© Holger Badekow Hamburg 'Death in Venice' reviews 'Death in Venice' reviews Riggins in reviews Revazov in reviews recent Hamburg reviews more Anjuli Bai reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

The music of Bach and Wagner was played live on stage by pianist, Elizabeth Cooper, and augmented by taped orchestrations. Other composers than the two noted above were used but not detailed in the program. The pianist was wonderful. She not only played the music well but by her rapt attention to the action on the stage made a connection between the music and the dancers.

Another successful aspect was the lighting concept by the choreographer, John Neumeier. The set designs by Peter Schmidt, were simple but exceedingly effective. The lighting made each change distinctive going from flat to deep, from hollow to sated. Screens and backdrops rose and fell creating an additional design in movement. Wide flat columns, slices of city and sea scape moved across the stage from wing to wing, spanning the distance from the stage floor to the upper reaches of the proscenium space. All these changes slid smoothly along – a credit to the stage crew. Changes of lighting alone turned a sea from pink to green; the stage floor became a beach, or a ballroom, a Venetian promenade to a dance studio.

Neumeier and Schmidt’s costumes ran the gamut from Balanchinesque tunics to blue jeans, from flowing 1930’s ballroom gowns (some I would gladly own) to men in 18th century coats and tricornes. Except for a red pair of swim suit trunks, the colors were all muted: black, white, tan, brown, ecru and gray.

Lloyd Riggins, dancing the lead role of Gustav von Aschenbach, “The Great Choreographer,” was a tour de force. I can’t recall that he ever left the stage for the entire two hours of the performance (only one intermission), and he danced much of that time. His characterization moving from sharp arrogance to shrunken and depleted was commendable.

Dancers both individually and collectively were worthy in every sense. The choreography is certainly ballet based but with none of ballet’s formulaic preparations – no tendu preparation for any turns, no running upstage to restart a diagonal, and no now-to-the-right and again-to-the left. In addition the dancers whether in pointe shoes or bare feet carried out the choreographer’s intent with total commitment.

 

So what’s not to like? Though Riggins did a superb job of dancing the leading role, the character itself was unengrossing. At the beginning of the ballet he is thoroughly unlikable and I felt unconnected, unsympathetic and quite uninterested in what would happen to him. He’s a “great choreographer,” gets “creatively blocked,” decides to travel to Venice, meets several young “effeminate” (as described in the program notes) men, one in particular interests him, rejects him and he dies both creatively and physically – his “great” ballet never finished. In between there’s a scene in a barber’s chair, a change of hair color, some snatched wigs, men representing death pulling long swathes of cloth across the stage with women lying dead on them, some “vulgar” (as described in the program notes) street musicians and other assorted people and action.

It was just too much. Too much time spent gazing into space. Too many “modern” blank faces. Too much unrelieved angst. No love, not a moment of joy, and whatever beauty occurs – was accidental – certainly not for its own sake. And while occasionally choreographic innovation poked up a head and peered around, for the most part I found no discernible difference between much of the various dance components. A pas de trois for two men and a woman followed the now obligatory path of “let’s see how many ways we can lift her and how many ways we can bend her.”

I found my mind glazing over so I re-directed my attention to the set, the lighting sequences and the pianist. Which brings me to the final male pas de deux between The Great Choreographer and his “effeminate” would be partner danced by, Edvin, Revazov. While the pianist was playing gloriously captivating music, the two dancers were jerking their arms about, angst ridden bodies making angular shapes and eyes filled with empty agony. And that about sums up how I felt when the stage finally darkened.

I am most probably in the minority in my opinion of this work as it was well applauded though not given the obligatory standing ovation so commonly offered these last several years.