© Daria Klimentova Vogel in reviews Stuttgart reviews Simonetta Dixon reviews

It is Midsummer evening in a balmy London when Stuttgart Ballet Principal Friedemann Vogel arrives to meet me at the stage door of the Royal Albert Hall, and I am immediately struck by how tall he is, and how blue and animated his eyes are. It is often disappointing meeting someone in person: they are always shorter than one expects, and without the benefit of airbrushing and other tricks, don’t look half as good as in the photos. Vogel bucks this trend.

We go into a small, airless room on the side of the stage, and in his softly accented English, Vogel remembers how he started dancing as a young boy: “I’m not sure how old I was, but I went to class with my older brother sometimes. He is 13 years older and was also a dancer with Stuttgart. I started getting serious about it when I was about 9, and my parents weren’t happy. They thought I might get fed up with it very soon so they humoured me and let me go, but I fell in love with it very quickly, and that was that.” After going to a local school, Vogel was accepted into the Stuttgart Ballet School, but didn’t like his teacher so at the age of 15 moved to the Princess Grace Ballet School in Monaco. It was in Monaco that Vogel’s passion for his art flowered. “In Monte Carlo my heart and soul were really opened to dance, because I clicked with my teacher. My teacher in Stuttgart had blocked this… it was all about positions and arms, and nothing about the joy of dance. For me, if you don’t have soul, you have no technique. They just correspond. That’s it.”

In 1999, Vogel graduated and joined Stuttgart Ballet. “Because my brother was there, I had taken classes when I was in my last year. They asked me to join, so it was a great feeling to know I had a job before I graduated.”
 

In 2002, age 22, he was chosen by Reid Anderson (Stuttgart’s Artistic Director) to represent the Company at the Erik Bruhn Festival in the USA, partnering Alicia Amatriain. How nervous was he? “Well, Reid knew that I had done many competitions at school, but that I don’t like them… how can art be a competition? I had said I’d never do another one, but he told me it was just a festival, not a competition, so I went.” Against some stiff competition including Guillaume Cote of National Ballet of Canada and David Hallberg of American Ballet Theatre, Vogel won, to his surprise. “There were many important ballet directors there, so I guess I got noticed. But I dance the same way whether it’s in a small place or on an international stage… people have come to see us, and I give everything every time I dance, it’s not like I tried harder because it was a competition.”

In order to give so much so often, a strict regime of class, rehearsal and performance dominates Vogel’s life. Doesn’t he ever just want to go home, put his feet up, drink a beer, eat lots of chocolate and say, “actually, I don’t feel like doing this any more; my body hurts and I can’t be bothered.” Vogel laughs, his deep blue eyes sparkling with the thought of this. “Of course, sometimes I feel like that. But only briefly. As soon as I’m back in the studio, I love it again. Our careers are so short that you have to enjoy it all the time. Maybe if it lasted until we were 60 we’d get bored, but it is so short that there just isn’t time for that.”

Vogel is in London for the third summer in a row guesting with English National Ballet, all three productions (Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake and Strictly Gershwin) being ‘in the round.’ Why does he keep being invited back? I mention his unusual height for a dancer… ”Well, male dancers are much rarer than ballerinas anyway, and I guess tall male dancers are even rarer. But I hope I don’t just get asked because I’m tall - that would be terrible! I hope it’s because of my dancing and my emotions.” Vogel is disarmingly humble about his talent, and this manifests itself in almost everything he says. “As a dancer, it is such an honour to dance in the Albert Hall. Nowhere else in the world, nowhere, has such a big space. I’ve danced at the Bolshoi, I’ve danced in China, but here I can really let myself go and enjoy myself. Because I’m tall, it’s just freedom and I love it.”

This was Vogel’s second visit to London in three months. In March, Stuttgart Ballet performed in London for the first time in 27 years with Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet. Vogel danced Romeo, the role with which he is most associated here, on the opening night. This surely must have been nerve-wracking? “Well, as I’ve said, the show must be good no matter where I am dancing, and I must keep my level up. If you work hard, you don’t really have to be nervous because you will do your best.” We discuss the fact that Stuttgart seems to be unusually blessed with tall, strong and excellent male dancers, as evidenced in those dancing Mercutio and Benvolio, as well as the Corps. “Stuttgart has always had a tradition of very good male dancers… .look at Richard Cragun, for example. I wish I could say it is a German thing, but I am the only German male dancer in the whole Company!” This is rather astonishing to me, and interesting to learn that even the Royal Ballet has more indigenous male dancers than does Stuttgart. “And”, he smiles, “we have only one German ballerina, too.”

John Cranko‘s influence is still very much apparent in the Company, both in the repertoire and the approach of the dancers to their art. We are discussing the differences and similarities between Cranko’s and MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. “I suppose it is what you are used to. I’ve been seeing Cranko’s since I was small, and it is what we learn. I would love to dance MacMillan’s Romeo; it would be very interesting to me. It looks more physically demanding than Cranko’s, except the pas de trois, which is more difficult in Cranko’s.” Vogel was lucky enough to see Cragun dance with Marcia Haydee when he was a young boy, and was smitten early on with the Cranko repertoire. “It’s simple, but not easy. It says what it has to say in a clear and simple way.” Many consider Onegin to be his masterpiece, but Vogel says he is not ready to dance the lead role yet: “I dance Lensky, and I love it. There is that beautiful solo just before he dies. I just don’t think I am old enough yet to dance Onegin convincingly… but it will come soon enough!” Having Reid Anderson still there coaching them is a real benefit to Vogel and the whole Company. “Of course we dance his works differently than 25 years ago… things change, bodies change so technique changes. But he is there to make sure we dance Cranko’s language the way he wanted it danced. The idea must be the same. We also have Marcia Haydee who guests with us.” Cranko is to Stuttgart what Balanchine is to NYCB and Ashton and MacMillan to the Royal Ballet. “We do feel that he is in our blood and we need to maintain his legacy the way he would have wanted, and deserves.”

