Theater Review
Giselle
Landestheater Detmold, 25.05.07 (Closing Night.)
As I said in my
Blog last week, it was a busy weekend. I still managed to get to go and see the last Giselle in Detmold though. I was very curious about how it would look. My feeling has been that Richard, (the Director/Choreographer in Detmold) has been continuously growing and improving as a choreographer over the last years. Also, Pamela's parents had already been to see Giselle, and had returned with positive reviews and praise for it. I say this to show that my expectations were fairly high.
Too high in fact; My expectations were not met. I could see the qualities that earned praise, and could see the areas in which Richard had indeed continued maturing, -But the actual choreography, which is what I was mainly, if not solely interested in, was less than I'd hoped for. The new Ballet last season, The Nutcracker, (which I guiltily haven't written a review for!) was the best that I've ever seen Richard Choreograph. The evening was nearly all... Dance. Do I try to explain what I feel most often about his choreographies? (And if Richard should read this, then he must realise that it's my own inner thought, and should take no offence.)
Because, well, I find his choreography to be lacking. Lacking what? Well, most often, Dance. He seems at times, many times, to go out of his way to have his dancers doing less "Dancing." Instead, it's more walking, rolling, standing... doing everything with relaxed, unstructured knees, feet, and posture. Perhaps he's trying to create a "Natural", "Actual" look, but it comes across as just dull. Perhaps he isn't trying to have the Realistic look, instead he's just trying to do something different than all the Classic Choreographers. (Unfortunately, the Classic Choreographers have done Everything that... is nice to dance. -And so Richard often seems to take the most obviously wonderfully Dancing parts of music... and use them to crawl across the stage.)
Anyhow, that should give a bit of an idea of my point of view. And it should be easier to understand what I mean about Nutcracker having been "Full of Dancing!" It was nearly all recognisable steps, that looked like dancing, and seemed like it would be enjoyable to do. That's why I thought he was steadily improving his style, and why I thought Giselle should be nice... (to dance, and to watch as a dancer.) The style was, alas, more a return to what he'd done before; More turned in, more just walking, more making Actions on the stage, in stead of dance steps. It was not a complete relapse, but it was a step in the wrong direction. (According to my strict tastes that is.)
The audience liked it enormously. From what I understand, the reviews in the newspapers were all positive. In truth, one of the dancers... got to Dance. He was the "Queen of the Willies" in the second act. (But this second act was not in a graveyard: Giselle lived, but was put in a madhouse.) Anyhow, This one man got to dance, and dance beautifully. (Though I think still not to his full potential. Richard could have... made it better suited to him. -Better suited to be danced at all. But it was a huge improvement over what the others had.)
What else? The scenery was modernistic, minimalistic, and not impressive. -But it worked all right; it didn't actively distract from the dancing. And it had the possibility to charm, (others though; not me.) The costumes I found dull, and contributing even less to the evening than the scenery. At least they got to wear ballet slippers though. (There's a disturbing trend in Germany it seems to put the ballet in Jazz boots or Jazz sneakers. I say "There's a REASON dancers wore ballet slippers for the last two hundred years: Because Ballet Slippers are best to dance in!!!)
No more comes to my mind just now. (And this is anyhow rather long enough, is it not?)