Reid Anderson and the 'new' Stuttgart Ballet.

STUTTGART--When legendary South Africa--born choreographer John Cranko brought his Ballet of the Wurttemberg State Theatre to New York City in 1969, the company had virtually no international cachet. After its American triumph, not only did the troupe gain a new name, Stuttgart Ballet (courtesy of critic Clive Barnes, who thought the official appellation too clumsy), Cranko and Go. became the darlings of the dance world. The rave reviews generated by repeat New York visits in 1973 and 1979 confirmed the company's stellar reputation. Now current artistic director Reid Anderson is hoping for the same good luck when Stuttgart Ballet comes to New York City from July 7 to 11 as part of Lincoln Center Festival 98.

With Cranko's sudden death in 1973, the Stuttgart company was plunged into disarray. After a two-year interregnum with Glen Tetley as artistic director, Cranko's favorite dancer and muse, Marcia Haydee, began a reign that lasted more than twenty years, a tenure many German critics felt was overlong. When Anderson assumed the helm in June 1996, the Stuttgart reputation was a tarnished one. While audiences had remained loyal, the critics were blase. Judging from recent media response, however, Anderson's rejuvenated company is being hailed as the "new" Stuttgart Ballet.

Canadian-born Anderson's connection with Stuttgart is long and distinguished. He spent seventeen years with the company as a dancer and later as ballet master, and his reputation for setting Cranko ballets around the world is nonpareil. Anderson began training in his hometown of New Westminster, British Columbia, and, after a year spent studying at the Royal Ballet School in London, joined Stuttgart Ballet when he was eighteen. Cranko became Anderson's mentor and took a personal interest in overseeing his career. Returning to Canada in the mid-1980s, Anderson was appointed artistic director of the newly formed Ballet British Columbia in 1987, and his success in Vancouver led to his talking over the National Ballet of Canada in 1989. His ties with his native land remain strong, and he likes to point out that two Canadian choreographers whose careers he helped foster now hold his old jobs-John Alleyne in Vancouver and James Kudelka in Toronto. In fact, this season Anderson returned to the National to set a stunning production of Cranko's Romeo and Juliet on the company.

The "new" as it applies to Stuttgart can be taken literally: twenty-six dancers of the fifty-eight-member company have joined since Anderson took over (six apprentices bring the roster to sixty-four). Before officially taking up his post, the director-to-be spent seven months shuttling between Stuttgart and Toronto getting rid of deadwood. "In Germany," explains Anderson, "dancers have tenure after fifteen years, which means that they can't be fired. I found a company that had calcified at the top, and this meant that younger dancers couldn't move up the hierarchy. A huge cleanup was needed." As a condition for taking over Stuttgart, Anderson demanded carte blanche for the necessary bloodletting, and twenty-five dancers, both with and without tenure, were given golden handshakes, found other jobs, or let go. "Each case needed its own solution," says Anderson. Included among Stuttgart's new recruits are five former members of the National who elected to follow Anderson: principals Margaret Illmann, Yseult Lendvai, and Robert Tewsley; guest principal artist Vladimir Malakhov; and soloist Robert Conn. The rest of the new dancers, most between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one, were found in a general audition that attracted 380 hopefuls from around the world; the current company now boasts seventeen different nationalities. One German critic likens the company's newfound dynamism to "the power of a Porsche."

While Stuttgart Ballet might look very young, the New York repertory is old hat; the company is performing two full-length Cranko ballets, Romeo and Juliet and Onegin. When asked why he is bringing the tried and true rather than new works, Anderson defends his decision, citing the youthfulness of the company. `I've only been here for two seasons and there hasn't been enough time to produce an arsenal of new work. Its too early for us to present a mixed program; that will be for our return visit, which, I hope, will be in a couple of years. I want to honor John's memory with two of his greatest ballets performed by a whole new company, and we're going to showcase a different cast for each performance. This visit is a `Hello!' We're saying, We're still alive!' and that the Cranko legacy is safe with us.' As a reminder of the golden, olden Stuttgart days, Haydee, who created the role of Juliet in 1962, will be performing the role of Lady Capulet.

Anderson's first two seasons in Stuttgart have garnered international attention. His greatest triumph thus far has been "Hommage A John Cranko," a glittering two-week, nonstop dancefest held last October to celebrate what would have been Cranko's seventieth birthday, which featured all of his masterpieces. "We only had five weeks to get everything together," says Tewsley, "and we all danced different roles every night. English critic John Percival compared the excitement of the present company to the glory years of Cranko." Tewsley also points to Anderson's cleverness at programming, a skill that was evident throughout his time with both Ballet British Columbia and the National, as being a source of his success. The first mixed program that Anderson put together in December 1996, which used every principal in the company, included Balanchine's The Four Temperaments and Ashton's Monotones, both new to Stuttgart, as well as an original work by Italian choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti.

That first year Anderson also commissioned works from David Bintley, Uwe Scholz, and Canadian Jean Grand-Mahre, as well as adding William Forsythe's Herman Schmerman to the repertory. "The critics here," says Tewsley, "are very pro-Reid because they feel that what he's doing is exciting. The 1998-99 season has five new works and three company premieres." Anderson acknowledges that to give Stuttgart its own signature, the company needs a resident choreographer. He is carrying on the tradition of Cranko's famous Noverre Evenings, a showcase for new works that nurtured the choreographic talents of Jiri Kylian and Forsythe when they were company members. Currently Anderson is mentoring the fledgling choreographic careers of principal Jean-Christophe Blavier and corps dancer Christian Spuck.

Lendvai, who worked with Anderson in both Ballet British Columbia and the National, gives a note of warning to her new colleagues. Anderson's vision about what is good artistically for his company can have a ruthless effect on his dancers. `Reid has strong ideas about who is suited for what," she says. `in both Vancouver and Toronto, good dancers left because they weren't getting the careers they wanted. He either sees something in you or he doesn't. He's passionate about his work, and that's what makes him opinionated. He caters to what he sees as our strengths. This kind of drive stimulates me, and with Reid, I'm fulfilled as a dancer."