Went to see Raymonda today! It’s a brand new production made for the Dutch National Ballet. Mo

Went to see Raymonda today! It’s a brand new production made for the Dutch National Ballet. Money was spent on this and you could TELL.

I saw Riho Sakamoto as Raymonda, Jakob Feyferlik as Abd al-Rahman, Vito Mazzeo as Jean de Brienne, and then there was Naira Agvanean as Henriëtte, Maria Chugai as Clémence and Rafael Valdez and Dingkai Bai as Bernard and Béranger.

One thing that immediately hits you as soon as the curtain rises is the splashes of colourful costumes set before a minimalistic yet vast décor that pictures the inside of a castle, the courtyard (with a scenic view of the mountain ranges of the Provence) and the inside of a ballroom. Jérôme Kaplan did an absolutely stunning job with creating timeless pieces that convey the period within which Raymonda is set but without making it stuffy by keeping the silhouettes streamlined. My personal favourites were the long ankle length dresses of the noble court ladies (pictured last) and the Hungarian costumes in the pas Hongrois, which were based on actual traditional costumes (planning on scanning more photos soon!).

Another thing that also surprised me was how well rehearsed the corps de ballet was. Judging from the last performance I had seen (The Nutcracker last December, which was a hot mess) my expectations werent too high but now I feel kinda mean thinking like that lol. Literally every single act was done with laser precision and finish with the absolute highlight being the grand pas classique in the third act. Kudos to all the corps dancers and ballet masters who made this happen because it looked better than what some big(ger) companies have been showing these days.

Honorable mention goes to Connie Vowles who danced the second (Clémence) variation in the dream act. In this production, Henriëtte and Clémence don’t dance the dream variations for some reason; instead its danced by two different dancers. I literally have no idea why they would make such a decision esp. because it’s absolutely criminal to deprive the audience of Agvanean’s Henriëtte variation (but more on that later). Vowles danced her solo to damn near PERFECTION. I was literally gasping when she was ending those tours en l’air in perfect fifth not once but all three times. A really promising young dancer, here’s to her going far. I also spotted Chloë Réveillon in the corps, surprised to see her here after her stint at the Mariinsky but she’s a solid addition to the troupe. Loved her in the grand pas classique along with Erica Horwood, and, once again, Connie Vowles.

Now on to the main dish… The Sakamoto/Feyferlik/Mazzeo trio and the Agvanean/Chugai/Valdez/Bai quartet. I’ve seen Sakamoto before (Clara in the Nutcracker) and the best thing that I can say about her is that she’s a technical powerhouse with decent épaulement and very good aplomb. That’s it, really. Unfortunately the girl has no ballon whatsoever which translates into sluggish footwork, which thentranslates into sloppy finishes. She’s not a bad dancer at all but she lacks finesse. Her body is very limited in what it can do and there was never a point where I felt like she was one with the music or even conveying it well in her dancing, despite not missing a beat. She’s a classic example of dancing on the music but not dancing with the music. Combine that with her mediocre footwork and her lack of grace and lyricism and you have a very underwhelming performance. In the more technical parts of the ballet she was doing alright and managed to keep my attention, but it was in the final variation where she completely lost me. The ‘‘clacque’‘ variation is infamous for it’s supposed emptyness (just lots of bourréeing across the stage really), but because of that it requires enormous charisma and magnetism to keep your attention. If done well it hypnotises you (Sylvie Guillem!!), if done wrong it just bores you. Unfortunely, in this case I’m leaning towards the latter. That all being said… Raymonda is a behemoth of a role to tackle and Sakamoto did an absolutely tremendous job dancing all those variations and pas deux while still looking like she just came fresh on stage when she was taking her bows during curtain call. It’s her first role as a principal dancer since her appointment in December last year and despite my nitpicking eye she did really, really, really well. Her partnership with Feyferlik was great, his overwhelming stage presence managed to make up what she lacked. The one with Mazzeo however… again… it wasn’t bad… but they were just kind of… there. But they did the job well in technical aspects at least, there were some tricky lifts which were done with a well rehearsed and steady hand.

On the other side of the spectrum, the Agvanean/Chugai/Valdez/Bai quartet was such a treat to watch. Nadia Agvanean especially as Henriëtte was the highlight of my evening. Her little head movements, the turn of her shoulders, the stretching of her fingers into the distance to a point beyond her reach, she puts so much thought in all these little details that can make a performance into something bigger than the dancer itself. Not to paraphrase that infamous Tsiskaridze quote but the Russian school really is superior. You can tell she had a Vaganova upbringing in literally every single movement no matter how small. This really shows how much a dancer can get out of themselves if they pay miticulous attention to the style they’re being trained in instead of just thinking of doing the steps right.

All in all it was a great evening and an even greater addition to the Dutch National Ballet’s repertoire. The fact that they can stage a warhorse like Raymonda while still making it look fresh and modern (with an updated libretto, mind you) shows that even a tiny country like the Netherlands with not much of a ballet history can reach the same world renowned standards of the old ballet companies as long as enough respect, hard work and love are put into it. Bravo to all the people who made this happen, on stage and off stage!