The last director of the Hamburg Ballet, John Neumeier, the company led For 51 years, transforming a provincial group into an internationally respected house.
His successor, Demis Volpi, lasted only 10 months.
On Tuesday, Hamburg State Opera said in a press release That the board and Volpi had agreed to terminate his contract on the ballet four years earlier. The announcement followed weeks of crisis at the company after it turned out that five main dancers had declined, and that more than half of the company’s dancers had sent a letter to a local legislator to complain about a “toxic working environment” under Volpi.
In Tuesday’s release, Volpi said that “despite intensive efforts”, he could no longer realize his artistic vision and he had agreed to “leave in the interest of all involved.”
Volpi, an Argentinian choreographer who previously Ballet Am Rhein In Düsseldorf, there was no request for a request for an interview and a spokeswoman for Hamburg Ballet said that it would not comment further.
It was not immediately clear what the departure of Volpi would mean for the coming season of the company, which Volpi had announced in March and the premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Wonderland”, Based on the novels of Lewis Carroll. It is also not clear how the company deals with productions of Volpi’s work. A New version of Volpi’s’ Surrogate Cities“Is planned to premiere in July. And Volpis”Demian‘Based on the novel of Hermann Hesse, is planned To be performed in December.
The crisis at Hamburg Ballet started at the beginning of May when German newspapers Wijduiters reported that the complaints of dancers about his artistic direction under Volpi, as well as accusations that he was insufficiently present during the rehearsals.
Alexandr Trusch, one of the dancers who resigned, said in an interview with the broadcaster NDR That everything Neumeier had achieved at the company, the risk of being thrown out of the window. “
In An interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt Newspaper Last month Volpi rejected the idea that he did not spend enough time in the studio and was surprised that the dancers had not discussed their concerns with him personally. “Open dialogue and respectful interaction have always been important to me,” he said, adding that he would “continue to devote myself with all my strength and heart” to his work.
The bet was high for Volpi from the start. His predecessor, Neumeier, an American who made his career in Germany from a young age, the ballet ran for more than five decades. The company was almost fully identified with its choreography and aesthetics, with few other choreographic voices.
Manuel Brug, an old critic for Die Welt, a German newspaper, said in an interview that the dancers who complained and had spent their career with Neumeier “spoiled brats” to work just one way.
In his first season, Volpi had programmed a wide range of work – by Pina Bausch, Justin Peck, Aszur Barton and William Forsythe, as well as his own ballets and ballets by Neueier – perhaps more, technical and stylistic questions than the dancers were used to. Brug said that some dancers had complained about the “abstract” dancing, although almost “every company” in Europe does such pieces.
The events, bridge added, have damaged the company and will make it difficult to attract an important leader. “Who’s coming now?” he asked.
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