The Lay of Thrym and Other Reconstructions
By Erik Aschengreen

Of Bournonville?s entire body of work, fewer than 10 ballets are preserved in the living tradition. The loss of 40 greater and smaller choreographic pieces has often tempted ballet masters and choreographers to consider the possibility of reviving lost dance. Bournonville?s more or less comprehensive notes in his rehearsal scores provide the basis for this work of reconstruction, which was started by Hans Beck at the turn of the century 18-1900 with his plans for a new production of Abdallah. His proposed reconstruction came to nothing, however. Instead we got the version of the third act of Napoli, with the inserted Abdallah-solos, which is the one we know today.

Harald Lander?s 1939 new version of Bournonville?s ballet The Valkyrie from 1861 was not favorably received. Later, in productions of The Toreador (Royal Danish Theatre, 1978) and The Wedding Festival in Hardanger (The Norwegian Opera, 1982) Flemming Flindt created ballets based on Bournonville?s original stories, but with choreography relating freely to the style, ranging from pastiche to dances that Flindt gives his own particular touch.

The interest in reconstruction began in earnest with the work of Allan Fridericia and Elsa Marianne von Rosen during the 1960s, involving serious studies of the extensive Bournonville source material. In 1961 they reconstructed The Festival in Albano from 1839 for the Scandinavian Ballet (Kalmar, 1961). The complex issue of reconstruction has produced successful results in the work of Dinna Bjørn ? for example, Dance for the Three Graces from Fædrelandets Muser (National Muses) (1840) for The Bournonville Group in 1983 ? and the ballet historian Knud Arne Jürgensen ? with individual dance sections from various ballets, for example from Soldat og Bonde (Soldier and Peasant) (1829) in 1979.

In 1989 Allan Fridericia and Elsa Marianne von Rosen embarked on the biggest task of reconstruction so far undertaken when, following several years of preparation, they began work on a new production of Bournonville?s grand mythological ballet The Lay of Thrym. Following its premiere in 1868, The Lay of Thrym was performed frequently ? until the opening of the new theatre building in 1874. Hereafter, the ballet was not seen on stage until 1901 when Hans Beck remounted it in a shortened version. The last the public saw of this staging was a performance of Act I - danced just once in 1915.

For the reconstruction of The Lay of Thrym, first performed at the Royal Danish Theatre on May 11 1990, Allan Fridericia had reduced Bournonville?s nearly 50-page libretto to a compact story told in 12 scenes divided into 3 acts.

In captions, this version of the ballet deals with the following episodes: Thor loses his hammer; dwarfs hide the hammer in Vola?s cave; fire spirits and Sigyn; Loke in love with Sigyn; the grove of the gods; Thrym the Giant in Vola?s cave; Gerda and Skirnir; wedding dance and sensuous intoxication; Loke?s deceit and intrigue; dance of the Valkyries and struggle; Thor?s expedition to the giants; Loke?s capture; Twilight of the Gods and Gimle.

The work of reconstructing mime and choreography was based on J.P.E. Hartmann?s comprehensive score ? a major work in the annals of Nordic music ? and Bournonville?s notes, which are very apparent in dances such as Sigyn?s entré and solo, the fire spirits? dance and several other passages, whereas other parts of the ballet, due to lack of original source material, were choreographed by Elsa Marianne von Rosen in Bournonville-style.

It was a particularly difficult task to dress The Lay of Thrym in a captivating scenic costume. Nordic gods on stage are problematic and what thrilled in terms of advanced scenic effects in Bournonville?s time can now seem somewhat out of touch with modern technology.

The work of reconstruction was, however, despite a problematic outcome, an enormous achievement, which quite rightly provoked debate and which, for the first time in the 20th century, gave the audience an opportunity to get an insight into Bournonville?s grand Nordic mythological universe. The premiere on May 11 1990 was the 74th performance; The Lay of Thrym had been performed 83 times in all up until October 22 1990. A divertissement of dances from The Lay of Thrym, in Elsa Marianne von Rosen?s reconstruction, was performed at the Second Bournonville Festival in spring 1992.

