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| Henning
Kronstam: Portrait of a Danish Dancer
by Alexandra Tomalonis Alexandra
Tomalonis has documented Kronstam's major roles as recounted in his own
words, revealing the genius behind the man and his art. A superb technician
and impeccable classical stylist, Kronstam was also a great dance-actor.
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| Table of Contents and Preface - PDF HTML | Chapter 8 Excerpt - PDF HTML | Purchase Now | |
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Contents Preface ix Part
I.
The Making of an Artist 1.
Henning Kronstam and His World 1 2.
A Wartime Childhood 15 3.The
Boy Who Practiced Dying 28 4.The
Lander Years 46 5. Vera Volkova and the Making of a Dancer 68 6. The Pepper Boy in the Sugar Bowl 85 7. Firestorms and Breakthroughs 109 Part
II. The Roles 8. The Poet:
Balanchine’s La Sonnambula 133 9. Romeo:
Ashton’s Romeo and Juliet 146 10. James:
Bournonville’s La Sylphide 164 11 . Apollo:
Balanchine’s Apollon Musagčte 182 12. The Princes: Florimund, Siegfried, and Albrecht 194 13. The Knights: Nilas, Jason, and Don José 217 Part III.
The Mature Artist 14.
Cyrano 233 15 . Ruth Page and Walt Disney 256 16. The Swan in the Duck Pond 275 17. First Solo Dancer 286 18. Dark and Fair 309 19.
Dreamland 332 20.
This Breathlessness 353 Part IV.
The Ballet Master 21. Priorities and Challenges 379 22.
The Bournonville Festival and The Firebird 398 23. Tivoli and Tours 415 24. The Search for a Successor 431 25. The Red Thread 447 26. Life and Art 464 27.
Night Shadows 483 28. The Terrible Year 500 29. The Ashton Solo 511
Afterword by Ellen G. Levine, M.D. 524
Appendix 1: List of Roles 529
Appendix 2: Kronstam’s 1993 Contract 532 Notes 535 Bibliography 553 Index 557 Preface Like
its subject, this book has changed form and character several times. It was
originally intended to be a study of Henning Kronstam’s roles, then became
an artistic biography, a biography, and finally a portrait.
I first approached Kronstam in the spring of 1993 and asked if he
would be interested in working with me on a book about his roles. I had met
him three years earlier; although I had been very interested in the Royal
Danish Ballet and the ballets of Bournonville since I first saw them in
1976, I was unable to travel to Copenhagen until the spring of 1990. Kronstam
had just staged Giselle and I thought it an exceptional production because of
its poetry and dramatic cogency. During several subsequent visits, I was
equally impressed with other ballets in his charge—La Sylphide, Napoli,
Onegin, Theme and Variations. Whether they were his productions or ballets he
had merely rehearsed, each had a directorial style that distinguished it from
the other works in the company’s repertory. I was especially intrigued
because, even though I watched the rehearsals, I couldn’t figure out
how he did it. There was a mystical symbiosis between Kronstam and the dancers
that produced miracles and that left the Royal Theatre with him. Kronstam had
a reputation—partly deserved—for being a difficult and private man.
Sensing that he would not be open to a biography, I proposed a book about his
roles. I would interview him about the ballets he was preparing and write
about what I saw in rehearsals and on stage.
I began to suspect that the gods would not smile favorably upon this
project when, two days after Kronstam had agreed to my proposal, he vanished
from the Theatre. The explanation given by the company’s management was so
inconsistent with what I had observed that I became curious and decided to try
to find out what had really happened. After ignoring several letters,
Kronstam finally wrote me and we agreed to start working on the book in
January 1994. I never asked him what had happened at the Theatre, partly
because I did not want to start from his side of things, and partly because he
was mired in a severe depression much of the time I knew him. One of the ways
he coped with his illness was to avoid discussion of painful or unpleasant
matters. He was just beginning to be able to discuss the situation at the
Theatre when he died.
Since I could not watch Kronstam coach his roles, the book evolved into
an artistic biography, although I was handicapped by the fact that I had
barely seen him dance. I came to know him as a dancer through the eyes of
other dancers and through watching the few snatches of film that are
available, mostly in private hands. The second section of the book, in which I
discuss his major roles in detail, is primarily drawn from interviews with
him, which are left, as much as possible, in his voice.
After Kronstam died, in May 1995, the book changed yet again, as there
were too many gaps or unanswered questions to make a biography as complete as
I would have wished. There were questions I had not known to ask, dates,
motivations, and explanations that will never be known. At the beginning,
Kronstam had wanted to restrict the book to his artistic life. During our last
interviews, a few weeks before he died, he decided that two aspects of his
life that he had always kept secret were important to the book and agreed to
their inclusion. He suffered from an illness that he went to great lengths to
conceal and that affected all aspects of his career and his life. He had begun
to talk about it, but there were still many things I did not know. This aspect
of his life has been reconstructed with the help of a psychiatrist, Dr. Ellen
Levine, who has written an afterword.
This, then, is a portrait rather than a formal biography. There are a
few gaps, mostly dates and places where Kronstam worked during summers and
dates of several incidents in his private life that cannot now be ascertained.
There are several people whom I wanted to interview who could not be found, a
few who declined, some who died during the course of the project before being
interviewed, and several friends who could never be identified—there
was only a description or a first name.
The book is written by an American for American readers. The Danish
ballet world, especially Kronstam’s world, is very different from the
American one. That is precisely one of the things that attracted me to
Kronstam and the Danish tradition, and it must be borne in mind when one
confronts something that contradicts everything one has ever been taught about
ballet (such as the fact that boys have to begin studying ballet at eight or
nine while girls can start as late as eighteen because their bodies are more
flexible). I have tried to understand the Danish point of view and
present it for American readers. I hope I will not offend Danes in doing this,
and that I have interpreted their beautiful tradition as accurately as could
be expected from a foreigner. The book is also written for those who inhabited
Kronstam’s world. I hope the Danish dancers, especially “Hennings born”
(Henning’s children), will understand that some of the material here that
seems to violate Kronstam’s privacy was necessary in order to tell his story
fairly. Although the end of his life was difficult, he had great courage
and an indomitable spirit and there was always a strong pulse of optimism
coursing beneath the surface. © 2002 University Press of Florida. All Rights Reserved. < Back to the Reading Room | |
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