David Hallberg to take the Australian Ballet to Royal Opera House in London
The Australian Ballet’s David Hallberg talks about the company’s upcoming season of Jewels and its first season at the Royal Opera House in 35 years.
David Hallberg thought he had it sorted. He had planned to bring Kunstkamer to London this year for his first international tour as director of the Australian Ballet. A two-act Dutch contemporary ballet by a quartet of choreographers, Kunstkamer was chosen to highlight the eclecticism and energy of his Melbourne-based dancers.
But things got a little messy in February when one of those four choreographers hit the headlines. The German director Marco Goecke was so incensed by a critic’s scathing review of one of his works that he confronted her at Hanover’s opera house and smeared dog faeces on her face. That was the end of Goecke – who was duly fired as ballet director in Hanover – and the end of Kunstkamer as an acceptable calling card for the Australian Ballet.
“It was an absolute extreme response to a bad review and I think everybody would agree that Goecke’s behaviour wasn’t acceptable and unfortunately has consequences,” Hallberg says. “So we made the decision to change the repertoire for London. I wanted to show the company in the most positive and celebratory light and if there is something celebratory and sparkling, it’s Jewels.”
In a way, the German did the Australians a favour. George Balanchine’s Jewels, one of the glories of the 20th-century classical repertoire, is a far easier sell for the ballet crowd than the quirky, unfamiliar Kunstkamer would have been. Created in 1967 and inspired by a visit to the Fifth Avenue jewellers Van Cleef & Arpels, each of Balanchine’s three acts is devoted to a particular jewel and dance style and is performed by a different cast.
Emeralds, with music by Faure, evokes the ethereal romance of 19th-century French ballet; Rubies, with music by Stravinsky, epitomises the jazzy attack of the 20th-century American style developed by Balanchine; and Diamonds, set to Tchaikovsky, is a tribute to the grand, tutued splendour of the Russian tradition that gave the world The Sleeping Beauty.
There will be five performances of Jewels in the London season, while on the final Sunday the company will present a matinee gala to cap its year-long 60th anniversary celebrations (the Australian Ballet was founded by the London-born Peggy van Praagh). The gala will feature classical and contemporary ballets by Rudolf Nureyev, Yuri Possokhov, Pam Tanowitz and the Australian choreographer Alice Topp.
A lot is riding on this London season, an important first stop on the company’s return to foreign touring after the pandemic. Although the Australian Ballet has visited the UK on numerous occasions (starting in 1965) it hasn’t performed at the Royal Opera House in 35 years.
For Hallberg, one of the world’s most sublime and acclaimed male dancers, the London season has a special resonance. The American star danced on the Royal Opera House stage many times in many guises and feels a close personal connection to the theatre. “I’ve danced with the Mariinsky on that stage, with the Bolshoi and with the Royal Ballet,” says Hallberg, chatting via Zoom from his office in Melbourne. “I’ve been sort of a mutt of the dance world going from company to company on the same stage.”
And without intending it to be so, Covent Garden also marked the end of his international career as a dancer three years ago, two months shy of his 38th birthday. A guest artist with the Royal Ballet, he had just partnered Natalia Osipova in The Sleeping Beauty (their performances together still burn in my memory) and was in rehearsals for Swan Lake “when all the theatres in London shut down. So that was my retirement as a dancer.”
What we didn’t know at the time was that during those Swan Lake rehearsals Hallberg flew to Melbourne for his final interview with the Australian Ballet’s board of directors, who duly hired him to succeed David McAllister, soon to retire after 20 years as director.
Hallberg relocated to Australia in January 2021, but his first year in the job was nothing like he imagined. “Melbourne was at one stage the most locked-down city in the world,” he says. “We went through lockdown after lockdown after lockdown. We virtually cancelled our entire year of performances.