 

Musical Notes for The Lay of Thrym
By Ole Nørlyng

The composer J.P.E. Hartmann was a close friend of Bournonville?s and he supplied the ballet master with numerous scores over a period of several decades. When working with Old Norse themes, such as in The Valkyries and The Lay of Thrym, Bournonville had the perfect partner in Hartmann as he could both create spellbinding dance music whilst depicting the entire gamut of the Norse universe. In The Lay of Thrym Hartmann was given a ballet-music assignment that was unique of its kind, and which he solved with outstanding facility. The sound of Norse mythology, which he had developed during the 19th century, here reached fruition in the series of orchestral character portraits, dances, marches and tableaux in which a free symphonic current and similarly an uninhibited use of leitmotif material intensifies the scenic illusion.
The score is an acoustic scene painting, ranging from post-battle horror to Gimle?s sparkling dawn, from the refined and detailed characterization ? for example, the portrayal of Loke, Sigyn and Freja ? to the sweeping landscape panorama and the surging wedding festivities.
Robust harmonic tension, a broad perspective, vitality and rhythmic energy characterize the Hartmannesque composition with a fully developed Norse resonance. This Norse resonance is based on a fluid variation between major and minor keys, a pronounced use of short, frequently-repeated, striking thematic elements, a predilection for the undulating six-eight rhythm or the advancing, regular rhythm of the march, plus a characteristic resonance that fundamentally rests on a rich use of the deep wind instruments ? bassoons, horns and trombones.

 

Why Reconstruct?
- Bournonville's "forgotten" ballets and their notation
By Knud Arne Jürgensen

During the last fifty years our national ballet heritage, in form of nearly 12 preserved Bournonville ballets, has achieved an international reputation far exceeding anything Bournonville could ever have imagined.

This fame is principally due to the Royal Danish Ballet, which, by touring throughout the world, has acquainted an ever-growing audience with Bournonville's artistry.

During the last three decades, the international ballet world has, moreover, witnessed a large number of new productions of the old master's works, some of which have been faithful to the traditions of the Royal Danish Ballet, whilst others have been subject to a thorough overhauling.

The breadth of opinion as to how the Bournonville ballets ought to be produced and staged today is thus wider than ever.

Through these ballets, Danish ballet has been able to enrich European and international dance with a living ballet-historical cultural heritage which, in significance and scale, has to be seen as remarkable in relation to the size of Bournonville's native country.

Bournonville himself was in no doubt as to whom he was indebted - and by how much! The source of his art lay in the French and Italian ballet which flourished during the first half of the nineteenth century, and to which he was able to add his personal quality having painstakingly transplanted the latest currents in the art of ballet to the, at the time, still relatively isolated North.

Bournonville's ballet philosophy has, in the last few decades, been analysed and described by prominent ballet experts from both Denmark and abroad. In short, Bournonville distinguishes himself in this respect by a particular Danish-Nordic attitude to the Romantic manifesto in ballet. An optimistic outlook on life characterizes this manifesto paired with a strong - one may even call it "existential" - belief in the inner spiritual strength and harmony of man. In this respect Bournonville's art represents an interesting contrast to the Romanticism that emerged in Middle and Southern Europe during the 1830s and 1840s, and which is characterized by more fatalistic, almost "religious" belief of predestinated fate of mankind.

Bournonville's own open acknowledgement that he managed and further developed the rare and valuable Auguste Vestris ballet inheritance should also be our natural attitude to the management of the traditions and artistic potentiality of his ballets today.

The spread and "internationalisation" of Bournonville's lifework has, during the last 40 years, mainly focused on the traditional handed-down repertoire of 12 ballets and shorter divertissements which have survived more than 150 years, thanks to the Royal Danish Ballet's established performance tradition and loyalty to its creator.

Extensive, and partially unexplored, written source material also survives and could be just as valuable as the surviving ballets in shedding light on important aspects of Bournonville's artistry. These sources deserve thorough analysis, not just because the provide the possibility of increasing our knowledge of Bournonville's choreography, but also because, by this means, we could form a more balanced picture of Bournonville's creativity and the artistic diversity of his works.

To achieve this, I have chosen to explore the extensive part of Bournonville's heritage, which consists of his own choreographic notation for both the preserved ballets and his many works, which now has been forgotten. This study resulted in the publication, in book form (The Bournonville Heritage), of 24 unknown Bournonville dances from the period 1829 to 1875, selected and reconstructed by myself and notated in Labanotation by Dr. Ann Hutchinson Guest.

