Departure in Vienna, departure in Berlin
Still in Vienna: Martin Schläpfer, artistic director and chief choreographer
Quelle: picture alliance/dpa
Martin Schläpfer will not renew his contract as ballet director at the Vienna State Opera. Christian Spuck takes over the Berlin State Ballet. Two precedents that could hardly be more different – but reveal something about the problems of dance theater.
What does a ballet company want to present itself today that is part of one of the major opera houses? Especially in times when the historical art of dance is once again reviled as old-fashioned, outdated, stuck to false aesthetic and socio-political ideals? The MeToo scandals and body shaming incidents, alleged and real racism, the rigid class system between Étoile and group followers are also cutting their discourse aisles right into the schools, where some have now exchanged their leadership.
In Vienna, ballet director Martin Schläpfer has just announced his departure for 2025 after only one contract period. He will then be 65 years old, until he is 70 he no longer wants to do the backbreaking job of performing in the State and Volksoper and running the dance school. Especially since he has been struggling with two pandemic years since the beginning of 2020 and he is also a choreographer who has released four important innovations in two and a half seasons. Now he wants to create completely freely.
That’s one reading. In Vienna, before, during his tenure and now again, Schläpfer was constantly railed against – surprisingly also by professional critics, who one would have thought better foresighted. The new opera management still enjoys unwinding the director’s recipes from elsewhere, which are no longer entirely fresh, or buys in ancient productions; even world premieres are only carefully re-enacted with production. But she has the blessing of the political donors. So they tried to pee on the opera by complaining about the ballet.
As if out of time
One could have been happy about that. With Schläpfer, one of the best dance creators of today had been hooked, and he was also experienced in management. But in Vienna the clocks still tick differently. For decades one was happy with a troupe that had been trimmed to technical brilliance in the classical canon by the former Parisian star soloist Manuel Legris. Which today seems more and more like it has fallen out of time. Because nothing significantly new was tried here, only yesterday, and because in Vienna the ballet icon Rudolf Nureyev, who died in 1993, is still glorified hagiographically.
Of course, it takes time for a troupe to form anew, to open up aesthetically, especially in times of pandemic isolation, when you weren’t allowed to dance together for months. But it doesn’t matter who follows Martin Schläpfer – and the choice is extremely small – you won’t be able to turn back the wheel there. A similarly small-minded circus artistry troupe reduced to the canon cannot be reinstalled again. But how much originality will there be in Vienna in the future? That’s the big question. Because even his art was held up to the creator Schläpfer. There would be too much of it.
Soon in Berlin: Christian Spuck, new director of the Staatsballett
Quelle: picture alliance/dpa
Christian Spuck, in turn, does not want to be accused of this, who will take over the Staatsballett Berlin, which has been in agony for ten years due to various blatant management disasters, from the next season and is currently premiering his first evening fillers imported from his previous place of work in Zurich. With the Verdi Requiem, he can rely entirely on the expressiveness of the music and the interaction of singers and dancers on stage – even if, somewhat unhappily planned, a staged St. Matthew Passion celebrates its premiere at the Deutsche Oper almost at the same time.
But Spuck made it clear at his confidently presented press conference that classic music will take a back seat and that the focus should and must be broader. First of all, he justifies this with the reunion of a troop that has been replaced by a third, the upper ranks of which are to be occupied gradually from their own ranks. He has put together a nice bouquet of guest choreographers. He limits himself with a single piece, a new version of the often danced, dramaturgically well narrated “Madame Bovary”. Schläpfer put his stamp on the Viennese more. But he was brought in for that. Because he’s a better choreographer.