Ballet
COPENHAGEN is ballet mad. There are photo• graphs of dancers in the shop windows, Postage stamps have a ballerina on them. There is even a Danish cheese called 'Ballet.' Before the war hardly anyone had heard of the Danish Ballet. It was discovered little more than a decade ago. The rest of the ballet world was astonished to find that Denmark possessed a whole repertory of nineteenth-century ballets by Bournonville in almost mint condition. Bournolv ville, previously a name in some of the reference books, was seen to be a major figure, a chore. ographer of the stature of Petipa. The Royal Danish Ballet started to tour: London, Edit' burgh, New York. Everywhere it was acclaimed.
Nowadays it has the air of a major companY. There is that atmosphere about it which sur' rounds theatres accepted and distinguished. yet for all that it is facing a prolonged crisis. Ever since it moved out of obscurity it has been struggling, so far with little success, to give itself a future as well as a past. In 1951, after a major upheaval the repercussions of which are still bitterly felt, Harald Lander, the company's ballet-master, principal choreographer and guid' ing star, was banished to Paris. No one has Yet emerged to take his place. The Danish Ballet must be the only important company in the world without an important choreographer at its head.
This season Lander has returned and conse' quently the Festival for the first time in many years has been able to produce a Lander novelty. It was not much of a novelty at that, 3 reconstruction of a 1681 I.ully ballet that Lander has renamed Les Vietoires de l'Anzout. Crumpling pompously between the two stools .of pious authenticity, which could have been In' teresting, and genuine invention, which could have been stimulating, this divertissement to the glory of Cupid will do no one any great good. A specially produced Lander revival of his most notable ballet, Etudes, had splendid moments, but was not well enough danced by a company that should have done it to perfection. The dancers are all there. But the Festival has not shown them to any great advantage so far. MY artistic direction must be in question which can produce a revival of Petit's tawdry and pretery tious Cyrano de Bergerac, but only give a truly cated production of one of its national master' pieces, Napoli. OLIVE 13ARNO
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