Interview with Martin Schläpfer

MS One of my goals for Vienna was to open up the program stylistically and thematically in different directions. Of course, both our houses are repertoire venues - also for dance. As such, they have great quality and are important for the Vienna State Ballet and our audience. In addition, we will be presenting a number of world premieres in my last season. I have invited the choreographers Andreas Heise, Alessandra Corti, Louis Stiens and Martin Chaix. They are already established, but not yet on everyone's lips and are working in Vienna for the first time.

MS I expect them to bring freshness to our repertoire and open new doors at the end of my directorship. And I myself will also create a new ballet, Pathétique, for the last premiere at the Vienna State Opera and a children's play, Peter and the Wolf, for the new NEST venue.

MS In a creative process, the terrain for the dancers is not defined from the outset. There is a choreographer in front of them and it takes courage to go into something without knowing in advance how it will turn out. Creation is a basic prerequisite for the performing arts to remain alive and relevant to our society. This is not just about the question of what our repertoire will look like today and tomorrow, but also about the dancers. If they only dance what already exists, the power of imagination atrophies. Of course, I don't mean that an Odette and a Prince Siegfried don't form something artistic in a dancer. And of course it is essential for a ballet company to deal with this. However, many truly great dance events have come about as creations between choreographer and dancer - and we have a responsibility to ensure that this doesn't stop, especially at a time when fewer and fewer choreographers are at the helm of ballet companies and show their own artistic and dance-technical attitude, as was the standard from George Balanchine to John Cranko, Merce Cunningham to John Neumeier, Hans van Manen, Pina Bausch - to name just a few examples. At the moment, we see the same names popping up everywhere. That's not a bad thing, of course, because every country, every place has its own audience, and it's always great for them and the dancers. But internationally, the repertoire is becoming more and more similar because the same "hot" pieces are being bought everywhere. I've never been interested in showing what everyone else is doing, I wanted to give my ensembles their own profile, an unmistakable character. There is also so much to discover in dance heritage. I used to show Kurt Jooss, Anthony Tudor, Martha Graham. I have been working with Hans van Manen for over 30 years - even at a time when he had almost disappeared from the repertoire outside the Netherlands. Balanchine was always an important pillar. For me, a program should unfold as a network of relationships - not superficially, but readable for those who are interested. And at the same time, you should simply be able to have a nice, interesting, touching or upsetting evening with us.

MS I brought Alexei Ratmansky to Vienna three times, we were able to engage Lucinda Childs, Karole Armitage, Ohad Naharin and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker alongside constants such as Nureyev, Balanchine, Robbins, van Manen, Cranko and Forsythe, have expanded the repertoire to include central positions in American dance with Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor and Mark Morris, and have looked to the European ballet of recent decades with Uwe Scholz, Heinz Spoerli and, of course, John Neumeier. We must also cultivate this heritage, especially in an art form that has such a difficult time with its history, questions of originality, tradition and anchoring, because it lives in the moment and speaks with the body. If all this is lost, it is not only the past of our art that is lost, but also our language, which is becoming increasingly impoverished and one-dimensional. I think it is essential not to play off what was and what is and will be - i.e. creation - against each other, but to cultivate them simultaneously.

MS Let's take a look at what a rebel Nureyev was, not just as a dancer, but who he brought in as director of the Paris Opera Ballet, who he commissioned to create new works! He tore something open. We should be talking about that. Instead, Nureyev is romanticized by many in a one-dimensional way. Of course, it takes a certain amount of time to renew or rather shake up a repertoire - I have continued to cultivate and present many works - and please don't forget that our work was brought to a crashing halt by the pandemic for two seasons. Some things may have suffered in the short term. If I were to stay in Vienna, such criticism would certainly no longer be an issue in two to three years' time. Of course, a corps de ballet must be in harmony. We work on that every day. And I wouldn't put on a Swan Lake or a Symphony in C if that didn't interest me. Nevertheless, it amazes me that all the other things we have built up don't count for some people. We show great things and the audience loves them, senses that something is moving, changing, alive here. What about Marco Goecke's world premiere of Gustav Mahler? Wasn't it unique to show Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker together with Cunningham and van Manen in one program, to see these three manuscripts danced side by side by a Vienna State Ballet? Where else is that possible? That also carries a lot of weight for me. You can also freeze an ensemble in a certain way, stylistically and in terms of dance technique, more or less stay the same in order to achieve the goal of absolute homogeneity. But is that really what it's all about? Today, in such a diverse society? I wasn't brought to Vienna for this kind of programming.

