DANZ QUARTERLY Issue 16
July, August, September 2009
Matz Skoog’s La Sylphide
By Jenny Stevenson
J. A. Lynch’s famous lithograph depicting 19th Century ballerina, Marie Taglioni, as the Sylph delicately posed on the slender branch of a tree, epitomises the spirit of the Romantic movement in ballet – a period that impacted on successive generations like no other. To this day, many people associate the art form with the ethereal and elusive, spectral figures of sylphs, willies and swan maidens - clothed in white, diaphanous tulle – and wafting through space on the tips of their toes, portraying beings that are lighter than air.
The lithograph shows the original version of the ballet La Sylphide, no longer being performed, which was choreographed by Filippo Taglioni for the Paris Opéra in 1832, to showcase his daughter Marie. Instead it is the more robust version created four years later for the Royal Danish Ballet, by Danish choreographer, August Bournonville, which has survived for a staggering 173 years, and is widely considered to be his most accomplished work.
Fellow Dane Poul Gnatt, founder of the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB),, staged two versions of this masterpiece for the Company, initially in 1958 and again in 1990. It is in Gnatt’s honour that Artistic Director Gary Harris has invited his predecessor, Matz Skoog, to restage La Sylphide for the Company at the end of July.
Matz left RNZB in 2001 to take up the position of Artistic Director of the English National Ballet (ENB) for four years. Since 2005 he has been much in demand around the world as both a teacher and consultant and is enjoying the freedom that this affords. “When you are an artistic director, even of a major company such as ENB, your professional focus tends to become rather narrow in that you are concerned mainly with your own company” he explains. “It’s easy to forget to lift your eyes and look around at what else is happening out there”. It has also given him the opportunity to branch out into other activities such as research, writing and studying which he finds “satisfying both on a professional and personal level”, though perhaps not as lucrative as holding an artistic directorship.
Matz has always enjoyed a reputation as a champion of innovative and emerging choreographers, receiving a nomination for a TMA (Theatrical Management Association) Theatre Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance in 2002 while he was with ENB. This nomination commended his “enterprise and daring in commissioning new British work”. During his tenure at RNZB, Matz worked with Te Matārae I Orehu and Mark Baldwin to create the innovative Ihi FrENZy and instigated the popular Tutus on Tour, which encourages new work. He also commissioned Douglas Wright, Michael Parmenter, Shona McCullagh and Neil Ieremia among others, to create new choreographies for the Company.
In light of these achievements, I asked him what appeal there was for him in re-visiting a narrative classic such as La Sylphide:
“I have always been very interested in seeing new work on stage, and as an artistic director representing major arts organisations, I felt it was my responsibility to facilitate and encourage new work to be produced. Having said this I never moved away from the classics. They have remained my professional foundation and the yardstick with which I always measure new developments. I feel especially passionate about ballet of the Romantic period. The delicacy and the subtlety of expression in romantic ballet have possibly never been surpassed. And it must be remembered that Romanticism was a revolutionary artistic movement of its time. It broke away from established and clearly defined norms of classical values. Romanticism laid the foundation for an artistic freedom of expression that we still benefit from today. I feel a lot of new dance I see today is rather crude and superficial and lacking in choreographic content, so it will be a breath of fresh air to revisit La Sylphide with all its choreographic nuances.”
Bournonville technique was a feature of Matz’s own training in Stockholm as a young dancer, due to a direct lineage from the Master dating back to when Bournonville worked at the Stockholm Opera House in the 1870s. He hastens to point out that he is “not a Bournonville expert” although he has worked with many legendary 20th Century teachers of that technique including Hans Brenaa and Fredbjørn Bjørnsson. However he is confident of possessing “a good feeling for his style of dance” and is aiming for “a traditional interpretation of La Sylphide – hopefully [an[ excellent [one]”.
Matz would like to incorporate some of the original “theatrical effects” to evoke the supernatural element, “because they demand much greater participation of the spectator’s imagination than the extraordinary special effects that we have become accustomed to through the movie industry”.
I asked him whether he will be considering any special training for the dancers to recreate the integral mime elements of the work, but he believes that “the best way to recreate old mime is to approach it using modern drama methods. I suspect the overacting and tendency for melodrama that was considered normal stagecraft in the 19th century would not work well with modern audiences, so in this respect we shall try not be too authentic”.
The RNZB staging will be the second for Matz – the first being for Rome Opera Ballet in 1991 where he worked “as closely as possible (to) the original Bournonville choreography” under the precise instructions of the legendary Bournonville exponent, Peter Schaufuss, himself a former Artistic Director of ENB.
Matz has danced the role of the kilted, Scottish Laird, James, “on a number of occasions, in lots of theatres, in lots of countries”, particularly in the period that he was a dancer with ENB,as it “suited me quite well as a dancer”. He has also seen “some wonderful Sylphs over the years - Eva Evdokimova, (who died earlier this year - see her as the Sylph on: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBLvAguVXFg) and Elizabetta Terabust particularly spring to mind”.
Although the casting of the forthcoming production will remain the prerogative of Artistic Director, Gary Harris, one key role is already in place. Sir Jon Trimmer will be weaving spells as Madge the Witch, reprising his role in the 1998 RNZB production under guest producer Dinna Bjørn. The Meridian season of La Syphide will also feature a selection of dances from Napoli –another Bournonville classic.
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