Review: Australian Ballet's 'Nijinsky'
Nijinsky
The Australian Ballet
Regent Theatre, Melbourne
Friday, February 21
A challenging ballet is not a bad thing. And perhaps there are too few challenging ballets. John Neumeier’s Nijinsky challenges audiences in a number of ways. Being a passive recipient just doesn’t cut it here; the work demands engagement and buy-in from the viewer.
The ballet is based on the life and works of the great early 20th century dancer and chorographer Vaslav Nijinsky who after a relatively short but sensational career, spent much of his later life in and out of institutions, suffering schizophrenia. During his career, he helped transform what was considered to be dance and what was acceptably considered to be the themes in ballet. (Of course there were many other trend setters working to revolutionise art forms including dance at this time.)
To disentangle the complex tapestry of Nijinsky and truly enjoy this work takes at least some detailed knowledge of dance history, music and the world events that impacted the man, dancer, choreographer, lover and husband, Vaslav Nijinsky. Without this, the ballet could be received as an incoherent blur and if the viewer expects it to explain itself, it doesn’t.
The ballet’s anchor is the event of Vaslav Nijinsky’s final public performance at a grand Swiss hotel. His audience was sparse but in thrall of the man’s reputation - willing to adore, but finding the broken man before them a confronting reality. The dancers’ acting in this scene conveys their slightly confused, embarrassed response wonderfully. (Apparently, Nijinsky sat motionless for 30 minutes before moving, leaving the onlookers not quite sure what to do.) From there we see an almost chaotic rendering of snippets of his dance and life. Other dancers appear to Nijinsky, interpreting some of his key roles; Marcus Morelli as Harlequin and the Spectre of the rose, Jake Mangakahia as the Golden Slave and Faun and Brodie James as Petruschka. Ako Kondo dances Tamara Karsavina and Nijinsky’s ballerina partner.
The ballet moves in frenetic outbursts and lurches in many directions, capturing a mind that cannot be calmed or contained. In this, Neumeier generally pulls off an ambitious feat. He asks the audience to watch his ballet from the inside-out; from the point if view of an unstable mind. It doesn’t always work but the effort of taking that journey is worth it. The ballet ends in the final moments of the same last performance event, but here the ballroom shrinks and darkens - the ceiling lowers and the walls narrow. We are left with a triumph of will for Nijinsky the man, but also his end as a dancer. The slow-motion applause of the onlookers in this scene says so much.
Choreographically, Nijinsky is quirky and hectic, violent and occasionally lyrical. The movement vocabulary feels vibrant and modern but takes its stylistic leads from the early 20th century. There is a sense of broken-ness in the choreography with many lines being slightly ‘off’. What starts as a developpe or a fouetté al la seconde ends in a barely formed attitude or a flexed footed, off-balance turn. The choreography delights in not delivering the expected, but has its own powerful physical language. This is one of the triumphs of the ballet, creating a a very coherent dance vocabulary that permeates all parts of the work and reminds that, in a sense, everyone on stage is Nijinsky.
On opening night, Callum Linnane shone as the tormented and hyper-vigilant Nijinsky and there are few moments of levity to relieve the emotional intensity of the role. Linnane has taken the chance to reimagine the character of Nijinsky that he first danced as a young coryphée in 2016 and brings an even darker flavour to it this time. As Nijinsky’s wife, Romola, Grace Carroll (a current coryphée) brings a quiet dignity to her role. She seems to be the soother and the rescuer in Nijinsky’s turbulent life. As Serge Diaghilev, Nijinsky’s early lover and mentor, Maxim Zenin is seductive and convincingly charismatic.
Orchestra Victoria under the baton of Johnathon Lo was wonderful as ever, and it was a pleasure to hear the many well-loved pieces of music taken from the works of Nijinsky’s ballets. It is a shame that as a prelude to the ballet, pianist Andrew Dunlop’s solo rendering of some of the music from the ballet was inaudible against the excited babble of the opening night audience.
Content-wise, Nijinsky is billed as suitable for mature audiences. I think that many teen dancers would appreciate and understand its themes. Mental health and sexuality topics are not new to them. It is likely to be more challenging for such an audience on a cognitive level, requiring some background investigation of the time, the man and dance history,
Nijinsky has true impact and is, in very many ways, audacious in its rendering of genius, mental illness, dance history and the momentousness of a historical period in movement and story.
- SUSAN BENDALL