As we look back on the traditional handed-down repertoire, we must not overlook the fact that the 12 preserved ballets actually represent less than a fifth of Bournonville's total production. With this in mind, it is remarkable that the majority of these ballets belong to the category of light and not exactly profound portrayals of life in foreign parts.

In these works Bournonville has successfully maintained an eternal "classic" picture of a Nordic view of distant cultures seen through a dance language and with a ballet dramaturgy, which, at one and the same time, emphasize his personal philosophy of life and express wariness of any exaggerated virtuosity and passion in the art.

With only a fifth of his lifework on stage, it is today tempting to ask if this part of his work is really representative of the total artistic figure August Bournonville? Is this bright and airy picture of his talent, which in many respects is what continues to be the main impression from contemporary productions, the true picture of choreographer and spiritual being Bournonville, or is it the result of selection by posterity?

In order to get to the bottom of this question it is necessary to turn to Bournonville's "forgotten" ballets. To facilitate this study we in Denmark have been dealt a much better hand than if we, for example, wanted to study the many forgotten ballets of Bournonville's French, Italian or Russian fellow choreographers. This is because the Danish ballet-master was no less industrious at his desk than on the stage. His extensive literary activities have led us to becoming acquainted with his forgotten works and choreographic method down to the smallest detail and to an extent the like of which is not to be found in many other countries.

Of Bournonville's numerous unpublished writings, it is his choreographic records, which attract special attention, because it is through them that we can follow, at closest quarters, how ballet as an art form developed during the whole Romantic period from the end of the 1820s up through the next five decades, resulting in an artistic flowering rarely seen before or since. Bournonville's choreographic notes are quite exceptional in this respect, for here we find some of the most famous dances and divertissements from the culmination of Romantic ballet.

Analysed from a pure technical view of the style, Bournonville's choreographic notes appear as one of the most eminent and complete depositions of Romantic ballet step technique and aesthetic style foundation. Seen in this perspective, the importance of his production notes reaches beyond simply that of having preserved his own works and those of others for posterity. His records actually represent a direct reflection of the very pulse of the Romantic ballet.

Bournonville's choreography is most often found noted in the so-called rehearsal scores, consisting of an arrangement for two violins to be used at step rehearsals. Later in life he also wrote the ballets down in small notebooks with clear reference to the accompanying music.

For someone with a thorough knowledge of Bournonville's style and the sources of his works, these records facilitate the reconstruction of a whole series of his forgotten ballets and shorter divertissements.

To attempt a recreation of these forgotten works in harmony with the sources is not the same as wanting to resurrect Bournonville's choreography in an "old-fashioned" form no matter what, but, on the contrary, to seek out the choreographic essence - or soul - of a work. What did it look like - and why? Have crucial changes taken place in the ballets since Bournonville's time? Would these ballets work in their original form and expression today?

We cannot answer these questions satisfactorily without having first discovered the ballets' original choreographic form - and soul.

The challenge in recreating Bournonville's "forgotten" - and for that matter also his preserved - ballets, thus lies in finding one's way into the original "spirit" and uncovering the many intrinsic "step-melodies" to be found embodied in the written choreography.

These immaterial aspects of the Bournonville inheritance will always be the cores in any study of his art, both on stage and outside the theatre. With Bournonville even the tiniest movement of a hand will be meaningless if not related to the movement of the feet, and a glance will be empty if not related to the expression of the body - or the content of the heart!

Knud Arne Jürgensen, Doctor of Philosophy (Dr. phil.)
Senior researcher, Head of Drama Collection and the Performing Arts Section at The Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark.
An internationally renowned dance and music historian and specialist in 19th century ballet history, choreographic notes and notation systems, Dr. Jürgensen has written and lectured extensively in Denmark and abroad. His choreographic reconstructions have been mounted in Copenhagen and in several major international theatres, including the Paris Opera, the Berlin State Opera, the Vienna State Opera, and the St. Petersburg Marinsky Theatre.
Dr. Jürgensen has in recent years published a seven-volume study on August Bournonville, his life and his ballets. It was followed by his definitive studies of the ballet music of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Meyerbeer. Mr. Jürgensen has worked extensively as dramaturg and director for opera and ballet at several major international opera houses. For his distinguished scholarship he has received several prizes and awards including the Hans Beck Memorial Award (1998) and the Lillian Moore Prize (1999).