What an extraordinary, delightful compilation of choreographies is shown by the latest three-part evening of the Paris Opera Ballet. The house was not known for the past ninety years for paying particular attention to the works of the English choreographer, born in 1904 and temporarily head of the Royal Ballet, Frederick Ashton. Just once his sensationally funny ballet comedy “La Fille Mal Gardée” found grace under the strict eyes of French ballet absolutism - but even John Neumeier considers this screwball comedy danced on the farm to be worth adding to the Neumeier repertoire. Director Aurélie Dupont is not interested in this or any of the other famous narrative pieces by Ashton - such as "Midsummer Night's Dream" or "Marguerite et Armand" -but rather about one of his perfect, more abstract works: the little-known “Rhapsody” created in 1980 as Pièce d'Occasion for Rachmaninoff's “Rhapsodie sur un thème de Paganini”. It is astonishing that this is not at all an “Entrée au repertoire”.
"Rhapsody" premiered in Paris in 1996. However, the current performance is also like a premiere, because after twenty-five years the ballet will not only meet the umpteenth new generation of dancers, but also a new generation in the audience. Ashton had provided his divertissement with allusions to other pieces of his own in his divertissement, which was immensely sovereign with the virtuoso reveling and dance music for piano and orchestra, which is not surprising in view of the dedication to the Queen Mother's eightieth birthday, since she was a connoisseur and lover of his work and invited him Choreographers often go to the palace for tea - for a private tea dance. The friendly treatment of members of the royal family with the ballet world of the sixties and seventies is legendary;Princess Margaret joked to Ashton's friend in the foyer that he wore more jewels than she did.
Quiet and disturbed, not aggressive like 1913
Despite the cheerful, family occasion, “Rhapsody” is a serious, wonderfully constructed piece that juxtaposes a small male corps de ballet with a female and adds chess-like dances in a constructivist stage design to a painting-like overall impression reminiscent of the beginning of modern art. Ashton was referring to the influence of Serge Diaghilev's “Ballets Russes”, which became famous in Paris. And here the dramaturgical transition to the other pieces of the evening can be seen, once Debussy's “Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune”, which was choreographed for the first time at the Ballets Russes and here in a new gorgeous version by Israeli Sharon Eyal is danced,and the “Sacre du Printemps” by Igor Stravinsky in a reconstruction by Dominique Brun of the Nijinsky premiere from 1913, which was a fantastic success.
It is even so good that the Parisian premiere audience reacted almost disturbed to the brutalism of the music as well as to the stomping steps and earthly animal movements, albeit quietly and disturbed, not aggressively as it was in 1913. Last but not least, that proves how important it is, too to repeatedly show the canonical works with which a new, sometimes raw-looking dance jumped into the modern age.
Twelve minutes of dance are a portrait of our society
The reconstructed “Sacre” with its touchingly beautiful, folk costumes and its archaic force, its cruelty and ecstatic celebration of the cycles of nature, its trance-like, pagan remoteness is an experience in Paris, and the small cast of Sharon Eyal's “Faunes” act just as passionately and confidently ". That she does not contrast the one lascivious, drunken, nymph-loving faun of a triad of nymphs, originally danced by Nijinsky, but lets a horde of these unpredictable, sex-hungry, male-female-diverse types loiter around halfway in the lusciously skin-colored costumes of Dior -Designer Maria-Grazia Chiuri, that's awesome. You can't look away from them, you look with fascination into the emotional abyss of drive-driven dating addicts,but how luxuriously elegant, how deviously beautiful they dance!
Eyal is one of the greatest choreographers of today, twelve minutes of dance by her are a portrait of our society, our fears, addictions, manias, energies, unbelievable that something like this is possible, and also in line with Debussy.
Only time shows what is of timeless importance
In view of the schedules of many German ballet companies, one wonders why the audience has been deprived of countless choreographies from the twentieth century that are important for understanding dance. How long has it been since George Balanchine's Stravinsky ballet “Apollon” was last seen on German stages? Even the internet doesn't know it anymore. Which company plays the wonderful “set and reset” of the postmodern star choreographer Trisha Brown, who died in 2017? No! And no other piece of her either.
Instead, everyone is constantly staring at the premieres of the repertoire, and thus mostly at the new titles of the respective author-choreographer-dance directors.
But if the rich dance history of the twentieth century could teach us anything, it would be that only time shows what is of timeless importance, what has what it takes to become a classic.
If you only ever produce topicalities, few of which survive the third season, there is hardly anything lasting, and at the same time a radiant dance past sinks into oblivion.
It is desperate, especially when you consider how difficult and sensitive the processes of rehearsing and reconstruction in dance are.