course, be very subjective.

 

Tchaikovsky Overtures comprised three thematic parts - Hamlet, The Tempest, and Romeo & Juliet - the first and last consisting of 2 sections.

 

Shale Wagman opened the evening with the Hamlet Elegy (before the Ouverture to Hamlet) beautifully, lyrically - this type of music suits him probably down to the ground. I should add though, that this piece of music was used by John Cranko in his Swan Lake where it is inserted after Siegfried has discovered his mistake and dances his regret with Odette - for me always the most heartrending moment of the whole of Cranko’s SL. So with this memory permanently cross-registering, I was missing some context or meaning behind all the admittedly beautiful “emoting” of Shale’s dance. As the reviews say, TO is neither abstract ballet, nor storytelling but sits somewhere in-between.

 

The Hamlet for the group with Osiel Guneo as the chief protagonist was good to look at, for me the focus was too much on firework display. It was, in fact, physically so demanding that you could see Osiel visibly running out of steam so it became more and more a mere exercise.

Synchronicity wasn’t great & parts felt a bit under rehearsed.

 

The last theme, Rome & Juliet, for me suffered from similar problems & far too many steps for my taste; probably I also failed to see & appreciate all the ballet clues and cross- references alluded to in the reviews, so it became a bit tiring in the end and felt a bit like: please not another pirouette, another jump…

The unflattering costumes didn’t help either.

 

This part began with the beautifully sung Romeo & Juliet aria with Shale Wagman as the only dancer sharing the stage. 

This, sadly, did not work for me at all - sometimes Shale danced around, sometimes through the dancers and I found it just irritating & completely distracting, to the point where you wish that either the dancer or the singers had better disappear. (Unsurprisingly, in this case, I’d keep the dancer).

However, and this is strictly personal, not even Shale’s charisma and consummate artistry could have saved it for me. I found his talents a bit wasted on this evening.

 

By contrast, the middle part, The Tempest, could not have been more different and seemed a complete success on all fronts. Costumes, dramaturgy, choreo and dancing worked brilliantly for me.

An exhilarating mix of effervescent group dances with the frothy blue and white tutus emulating the sea and stunning solo work, especially from Madison Young, Yonah Accosta, Jinhao Zhang and Antonio Casalinho. For some reason, the whole thing was much more from one piece, consistent, and, more than that, convincing, with the bravura passages seamlessly tied in & used to great and meaningful effect.

 

Apart from the gorgeous duets with the sineously flowing Madison Young there was the breathtaking variation danced by Antonio as the Ariel sprite. Execution and characterization in total harmony and the longer it went on I found myself thinking I cannot believe he is doing this. The audience seemed to share this view and this was the only part during the evening to receive a spontaneous but thunderous ovation.

No wonder, Antonio got promoted to soloist that night!

 

So, in conclusion, with some exceptions, Ratmansky new choreo is probably not for me. I will try to see some of his classical ballet restorations, though.

 

Please excuse the spelling and a syntactical errors - I typed this into my mobile.

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Sabine0308

Sabine0308

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Thanks Christine, for your interesting review. It's a pity that the lack of time for rehearsal was so obvious. They must have worked a lot, and especially a new creation required lots of time for  rehearsals. I haven't seen it but I think the dancer/opera singers together onstage is always an "easy-to-fail" experiment. I will probably check it out later, I am still curious how I would feel about it, now especially with your review in mind 😉

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Sabine0308

Sabine0308

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Posted (edited)

For your calendars:

LIVE

20. January 2023, 7pm-9.30pm

A talk about the work with Alexei Ratmansky for the Tchaikovsky Overtures with 3 dancers of Bayerisches Staatsballett, hosted by Salon Luitpold, Munich.

https://www.cafe-luitpold.de/salon-luitpold-20-01-2023-1900-2030-uhr/

In English!😊

Edited by Sabine0308
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