Vivaldi, oder Was ihr wollt. - Hamburg Oper, Hamburg, Germany - dance reviews

Dance Magazine, April, 1997 by Inge Zurner

HAMBURG BALLET HAMBURG OPER DECEMBER 22, 1996 REVIEWED BY INGE ZURNER

When Milwaukee-born John Neumeier created his first evening-length ballet twenty-five years ago (for the Frankfurt Ballet), he took his inspiration from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Having earlier danced in Cranko's version of the same work at the Stuttgart Ballet, Neumeier set out to develop a form of dance drama that would reveal the eternal human truths embodied in the main characters, rather than simply retell a story scene by scene.

In Vivaldi, oder Was ihr wollt ("Vivaldi, or what you will"), his version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Neumeier goes beyond that goal to set the characters in situations of his own invention Moreover, since a new appreciation of Antonio Vivaldi's music provided his initial inspiration, Neumeier decided to take the characters out of the context of Shakespeare's tale and make them move along with the moods and tempt of the music.

Theatrical figures, however, owe their very existence to a dramatic plot. So the frame of the play remains in the ballet: lovesick Orsino (Nicolas Musin) languishes in unrequited love, as does Olivia (Heather Jurgensen) in decorative melancholy. Viola (Gigi Hyatt), separated from her twin, Sebastian (Lloyd Riggins), by storm and shipwreck, takes on a disguise--here as the clown Feste--to act as a catalyst, the only one not confused by love's errors. Antonio, the captain (Jacopo Munari), duly saves Sebastian--and newly loves him, with feelings that go beyond the fatherly. Malvolio (Janusz Mazon) is love's fool, whether in Shakespeare's yellow garters or, as here, in butterfly wings.

Neumeier reflects the timeless validity of this emotional rondelet in ensembles dressed in plain silver tights or in black-and-white shirts and red clown noses. He uses steps and jumps, pointes and pirouettes for emotional impact and expressive impetus. Yet he and his dancers are so firmly rooted in classical technique that its harmonious fluidity remains intrinsic to the work in spite of all the choreography's angular gestures. Storm and waves become dance; Shakespeare's comedy of situation becomes a comedy of movement.

The excellent company realizes Neumeier's choreographic intentions to perfection, especially Hyatt (back after a two-year maternity leave) and Riggins, Hamburg's new American male star. The sets (by Hans-Martin Scholder), light-gray marbled walls extending to integrate the orchestra pit, plus orange or yellow mobile squares to create more intimate rooms, suggest timeless southern ambience, while the costumes (by Christina Engstrand) vary a bit too vaguely between chichi modernism and velvet historicism.

Amid enthusiastic applause the only sign of disapproval was directed toward a somewhat thin, dry playing of various Vivaldi concerti. Max Pommer conducted the Philharmonic State Orchestra.