The Company do have some Ashton in their repertoire (Vogel is dancing Colas in La Fille mal gardee this coming season), but their Kenneth MacMillan pieces have not been performed for about ten years, which means Vogel has sadly never danced any of the great choreographer’s works. The good news is that he will be returning to ENB to dance Des Grieux in Manon later this year. “I can’t wait to dance MacMillan. There is so much drama and emotion and I really love the challenge. This is really a dream come true.” The Company does have Wayne McGregor in its rep and Vogel adores his choreography. He created Eden/Eden on him and he was hooked: “I think he is a genius. I just love dancing his work and can’t get enough of it. I wasn’t at all surprised when he became resident choreographer at the Royal. I’d also love to work with Mats Ek.”

We move on to discuss how he approaches a role, and whether his approach has anything to do with his partner. “No, I don’t really think it does. Each show is different, and each partner is different; sometimes with Romeo I interpret him as a young puppyish boy, other times as a bit of a ladies’ man who is all of a sudden hit by this big love. I am very lucky; I have always had good partners and always fall in love with them in every show!” Vogel doesn’t have a regular partner. “It is very, very rare to have an established partnership. There aren’t that many around.” He is very lucky in that he is regularly given time off to guest with other companies around the world. “I am so lucky that I can dance all around the world. It is interesting, and keeps me fresh.”
 

When guesting, Vogel is called upon to dance the whole gamut of roles, from contemporary to Giselle. Which ones are his favourites? “Swan Lake, of the classical roles. I love dancing Siegfried. He is not a stupid prince. He has that lovely solo in Act 1 that expresses his sadness because he hasn’t found the right love. Then he does, and then he dies, so there’s lots of drama, which I love. The same with Albrecht; although he doesn’t die, he suffers loss, tragedy and redemption, with that last view of him holding the flowers, and that gorgeous music… ’ Vogel’s voice trails off as he envisions Albrecht’s final moments onstage. Then he comes back, smiling, with “Sleeping Beauty is my least favourite because there’s no drama, and everyone’s happy at the end.” He tries to find something good in each role he dances, but sometimes this is very difficult: “With some of the contemporary choreography I just think ‘oh no, why am I having to do this?’”

We move on to discuss Vogel’s bad moments onstage. “Of course we all have them; we wouldn’t be human otherwise. But even if you fall over or perhaps have a bit of an off night, you can still touch the audience. I strongly feel that ballet isn’t just technique. It’s very sad that some people just look at the angle of a leg or an arm, or the height of a jump, and not get the emotions involved.” Vogel is passionate about this; he returns to it time and again during the interview. “The worst is if I come off stage after Act 1 and feel that I haven’t danced well… I still have two acts to go and have to pull myself together to try and do much better, and that is hard if you feel it isn’t your night. I always really try to pull the audience into another world; I want them to leave the theatre thinking ‘Romeo has died’, not ‘Vogel played Romeo dying’.” If the critics agree that his performance has been below par, does it bother him? “Of course no-one likes a bad review, but it doesn’t really bother me because for me the important thing is to be onstage dancing. Likewise if I get a great review it’s nice but how the audience reacts to me is much more important.”

Much as Vogel adores ballet, there will come a time when he won’t be dancing anymore. That is the time when, he says ruefully, he will leave the ballet world and do something completely different. “I don’t know what that will be” he says, “but I want to see some other things. The ballet world is so small, and I don’t always want to think one way. But I’m sure I’ll come back to ballet later on.” As with any dancer, he is well aware that his body is his treasure, but could also be his worst enemy. “It could all be over by next week”, he smiles, “but of course I hope not. We get a buzz, a kick, onstage that we couldn’t get anywhere else, and I will miss that; you can never get it back which is why it’s so special when it happens.”
 

At only 28, Vogel isn’t thinking too hard about what he will do when he finishes dancing. “When I was a teenager, I never thought I’d be where I am now, so I don’t think about where I’ll be in ten years… ” He does mention that being an Artistic Director might be of interest, but he doesn’t relish the administrative side of it and all the associated aggravation that inevitably comes with running a company. “I’d only be interested in the artistic side of things, but that isn’t enough.”

In his limited amount of spare time, Vogel designs clothes. He is a bit shy about telling me this because he’s not sure how good he is… but he can’t be bad since some of his designs will feature in German Vogue in August. “One of the things I love about London is being able to go to the V&A and look at all the fashion and designs down the centuries. I love extreme, theatrical clothes, not those you wear every day. I use ballerinas as my models and they are beautiful and know how to wear these clothes.”

Speaking of women, I ask Vogel if he is aware of his rather large female following. “Really? That’s great… the more fans the better!” He does get followed occasionally by particularly persistent fans. He rather sweetly hopes that it is for his art… “If they are still following me when I’m 40 I’ll know it’s for my art.” I explain that from a female perspective, it is not just for his art that he is being pursued… He laughs and tells me that he loves going to Japan because his fans there are lovely and polite. “They leave me gifts at the hotel reception desk, and nice notes, but they never bother me.”
 

The time has come for Vogel to return to his dressing room to prepare for the evening performance. He accompanies me to the stage door and gives me two kisses on the cheek by way of goodbye. In 20 minutes he will sweep Daria Klimentova into his arms and dance a romantic pas de deux to a Gershwin song. Such is the stuff that Midsummer dreams are made on.