Funny, exhilarating and at times unbearably sad, it’s a tough piece filled with Nordic folklore and poignant storytelling.
MILAN, ITALY — High emotion inevitably surrounded this production of Peer Gynt, landing for the first time at La Scala.
Here, the protagonist is part of a narrative that recounts a pyjama-clad patient in a psychiatric clinic, who—between dreams and memories—follows Henrick Ibsen’s thread of storytelling: a thread that makes one acutely aware not only of his astonishing inventiveness but also of how Edvard Grieg’s score knows exact when to use music to enhance the drama and when to let it fall silent before the often provoking power of speech.
Photograph: Tiberiu Marta © Teatro alla Scala
Photograph: Tiberiu Marta © Teatro alla Scala
It’s a work stemming from research on the great playwright’s text and Grieg’s music to unite their respective inspirations, overcoming the limitations of each. Clug created a new libretto that follows Ibsen’s narrative chronologically and juxtaposes Grieg’s stage music for Peer Gynt with his other famous concert and chamber pieces for a dynamic and coherent narrative development.
By fusing the artistic worlds of Ibsen and Grieg, a new ensemble is created, and a landscape with many doors: Clug has chosen his own, which he opens to the audience and invites them to walk through, to enter a new contemporary ballet experience.
Photograph: Tiberiu Marta © Teatro alla Scala
“Peer Gynt wastes his life constantly resisting and running away from his true self,” explain the notes, adding how “his personality is an amalgam of contradictions. His curiosity drives him to fall into temptations that always land him in the wrong places and embarrassing situations. He denies his essence in his determination to achieve power and control. At the same time he is an artist, daring to dream and confront rules and conformity.”
Clug approached this character, born from a powerful dramaturgy that touches on different genres, from fantastic realism to philosophy, from metaphysical themes to spirituality, and created a complex role, trying to transfer into movement, the emotional and symbolic depth of the original, so that the audience would not only understand the story, but could connect with the narrative on a deeper and more personal level, through dance, an open language par excellence.
Photograph: Tiberiu Marta © Teatro alla Scala
One can argue whether this is senseless or dramatic. But, it’s unquestionably fascinating to see a version of a contemporary story that strips some things away and adds ingredients that are entirely unfamiliar from more mainstream plots.
Photograph: Tiberiu Marta © Teatro alla Scala
All in all, it’s an intriguing work that exposes the madness of a time when the truth is subjective and the mind is viewed through the lens of self. A reflection, of this ballet, brilliantly executed by Alice Mariani and Navrin Turnbull who combined finesse, accuracy and poise; gently accompanied by Leonardo Pierdomenico’s brilliant piano playing.
by Chidozie Obasi