Tag Archive: Stuttgart Ballet

Meager Substance

June 11, 2021

“Dance Gala Baden-Wuerttemberg”
Theater and Orchestra Heidelberg
Heidelberg, Germany
June 06, 2021 (online)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2021 by Ilona Landgraf

“Everybody Can Dance” was the motto of this year’s Dance Biennial Heidelberg, the fourth since the event’s inception. Pandemic-related restrictions pared down the three-day festival’s schedule to a few online events, crowned by a dance gala on Sunday, June 6th. Nine of Baden-Wuerttemberg’s dance companies were represented there, together contributing thirteen short pieces – nine digital and four danced live.

The Unterwegstheater Heidelberg, a small touring company whose work spans multiple genres opened the program with the video “Die nackte Wahrheit” (“The Naked Truth”). (more…)

Conversations with Marijn Rademaker and Jozef Varga

July 14, 2017

Dutch National Ballet
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
June, 2017

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2017 by Ilona Landgraf

The beautiful opera house and national ballet company are as welcoming and open as Amsterdam itself. During my last visit for the premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Shostakovich Trilogy” in mid-June, I took the opportunity to talk with two principal dancers, Marijn Rademaker and Jozef Varga, about their career and their plans for the future.

Rademaker, a Dutchman, returned home in 2015 after many years with Stuttgart Ballet. We met in a cafe opposite the opera house a few hours before the premiere. Rademaker’s answers are in italics. (more…)

Still enigmatic

May 22, 2015

Marco Goecke
Stuttgart, Germany
May 2015

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2015 by Ilona Landgraf

Marco Goecke is a well-established German choreographer. Though he is open, kind and easy-going, he is mysterious, with an air of inscrutability surrounding him. His choreography can hardly be classified among the existing canon of styles. He has established something new. Meanwhile “Goeckes” are in the repertory of ballet companies all over Europe and abroad, but, above all, they are integral to the repertory of his two home bases: Stuttgart Ballet and the Nederlands Dans Theater.

We met on the occasion of a rehearsal with Thomas Lempertz in a basement studio belonging to Stuttgart’s Theaterhaus. Lempertz, ex-first soloist of Stuttgart Ballet, is planning to come back on stage with a solo by Goecke. The premiere is scheduled for November.

At first sight one could easily think Goecke stepped out of a detective film. His dark sunglasses – signature features of his outfit – contrast with his fair skin. He wears a trench coat, robust shoes, smokes a lot, and has his steady companion, a sausage dog named Gustav, at his side. (more…)

A Well Assembled Spectrum

March 25, 2015

“2. International Ballet Gala”
Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg
State Theater
Nuremberg, Germany
March 20, 2015

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2015 by Ilona Landgraf

Goyo Montero is in his seventh season as artistic director of the State Theater Nuremberg’s ballet. Since then the Spaniard has established the troupe’s reputation – nationally as well as internationally. Last weekend’s ballet gala – the second since Montero took over the reins – gave ample proof that dance prospers in Middle Franconia’s largest city.
Montero, son of a ballerina and a dancing and choreographing father, studied at the Royal Conservatory for Professional Dance in Madrid and the School of the National Ballet of Cuba. Amongst others he danced with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Royal Ballet of Flanders. Solidly rooted in classical dance, Montero explores contemporary movement vocabulary in his choreography. This season his company, twenty-two dancers, many of them his compatriots, present works by Nacho Duato, Johan Inger, Ohad Naharin in addition to Montero’s own creations. In early July they will guest with “Cinderella” at the Chekhov International Theatre Festival in Moscow. Dance definitely has moved on from its former niche existence in Nuremberg!
This season’s gala wasn’t sparing with highlights: on the guest list were dancers from Stuttgart Ballet, Semperoper Ballet Dresden, English National Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo and Stanislavsky Ballet Moscow sharing the program with Nuremberg’s troupe. (more…)

Fostering Ballet’s Future

December 15, 2014

Noverre Society Stuttgart
Stuttgart, Germany
December 2014

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2014 by Ilona Landgraf

The dance critic Horst Koegler once compared him with a F1 World Champion who – second to none – has held his title for more than half a century: Fritz Höver, founder and longstanding chairman of Stuttgart’s Noverre Society. How would the Stuttgart Ballet have developed without Höver? Back in the early 1960s no one knew John Cranko in Stuttgart, not even Stuttgart Opera’s general director Walter Erich Schäfer. It’s hard to believe these days but in the late 1950s Stuttgart’s audience had not yet acquired a taste for ballet. The genre’s main function, since 1957 in the hands of artistic director Nicholas Beriozoff, ex-dancer of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, still was to take part in opera productions. Beriozoff, paving the way for the company’s ascent, put considerable effort in promoting ballet. It was due to the relentless persuasive power of Höver, that the young Cranko was invited to Baden-Wuerttemberg’s capital. In 1960 Cranko staged his first work in Stuttgart, “The Prince of the Pagodas” which had premiered three years earlier atNich The Royal Ballet. One year later he took over the reigns of “The Stuttgart Ballet”. (more…)

What’s gone is gone

May 7, 2014

“Café Müller”, “The Rite of Spring”
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
Opera House
Wuppertal, Germany
May 02, 2014

This season marks the 40th anniversary of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal. To celebrate this jubilee the company has already toured extensively. Bordeaux, London, Hong Kong were only some of the stops. In the upcoming months, it will head to Toronto and Paris. More performances are being given in the Ruhr region too, and they include an additional program. I saw two of Bausch’s signature pieces, “Café Müller” and “The Rite of Spring” at the company’s traditional home base of Wuppertal.

“Café Müller”, a 1978 production, depicts the encounters of six people in a somewhat shabby cafe, which is – like its guests – past its best years. The decor as well as the costumes are by Rolf Borzik. He lined several mirrors up along the side walls. A revolving door at the rear is the cafe’s main entrance. Wooden tables and chairs stand around in disorder and during the following three-quarters of an hour the café becomes even more messy. (more…)

Bonbons from Stuttgart

October 6, 2013

“The Taming of the Shrew”
Stuttgart Ballet
Stuttgart State Opera
Stuttgart, Germany
September 28, 2013

Stuttgart Ballet opened its season with a revival of one of John Cranko’s classics:”The Taming of the Shrew”- a turbulent, crisp comic. Audiences find it irresistible, like a bonbonnière filled with colorfully wrapped sweets.

At its premiere in 1969 the success of “Shrew”was all the more momentous given that narrative ballets were not in vogue during the preceding decade and ballet comedies were unusual. Next to Cranko’s “Romeo and Juliet”, “Shrew” added considerably to what the New York Times’ Clive Barnes termed “The Stuttgart Ballet Miracle” following the company’s 1969 visit to the Metropolitan Opera House. The premiere’s cast list reads like the “who’s who?” of ballet: Marcia Haydée and Richard Cragun in leading roles, with John Neumeier, Egon Madsen and Heinz Clauss as Bianca’s (Susanne Hanke) three suitors, and in the corps de ballet: Jiří Kylián. Almost forty-five years later “Shrew” hasn’t gathered dust. On the contrary the Stuttgart audience thrilled to it and the atmosphere was splendid. (more…)