NEUMEIER'S VISION OF NIJINSKY.
NEUMEIER'S VISION OF NIJINSKYHAMBURG BALLET
HAMBURG STATE OPERA HOUSE HAMBURG, GERMANY JULY 2, 2000-JULY 14, 2001
REVIEWED BY HORST KOEGLER
On sun-bathed Sunday, July 2, 2000, a lifelong dream of John Neumeier's came true. In his early days as a dancer, he had read every book on Nijinsky, collecting memorabilia of the great dancer-choreographer--photographs, drawings, sketches, books and magazines, newspaper clippings, letters, personal belongings--thus building what has snowballed into the greatest private collection of Nijinskyana in the world. As artistic director, intendant (general manager) and chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet, he had crowned the annual Hamburg Ballet Days with a Nijinsky Gala, at first presenting famous dancers in Nijinsky's legendary roles. (Thus Germany first saw Baryshnikov guesting in Spectre de la Rose.) He progressed to presenting Nijinsky's, as well as various specimens from the Diaghilev output, until in 1979, he made a solo piece called Vaslav for Patrick Dupond. The idea of doing an evening-length ballet about Nijinsky has never left him; finally things coalesced.
On that radiant Sunday morning Neumeier opened an exhibition, "Nijinsky-Dance Legend and Visionary" at the Hamburg Museum for Art and Trade, showing parts of his by now huge private collection of memorabilia [see "Vaslav Nijinsky," Dance Magazine, July 2000, page 44].
That evening, Neumeier admirers assembled for the first night of Nijinsky, subtitled "Choreographic Approaches." When the final curtain came down two and one-half hours later, the audience seemed dumbfounded for a moment before the applause started. Many were convinced that they just had witnessed one of ballet's most ambitious projects.
The ballet is not a biography and it is lightyears distant from Bejart's Nijinsky, Clown de Dieu (1971). Instead, it materializes as a sort of choreographic probe into Nijinsky's soul. The choreographer was obviously influenced by James Joyce's stream-of-consciousness literary technique, for the story moves among the different layers of history--Nijinsky's personal biography, his appearance in his most famous roles, the creation of his ballets, his diary entries and his visions of God and the world. The credits read, "Choreography, Decor and Costumes by John Neumeier (partly inspired by the original drawings of Leon Bakst and Alexander Benois)."
The music was ravishingly interpreted by individual soloists and the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra under the vigorous leadership of the young conductor Rainer Muhlbach. Neumeier chose to start with solo pieces by Chopin, Schumann and Shostakovich, before concentrating on three movements of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. For the second part, after the intermission, he used Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony, subtitled "The Year 1905."
The ballet begins with the last soiree given by Nijinsky in a hotel in St. Moritz, Switzerland. To his completely shocked visitors-after long moments of complete stillness--he explodes into an escalating solo of contorted and spastic movements, interspersed with quotations from his former roles--time and again, his Harlequin from Carnaval--returning over and over to his spiritual realms not of this world. It is his "marriage with God," which he has described in his diaries. This serves as the base of Neumeier's explorations of Nijinsky's soul. And if that is what the ballet is really about, for Neumeier it probably means his personal mystical union with Nijinsky the dancer, choreographer and visionary.
It is incredibly complex. Neumeier's detractors (and he has many, though none of them registered a protest after the performance) might call it a convoluted piece. It is not always clear who is who: for instance, his father (performed by Carsten Jung), his mother (Joelle Boulogne) or the new young dancer supposed to be Massine (Guildo Warsany). And it took me quite some time to identify his sister Bronislava (Elizabeth Loscavio). Others are perfectly clear from their very first entrance--Diaghilev (Ivan Urban) and Romola (Anna Polikarpova) as well as the ballerina Karsavina (Heather Jurgensen)--and then there is his mentally retarded brother Stanislav, a role in which Yukichi Hattori gives an incredibly gripping performance.
Nijinsky is played by Jirf Bubenicek, but his individual stage roles are split up among Alexandre Riabko (Harlequin and Spectre de la Rose), Otto Bubenicek (the twin brother of Jiri as Golden Slave and Faune), Guido Warsany (Young Man in Jeux) and Lloyd Riggins (Petroushka)--while Jurgensen appears also in Les Sylphides, Jeux and as ballerina in Petroushka. Loscavio is the Young Woman in Jeux and the Chosen One in Sacre du Printemps.
It may be tricky to untangle all these relationships, but it is endlessly fascinating to see how brilliantly Neumeier switches gear and style as he moves through the various levels. It is as if an avalanche is beginning to form in the ballet's second part, when Nijinsky's visions of the approaching war and destruction of the world are gathering momentum.
While classically based, Neumeier's choreography explores all sorts of modern expressionist movements, into which he integrates excerpts from Fokine and from Nijinsky's own pieces, all of which seem to emerge directly from the music, and all tailored perfectly to the appropriate situation and character. There is a wealth of neatly constructed solos, duos and trios, sweeping ensembles and sinisterly approaching warriors, and there is a fabulously bizarre piece for Nijinsky's suffering brother, then the elegant ballroom dances for the rich and glitzy. I particularly remember a scene in which a downcast Romola draws a sled with her demented husband on it through a deserted winterscape. The ballet is an incredibly rich tapestry, into which Neumeier has invested all the experiences of his thirty-four years of choreographing.
It is performed marvelously by the Hamburg Ballet dancers and demonstrates dazzlingly the company's technical wizardry. For Jiri Bubenicek, it clearly means that he has found here the role of his life. Not resembling the real Nijinsky at all, nor possessing Nijinsky's genial airiness, let alone his androgynous charisma--he is not strictly a classical dancer but he dances all the prince roles. A man of distinctly contemporary virile sexiness, he is a powerful dancer with a thorough, though not extraordinary, technique, and is an extremely versatile dancer-actor. As such, he has immersed himself deeply in Nijinsky's character. He brings out the contrasting aspects of his personality as a man, a bisexual lover, a dancer, a creator and a visionary--all in all, as a genius and a loner in a world that gradually slips away from him.
It is a great performance of a great work and certainly John Neumeier's Confessio as an artist.
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| Title Annotation: | Review; Hamburg State Opera House, Hamburg, Germany |
|---|---|
| Author: | Koegler, Horst |
| Publication: | Dance Magazine |
| Date: | Oct 1, 2000 |
| Words: | 1052 |
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