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In , he saw La Sylphide in Paris, two years after its premiere. In , he created his own version in Copenhagen, where it has been danced in an unbroken tradition ever since. A world with a glimpse of happiness and love, but where darkness and death have the final word. In his Romantic ballets that would follow — Napoli , The Kermess in Bruges , A Folk Tale — Bournonville still had an aspect of darkness but he did not let the darkness take power.
They meet at a square in a European town — which is now the Joyce stage. Stressing that the Bournonville style demands an ability to act and master a specific kind of naturalistic mime, Lund went on:.
August bournonville technique: Bournonville's best-known ballets are La Sylphide (), Napoli (), Le Conservatoire (), The Kermesse in Bruges () and A Folk Tale (). Later major ballets include Valkyrien, Thrymskviden, Arcona and Fjedstuen.
August Bournonville gave Danish ballet an identity of which it is justly proud, and some of his prolific repertoire survives — and delights! Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Post Comment. It was a revelation.
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He was hooked. From to he was choreographer for the Royal Danish Ballet , for which he created more than 50 ballets admired for their exuberance, lightness and beauty. He created a style which, although influenced from the Paris ballet, is entirely his own. As a choreographer, he created a number of ballets with varied settings that range from Denmark to Italy, Russia to South America.
A limited number of these works have survived. Since , The Royal Ballet has several times made prolonged tours abroad, not the least to the United States, where they have performed his ballets. Later major ballets include Valkyrien, Thrymskviden, Arcona and Fjedstuen. At the age of eight, he entered the Royal Ballet School at the Court Theatre in Christiansborg Palace under the tutelage of his father and Vincenzo Galeotti , ballet master and principal choreographer of the Royal Danish Ballet from to On 2 October , Bournonville made his first stage appearance in a small part as the son of a Viking king in Galeotti's Lagertha , the first ballet on a Nordic theme.
Less than a year later, he received his first personal applause for dancing a Hungarian solo at the Court Theatre. In addition to dance, Bournonville was a voracious reader, learned French at home, played the violin, sang in a boy soprano voice, and studied declamation with the actors Michael Rosing , Lindgreen, and Frydensdahl.
His many talents were brought together on the Queen's birthday, 29 October , when as a twelve-year-old he played the role of Adonia to royal acclaim in a music-drama, Solomon's Judgment and sang a romance, "The Mother with Her Drooping Wings". Bournonville had five siblings. He was the only one in out of the children who showed any interest in dancing.
They had seven children, including Charlotte who became an opera singer and actress. In , Antoine Bournonville received a grant from his sovereign to briefly study ballet in Paris. Bournonville accompanied his father to Paris, and, although he studied solely with his father during the Paris sojourn, he was exposed to the latest trends in ballet and watched the illustrious teachers, Gardel and Vestris in action.
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Upon returning to Denmark, Bournonville became a member of the Royal Theatre, dancing in repertory that was less interesting to him after his exposure to Paris ballet. In the spring of , Bournonville returned to Paris for final studies and examination preparations at the Paris Opera. Maurice Ravel? The symbolism was not difficult to grasp.
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Harald Lander? The ballet follows the progress of a dancer, and a ballerina in particular, from the five positions and the daily class at the barre to the display on stage. For the next 50 years Etudes danced triumphantly across the ballet stages of the world. From Paris to Tokyo. From Toronto to Budapest. In the Denmark of this ballet meant that Harald Lander had mustered his corps, which had achieved an impressively high standard, around the prima ballerina Margot Lander who had been the centralizing figure in the s and s.
The Royal Danish Ballet in the ? The summer festivals drew the attention of foreign critics to the Danish ballet, which until then had largely been a domestic affair. This led to international guest performances and tours which today are a natural part of the Royal Danish Ballet? It began in London in , continued in Edinburgh in and, with a tour of the USA in , led to the great international breakthrough.
In the mids the Royal Danish Ballet was seen as a very strong company which had more than Bournonville to offer the international ballet world. Harald Lander had created a number of young dancers of remarkable quality and the Russian-British Vera Volkova who had come to Copenhagen in and worked as principal teacher for the next 24 years, gave the dancers their final polish.
Together with the former Soviet Union, Denmark is the country which has exported most top male dancers to the world stage over the last 50 years. The latter became Artistic director after Harald Lander and - apart from a few years, , when Frank Schaufuss was at the helm - he was responsible for the development of the ballet right up to During this period the repertoire became new and exciting.
Harald Lander had already realised that renewal was important. Frederick Ashton? This was the first Western production to Sergei Prokofiev? It was Hans Brenaa who, with his great love and intuitive feeling for the essence of these works, directed and imbued them with life, thus taking care of the tradition right up until his death in Apart from the grand Romantic ballets, with their tension between this world and another which lies behind it like a yearning or a dream, Brenaa made the more straightforward and ingenuous ballets dance across the stage with an infectious vitality.
During the periods in which Hans Brenaa was absent from the theatre, Kirsten Ralov was the custodian of the Bournonville tradition. In she committed the Bournonville Schools to paper. The Modern Time Flemming Flindt was appointed Artistic Director in and something quite new was about to happen - Flemming Flindt was himself a choreographer with a mission and he wanted to modernize the ballet on Kongens Nytorv and attract a new audience.
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With Flemming Flindt ballet became an art form which dealt with the here and now. Drawing inspiration from contemporary French writers, he created? This was a dance drama about the end of the world in which Flindt scored a success by commissioning the most popular rock group at the time, Savage Rose with the brothers Anders and Thomas Koppel, to write the music.
Flemming Flindt is a dynamic and intelligent man of the theatre.
Flindt breaks with convention and has never accepted that ballet should simply be charming and attractive. Therefore he in his period as artistic director invited a new set of choreographers to the Royal Danish Ballet. It was the ballet? Later followed works by a series of USA? They got off to a tremendous start with the first Bournonville Festival in when the theatre used the occasion of the centenary of August Bournonville?
August Bournonville and the Royal Danish Ballet were well known abroad, but this week, with its concentrated presentation of a unique Romantic ballet tradition, was nevertheless a decisive international breakthrough. The demand for Bournonville became greater than ever. The Royal Danish Ballet received countless invitations.
Fame was of course both wonderful and intoxicating, but it also created problems because a classic dies if it is not constantly rethought. The renewal of the Bournonville repertoire during the s was mainly based on the reconstruction of two forgotten Bournonville ballets and a series of shorter dances. Added to this were the shorter dances which the Bournonville Group took around the world.