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A Great "Manon"

Manon (MacMillan) & Romeo & Juliet (Neumeier)
The Royal Danish Ballet
Det Kongelige Teater
February 10, 2006

by Eva Kistrup
copyright ©2006 by Eva Kistrup

On Friday, February 10th, there was a standing ovation at the Royal Danish Ballet. It was not inspired by a jubilee or a farewell performance. Nor was there an international guest in residence. What brought the audience to its feet was a rare but well earned public appreciation of a very fine performance of MacMillan’s "Manon" and its two stars, Silja Schandorff and Kenneth Greve, who had just given us one of the finest performances we have seen in a very long time.      
 
Silja Schandorff, who turned 37 that day, has been the Royal Danish Ballet's most intriguing ballerina for almost two decades. Tall, pliant and with an air of mystique and dramatic presence, she has graced most of the major international classics and several modern ballets. In 1992 the company. needing a tall partner for Schandorff, engaged Royal Danish Ballet School alumni Kenneth Greve, who had been dancing internationally at The Paris Opera Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and Vienna Opera Ballet, thereby making the foundation for a very interesting partnership between the two extraordinary gifted, tall and good looking dancers.  
 
Over the years we have enjoyed watching Schandorff and Greve develop from their natural element, Russian classics like "Swan Lake" and "Sleeping Beauty," into a command of a much broader, modern and dramatic field. They have always been able to dance everything from Petipa to Balanchine to Forsythe, but over the last decade they have both moved to the forefront of dramatic dancing, and they are as interesting to watch as actors as they are as dancers. The Friday performance of "Manon" was an especially fine example of their skills.
 
"Manon" is not really that great a ballet, It could easily been shortened by at least 20 minutes. The heroine has a dubious character and the hero is a bit of a wimp, but not when danced and played by Greve. The role, originally made for Anthony Dowell and full of Dowell's trademark spins and attitudes, would seem a big challenge for the taller Greve, who is at least 6 foot 3, but he was able to do all the small intricate steps and turn them into a chain of big, poignant movements. His jumps were high, his landings without sound, and his partnering skills were amazing. But the most impressive feat was his ability to draw attention even while standing still at the back of the stage.
 
This is the kind of dramatic intelligence needed for the Royal Danish Ballet in its quest to be the leading dramatic ballet company in the world. The interesting thing about Greve is that he was not a dramatic dancer when he rejoined the company, but over the years he has grown to be a major dramatic force. This is a good thing to remember when viewing other dancers and other ballets at the RDB. Not everyone is born with the dramatic skills, but they can be developed.
 
In Neumeier's "Romeo and Juliet," Greve shares the part of Tybalt with Peter Bo Bendixen and Andrew Bowman. When danced by Greve and Bendixen, Tybalt almost dominates the ballet. Bendixen has always been a dramatic dancer and his dramatic skills have had to work overtime to compensate for his shortcomings in classical ballets. I do not have pleasant memories of his Albrecht but oh, what a Hilarion! Bendixen is currently making the transition from dancer to mime artist which will allow him to focus, and the audience to enjoy, what he does best.
 
In the third cast of "Romeo and Juliet," Andrew Bowman, whose dramatic skills may still be sleeping, was Tybalt to Mads Blangstrup's fine Romeo. Blangstrup has previously danced Romeo both in the Ashton version, during Peter Schaufuss's short tenure as ballet master, and in the Neumeier version, and he is a great romantic Romeo. This time around his Juliet was Femke Mølbach Slot, a member of the corps who had danced several solo parts over the last years. Her biggest role so far has probably been Olga in Cranko's "Onegin." Slot is a very pretty girl with a dramatic flair that comes best into play in the not-so-much-dancing but dramatic third act scenes, but technically she is not strong enough for the part, and although Blangstrup was a very dedicated partner, the difference in their skills was significant. In the mandolin dance with the cousins, she was overshadowed by fellow Juliet, Susanne Grinder, dancing Rosalind, and the young talent, Christina L. Olsen.
 
Attendees of the Bournonville festival may wonder where the festival's staring couple, Thomas Lund and Gudrun Bojesen, were. Poor Bojesen! Over this last couple of seasons she has not managed to be cast in the big dramatic leads. In Ratmansky's "Anna Karenina" she is a wonderful Kitty, but the part in very small, and in Neumeier's "The Little Mermaid" she is not the mermaid, but the princess, a much smaller part. Neither is she cast as Juliet or Manon. I would have liked to see Thomas Lund in the key part of Manon's scheming brother Lescaut, but instead that role went to Dawid Kupinsky, who is light and pleasing but does not yet have the presence or the original take that I suspect Lund could bring to the part. In "Romeo and Juliet," he is Mercurtio, but the part of Neumeier's Mercurtio is so busy being a part of the ever present band of jesters he has very little solo dancing or stage time. However, he does what he can. As Benvolio, the other Kupinsky brother Marcin was dancing very well. The Kupinsky brothers have been a good addition to the company.  
 
Ballets like "Manon" and "Romeo and Juliet" show the Danish dancers at what they do best. Neither ballet is flawless but both give lot of opportunity for character building and fine dancing. It is great to see the company back at their core skills after a half season partly wasted by to many not-really-up-to-the-mark new choreographies and the long dry December period that is wasted—I cannot use a nicer word—on the commercial "Nutcracker" in Tivoli.
 
But where shall the company find the challenging dramatic ballets to keep developing the dancers' dramatic skills? Few of MacMillan’s ballets are even as good as "Manon." We have had Cranko's finest, "Onegin," and the Neumeier quota is full. You can, of course, find a few ballets worth seeing if only for the challenges presented to the dancers. The company could do a very fine production of Cranko’s "Taming of the Screw" with Greve as Petruccio and Gitte Lindstrøm and Tina Højelund as Catherine, but the selection is thin. In order to reach the goal, RDB must start developing dramatic choreographers. (Alexei Ratmansky has showed a significant talent) and/or do more Bournonville. He is eternally available and there is no finer dramatic choreographer out there. Building on this heritage RDB can produce more magic nights like the "Manon" performance to keep the audience happy and standing.

Photos (both by Henrik Stenberg):
First: Silja Schandorff and Kenneth Greve in "Manon".
Second: Ole Just, Mogens Boesen, Jean-Lucien Massot and Kenneth Greve in "Manon."

Volume 4, No. 6
February 13, 2006
copyright ©2006 Eva Kistrup
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last updated on February 13, 2006