The North Bohemian Theatre in Ústí nad Labem also took the more traditional path, with director Margarita Pleškova and ballet master Vladimir Gončarov staging Don Quijote. It is a clear continuation of the local dramaturgy, regularly opting for big classical titles, but when it comes to staging them, they lack the sufficient background (in terms of the number and quality of the dancers) and requisite financing – for example sourcing adequate stage design. It is true that Don Quijote is more forgiving that various other classics and both choreographers managed to adeptly mask the group’s short-comings, and yet the production was very much at the edge of the ensemble’s capabilities.
Classics are also regularly staged at the larger Ostrava ballet, al-though each time they come in the form of a non-traditional adapta-tion. This was the case for last year’s Swan Lake, when Youri Vamos’ version was added to the Ostrava repertoire, where it has embed-ded itself over recent years. Unfortunately, this interpretation from the perspective of the Prince, who was danced by four performers in various contexts, was an unhappy one with overly complicated, incoherent storytelling.
Liberec also evoked the nineteenth century with Sylf, their lead-ing soloist Nuria Garcia’s debut. It was a purely contemporary – in dance vocabulary and handling of the theme – interpretation of the ballet La Sylphide. Any remnants of Herman von Løvenskjold’s musical motifs were covered by Antonio Blanco Tejero’s rather lis-tener unfriendly composition. From a choreography standpoint, Sylf is a surprisingly mature piece, which succeeded in laying bare the psychological depth of the subject matter, especially in the second half.