MS I like guys, I like people. For me, an interesting dancer is one who imagines, who thinks, with whom I can understand what a movement means, what he wants to say with it. That's not a given and it's an aspect that is trained through creating. Marcia Haydée was a highly talented dancer, but it was only in her work with Cranko that she learned to fill the great classical roles with performance. We have to learn to speak our language through our steps and movements - and that is just as necessary for classical dance. It is not just form either. A pirouette must also be filled.

MS The Winter's Tale was premiered at the Royal Ballet London in 2014 and won important prizes for both the choreography and the composition. We are presenting the Austrian premiere and have been able to win the American Ballet Theatre in New York as a cooperation partner, which will present the work as a US premiere on the West Coast and at the MET. Wheeldon is a charismatic artist and great choreographer who creates not only for ballet companies but also for Broadway. His work has a fascinating lightness, yet his characters have a great and touching depth. At the moment there are few who choreograph story ballets at this level and the production is also right up to date in terms of its very complex and elaborate stage design. The plot is based on Shakespeare's Winter's Tale, i.e. material that has not been told a hundred times on the dance stage. Wheeldon has commissioned his own score from composer Joby Talbot and the piece has wonderful roles that require great experience to perform. I think that we have the artists in the ensemble who can fill these roles, but I am also challenging them anew with a work like this.

MS It is such great music and, above all, dance music! In his symphonies, too, you can feel how much dance is part of Tchaikovsky's art. The Sixth opens up a whole world: The 1st movement is highly complex, very dramatic, like forces of nature colliding. At first glance, the waltz suggests a pseudo-swinging quality - and yet it is anything but. The 3rd movement has this extraordinary sharpness - and then comes this drunken, highly melancholic finale. Of course, you can't succumb to this music, but I wonder why so many choreographers create so formally to Tchaikovsky. My ballet will certainly be very physical. I want to show people of today. And the Vienna State Opera Orchestra will play it wonderfully.

MS Interestingly, I don't have the feeling that this is any different to any other ballet for me. Peter and the Wolf is brilliantly constructed and beautiful spaces open up for the dance. We look very closely at the characters. How can you portray a wolf? Is he just the enemy or can he also have something very beautiful, noble, enchanted? Something archaic, dark? We're certainly not going to catch him by the tail. And does he really have to go to the zoo?

MS It is great to now have such a space for the Vienna State Opera. This modernity, this complete concentration that it radiates. I think it's really nice to be able to think differently in this space, to approach the audience differently ..

MS Yes, definitely. We are somehow entrenched in this grandiose state opera. I think we have succeeded in breaking that down. We have a wonderful mix of generations in the audience, and many young people also attend our performances. The introductions, panel discussions and DANCE MOVIES are very well attended, there is a wonderful exchange, direct encounters, contacts and bonds. The Open Class, where we offer classical ballet training to external dancers as well as interested amateurs and students every Saturday, is not only always sold out, but has developed into a truly inspiring place where we feel what it's all about. In this context, I would also like to mention our Friends of the Vienna State Ballet, which we have reorganized and which has now become a very lively counterpart and an important partner for us, both financially and in terms of ideas, and more: it is also part of our programming with all the events that we offer exclusively to our friends. I think that something very nice has been created here. We have received a great deal of interest, but also gratitude. And at the same time, there is still a lot to do!