Ballet of Fables

Some like their ballet new, lean and glinting; they favor the New York City Ballet. Some like it pageantesque, formal and applauseworthy; they favor London's Sadler's Wells. Some like it storyful, mellow and magical; they had almost no place to turn except Copenhagen, where the Royal Danish Ballet spun comfortably on its 200-year-old tradition, rarely ventured into the outside world (TIME, Aug. 31, 1953). But last week the Danes were in Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House, and provided crowds with something to cherish for years to come.

Foam Rubber. On the festive opening night (Danish national anthem, speeches, cheers) the featured work was La Sylphide, choreographed by famed August Bournonville in 1836 and passed down virtually unchanged from lip to toe. It begins with a round of mimed action during which some observers usually expect the dancers to burst into recitative and aria at any moment. The white-clad sylph (Margrethe Schanne), her supernatural character implicit in the tiny wings at her waist, falls in love with the Scotch farm boy (Henning Kronstam); but when the family arrives, she dashes over to the fireplace and literally whisks up the chimney.

After that, the growing drama of the boy's unhappy betrothal to a human girl is developed through the dancers' fingertips--pointing at the eyes to indicate tears, at the forehead for mystification, at the ceiling to swear by all that's holy, etc. There are magic veils, palm reading and plots until the sylph's little wings drop off and, faltering as if blind, she dies. When, amid all this fabulizing, they get a chance to dance, the Danes are light on their toes--as if the stage were covered with foam rubber--and their movements are graceful rather than virtuoso. Everything they do onstage helps the drama, and so there are no star dancers, nor is there much pause for applause. Nevertheless there were gasps of approval at the powerful male leaps.

Green Seaweed. Choreographer Bournonville's other big ballet of the week, Napoli, was only a few years younger (1842), had even more pantomime as well as one long actful of leaps and turns. It also contained a memorable little piece of stage magic that delighted New York City audiences as if they were children at their first puppet show. When Teresina (Kirsten Ralov) is turned into a naiad, she kneels in a pink gown, then suddenly stands up dressed in green seaweed. Later, with as little fanfare and in full view, she suddenly switches back to pink.

There is less magic in the minor fare offered by the Royal Danes--Graduation Ball is even more giddy than Ballet Theater's version; Dream Pictures is a pointless period piece that does, however, include a hilarious dance by three doddering octogenarian couples. While it is at the Met, the company will offer the first U.S. performances of Romeo and Juliet, with the Prokofiev score and new choreography by Frederick Ashton. Then it will visit ten cities in the eastern U.S. and Canada to give more Americans a chance to see ballet storyful, mellow and magical.

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