© Martin Mydtskov Ronne Royal Danish 'La Sylphide' reviews 'La Sylphide' reviews Royal Danish 'The Lesson' reviews 'The Lesson' reviews Royal Danish 'Requiem' reviews Lund in reviews Lindstrom in reviews recent Royal Danish reviews more Norman Reynolds reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

The Old Stage is a tradionally luxurious auditorium with red velvet upholstery, stained wood floors and elaborate gilded ornamentation. Seating around 1131 people, it is rather more intimate than, say, Covent Garden. In the domed ceiling there are nine circular painted panels surrounding an enormous crystal chandelier. Electric globes hang round the four balconies, with those round the second balcony rather larger, held aloft by gilded cherubim to light the first balcony. Clamped to the centre of the first balcony, as at Covent Garden, a Sony camera.

Our brother Danes were somewhat amused that Johann Kobborg's London production last year of The Lesson received, allegedly, an adult only tag as they regard it as just an amusing, absurd ballet. Indeed, Ionesco himself regarded the original play as a 'comic drama'. Flemming Flindt's ballet was first performed on Danish TV in 1963, with Flindt as the teacher. The following year it was staged by the Opera Comique in Paris, and later at the Royal Danish Theatre. The performance on Wednesday was the 244th by the RDB and also marked the debuts of Thomas Lund as the teacher and Gitte Lindstrom as the pianist. The pupil was Gudrun Bojesen. Staging was by Flemming Flindt, 70 this year, and Anne Marie Vessel Schluter.

To begin with we see the pianist tidying up the studio. She picks up the fallen chair, draws back the curtains, collects the scattered music sheets, walking to and fro with exaggerated military paces. She clearly possesses power and authority. As we shall discover, it is the power of knowledge. The electric doorbell rings. In Copenhagen ballet performances usually start with the chime of a bell to call the audience to order. This is it. The next pupil has arrived for her Private Lesson. Once she is ready she begins to loosen up. The Ballet master appears, puts his head round the door. He is tensed up, cramped, shrivelled, like Kafka's beetle. How can this man be a dancer? Then we see. He moves his hands, flutters them, and the pupil responds and starts to dance. The master takes courage, he loosens a little and dances too. His feet are light and nimble, but still held back and restrained. He takes hold of the pupil and the dancing gets more intense, until the pupil is exhausted. The lesson is over, the pianist goes out, as the pupil gets her breath back. But now it is 'apres-lesson'. The master draws the curtains, removes his jacket. The pupil becomes scared. This is a fable of political incorrectness for the 21st century. What happens when the emotions are constrained? What happened? He strangles her and all his private pupils one after the other. She lies dead on the floor underneath the barre. The pianist returns. Together they lift the body and carry it out, marching with military step, just like changing the guard at the Royal Palace up the road. The pianist returns. She picks up the fallen chair, draws back the curtains, collects the scattered music sheets, walking to and fro with exaggerated military paces. The doorbell rings. The next pupil has arrived for her Private Lesson...
 

After the interval a bell chimes twice, not the electric one this time, thank goodness, but we are in for another story of madness, rather milder, but just as dangerous for the girl and her admirer. The 789th performance of August Bournonville's La Sylphide, premiered almost 170 years ago. James is Kristoffer Sakurai and, making his debut as Gurn, we see Alexander Staeger. Both produce fine solo dances in Act 1. The men's kilts seem rather long, covering their knees, apart from James', whose knees are just visible. Perhaps that's how it was in those days, like football shorts in the 40's. The wedding celebration dances are very colourful, with bright yellow, red and purple-green kilts and skirts and very deft footwork. Possibly the London production had a more authentic Scottish flavour to it. James is due to marry Effy, but is more interested in his ideal vision of the Sylph and goes off into the woods with her. Madge, Mette Bodtcher, gets her revenge on him by giving him the red veil (it was a very pale shade of pink), which leads to the Sylph's death. Madge also persuades Gurn to propose to the distraught Effy, who instantly accepts. A sad tale of treachery all round. Gurn seems too nice for the part, and does take a lot of persuading from Madge. Fine dancing in Act 2 from James in particular. The Danish Radio Sinfonietta was conducted by Peter Ernst Lassen.

The Opera House on the island of Holmen is a remarkable building and one of the most modern opera houses in the world, with a main stage and five connecting stages and seating for about 1700 people. The glass and steel front looks out across the harbour to the Royal Palace and the powerful fountain on the Amaliehaven, lit up at night. The foyers, which provide maximum wall area for leaning against and observing (essential for opera-goers), surround the core of the auditorium, looking like a gigantic apple-shaped spinning-top. Locally it is known as the pumpkin. Surfaced in maple wood, stained to the colour of a violin, it reminds one of a giant alchemist's burnished copper cauldron, or from the large-tiled surface it might be a spacecraft waiting to take off once the audience has crossed the gantries and taken their seats. Inside the balconies are also faced with maple wood, the floors are smoked oak and the ceiling covered in almost 24 carat gold leaf. The seats are angled to face the stage, and at the extreme ends of the balconies some of the seats are at right angles to the front of the balcony, so that people sit one behind the other as if on a bus. The Royal Box is to the side, so that the Queen can see the dancers preparing in the wings. This is the theatre where the Bolshoi performed last month.
 

The performance on Thursday was Requiem by Tim Rushton, which was premiered in March. The music is from the two Polish composers Henryk Gorecki's Third Symphony and Karol Szymanowski's Stabat Mater. The Royal Danish Orchestra conducted by Graham Bond, three opera soloists, and singers from the Royal Chapel and the Royal Opera Chorus, together with some 32 dancers of the Royal Danish Ballet produced a memorable work. Stage design and lighting was by Steven Scott.This is a large stage and good use was made of it, with dancers running across, and various pieces of action taking place simultaneously. The set was the whole stage, basically a large black box, or more precisely, a courtyard surrounded by rectangular three-storied buildings. To either side the buildings were supported on black wooden rectangular pillars, giving twelve spaces through which lights shone across the stage, and dancers entered and exited between these pillars. The back of the stage at first seemed similar, all verticals and horizontals, but later on this surface was much more flexible, and by the use of lighting, built in and projected, represented many different and changing structures. At the start we see eight bodies lying in a line to the right of the stage, with smoke drifting away. This is the aftermath of war or other catastrophe. One, then three women mourn for them, other dancers enter and form small groups. All wear black or grey, the men bare-chested. Four of the bodies, which lie on black cloths, are drawn across the stage and away. Later the other four are also dragged away. Groups of dancers dance in tight unison, and suddenly fall to the ground. A remaining dancer is left alone with the dead ones. a repeating process of loss and grief. To interpret the story literally is not possible. Grief is so personal, yet universal, one can but empathise with these movements and feelings of grief, confronting the deaths of loved ones, and continuing to live. After the interval the lower storey at the back has become a cloister, part of a cathedral, where a slow procession moves across from right to left while two couples dance on the stage. Strip lighting forms three crosses, then five, then one, and later one larger cross. Brighter coloured light illuminates the rear panels, a sign of some peace or reconciliation. The singers enter and fill the two upper stories all round, dressed in long cowled robes like monks. Once or twice we see a solitary figure dressed in voluminous widows weeds, who moves slowly across the stage, pausing at intervals to drop to her knees and lean back in grief.

'Death is a sudden experience. But farewells stretch out painfully in time...'
'Slowly we are reconciled to the pain and our fate A will to live'

A Requiem must be a difficult work to judge, but one comes away with the feeling that this is a masterly and compelling example.