Vienna Opera Ball: Ballet Interlude, Vienna State Ballet (Wiener Staatsballett), February 27th, 2025

As you know, the Vienna Opera Ball is an established event that is very dear to the heart of the Viennese Society, and there is not much need to explain that. It is only a reminder of what people want to experience on this exact date: they want to celebrate, have good laughs, and enjoy some casualness (even frivolity) for a few hours of fun. Perhaps escape reality. Or relax and have a good time. This is not a „happening" that requires a „deeper" message to think of, and, God forbid, gloominess.

Unfortunately, this year, one can only speak of a cultural misunderstanding of what a ballet interlude during a ball represents in Austria. In a Ball in which people want to amuse themselves.

There is not much to say about Mr Schläpfer's choreography (or movement vocabulary), except that it, apparently, reflects the same kind of „mode" used, for example, in his „Mahler" more than four years ago (which had its première during the first Lockdown and to which we, critics, were invited to sit in separate boxes): I believe that all pieces are made separately, and „glued" together in a row. Not much of a complex concept. Last Night’s choreography showed nearly no “whole ensemble” segments and a very (for the Opera Ball Interlude) unusual “coming and going” from the dance floor area… think of it.

Masayu Kimoto & Elena Bottaro / Copyright: Ashley Taylor & Vienna State Ballet

In this failed choreographic attempt, the room capacities (and limitations) were not well used. The fact that the public sits on four sides of the audience area was totally forgotten as the choreography was classically written to „the front". It was also, especially in Miss Esina's solo at the very end, filled with a kind of out-of-place superfluous dramaturgy “shards” (Miss Esina has also to carry the same burden as the Queen in the present production of "Sleeping Beauty" at the Vienna Opera). An obsolete, very dilettante endeavour. A ballet Interlude during the Opera Ball is supposed to be a „divertissement". Nothing else. That’s a fact.

Olga Esina / Copyright: Ashley Taylor & Vienna State Ballet

Led by some names who are familiar and dear to the public (Olga Esina, Masayu Kimoto, Ketevan Papava, and Arne Vandervelde) and also Newcomers who have proved themselves during the last Seasons (Elena Bottaro, Timoor Afshar, and Natalya Butchko) the rest of the cast seemed to lack homogeneity, leaving just the question: Which were the premises for this casting? What do all those physically, stylishly and technically, very different dancers have in common?

The dark costumes by Ida Gut were not suitable for the Opera Ball. It is not that I want to see „Princesses with tutús and tiaras" on the dancing floor. No. Not that. But there must be some empathy with an evening which, as mentioned before, means celebration, fun, and joy. It is a wonder that the lights were not put down, as in other „in house productions" of the last years, to provide a bit more of gloominess to the number (Which was, by the way, „Kaiserwalzer Op. 437", a favourite of world audiences and a happy, positive one. Not a „gloomy one" piece). The music selection was meant to milk and guarantee applause. And it did.

But the point is not a good, a passable or a bad choreography. Other choreographers managed using the difficult space in the past to present a whole “group” number. The real problem is the lack of comprehension of the event itself and the understanding of the Viennese traditional (and chic) mentality. The obstacle is not having the necessary know-how but lacking completely what one could call a „sense of occasion". Yes, a sense of occasion.

Ricardo Leitner

February 28th, 2025