With all due respect to more recent luminaries like Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov, Vaslav Nijinsky remains the icon of male ballet dancers. During his career with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (1909-13), his fame surpassed that of the most renowned ballerinas, with his virtuosity and choreographic innovation making him an international superstar. By 1919, however, Nijinsky was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and was periodically institutionalized for the last 30 years of his life. Nijinsky, choreographed for the Hamburg Ballet by artistic director John Neumeier in 2000, is an impressionistic reverie on the dancer’s life. In the first act, which is set during a final performance before a small audience as his mind was deteriorating, Nijinsky (Alexandre Riabko) recalls his most memorable roles—Harlequin and Le Spectre de la Rose (danced by Alexandr Trusch), the Golden Slave and the Faun (Marc Jubete) and Petrushka (Lloyd Riggins)—as he dances to music by Chopin, Schumann, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Hovering over the proceedings is the figure of Diaghilev (Ivan Urban), who was Nijinsky’s lover until the dancer wed Romola (Carolina Agüero), causing a rupture between the men (Nijinsky has ecstatic duets with both). The second act, set to more brutal music by Shostakovich, connects Nijinsky’s radical choreography of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with the horrors of World War I and the dancer’s unhappy family history, particularly the insanity of his brother Stanislav (Aleix Martínez). Neumeier weaves all of this into a deeply expressive whole in this uniformly superb performance filmed at the Hamburg State Opera in 2017. Presented in DTS 5.1 (DTS-HD 5.1 on the Blu-ray edition) and PCM stereo, extras include an interview with Neumeier. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)
Nijinsky: A Ballet by John Neumeier
(2017) 135 min. In German w/English subtitles. DVD: 2 discs, $31.99, Blu-ray: $41.99. C Major (dist. by Naxos of America). Volume 33, Issue 5
Nijinsky: A Ballet by John Neumeier
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