“It forced me to look internally. We had an exemption from the government allowing us – as elite athletes – to keep training in the studio. I started to shape the technique of the dancers, I taught class, we did workshops, I really worked with the dancers, which was beautiful. And I got my feet under the desk without the sheer pace that this company works at. We do at least 160 performances a year; the schedule here is insane.”
The Australian Ballet has never danced Jewels before, but by the time the dancers reach London they will have two dozen performances of it under their belt. “Jewels is a test for any company,” Hallberg says. “It’s a huge work, with a huge cast, and each of the three acts is nothing like the other ones stylistically. Yes, it will be a challenge, but one of the great strengths of the Australian dancers is their versatility. They are not honed in one particular style, one way of schooling, and what I love is that I’ve thrown a lot of repertoire at them and they just sink their teeth right into it. In the two years I’ve been artistic director I have seen these dancers blossom and grow in confidence, grow in individuality. I’m really proud of the company we are becoming.”
What gives the Australians their own identity? “There is a stylistic homogeneity to the company but it isn’t the kind of style you think of, such as that of the Vaganova School or the School of American Ballet. It’s more about the energy on stage. The energy is very Australian in that it’s very human, very open and there’s a real can-do attitude. We are not dealing with a lot of ego. What we have here in this company is something I’ve never experienced anywhere – it’s the positivity and the democracy. Everyone has a go, everyone is in it together.”
Hallberg is now passing on the lessons he learnt as a globe-trotting dancer. A leading light with the American Ballet Theatre in New York for many years, he also pursued an exhausting career as a guest artist and made history in 2011 when he became the first American to be appointed a principal dancer with the Bolshoi in Moscow. “I look back on my time with the Bolshoi with such fondness,” he says. “I learnt a completely new language of ballet and I was welcomed so warmly by the theatre, by audiences. I made a huge sacrifice leaving my comfort zone in New York but I have no regrets.”
Unfortunately his time at the Bolshoi was cut short by a devastating foot injury that kept him off stage for more than two years. Spiralling into depression after two surgeries failed to fix the problem, he decided to remove himself from the constant pressures in New York and seek out the highly regarded rehabilitation team at the Australian Ballet. In November 2015 he bought a one-way ticket to Melbourne and spent the next 14 months in recovery and retraining, a herculean task that he wrote about in his very revealing – and highly readable – 2017 memoir, A Body of Work: Dancing to the Edge and Back.
Will he ever dance again? “I probably never will,” says the 40-year-old.
“I’m teaching class and imparting the tools I was taught around the world. But I am not in tights any more. Yet I have to say I don’t miss it all that much. I’m still very much a part of the dance world and I always will be, adding to it, questioning it, challenging it. But once I got back from injury towards the end of my dancing career I was riddled with doubt and fear, and I let it get the best of me. Now as an artistic director my experiences at the Royal Ballet, at American Ballet Theatre, at La Scala, at the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky come pouring out of me and I can give something back. I feel so purposeful, so motivated. I am honestly happy not to be in the spotlight any more.”
What are his plans for the company? “I feel a huge responsibility to give the dancers, to give audiences, an experience they haven’t yet had and give them repertoire they haven’t seen, as well as nurturing, commissioning and developing the creative community here in Australia. I want to push the dancers to their limits, physically, technically, artistically. I want to use my experiences and connections to build a company that has its own identity and isn’t trying to be any of the places where I danced.”
In his memoir Hallberg also talks about the restlessness and the loneliness that seem to go hand in hand with his extraordinary career. Has any of that changed now that he is settled into a new life in Melbourne?
“I have conquered the restlessness, in that I don’t need to bounce around to be fulfilled. That was my Achilles’ heel as a dancer – I bounced around too much and I got injured because I couldn’t take the load I gave myself,” he says.
“On the other hand, I haven’t conquered the loneliness. I am seeing someone – we’ve been together about a year. He’s not a dancer, he lives in Sydney. But regardless of love in my life I think I will always be this kind of lonely roamer because of where life has propelled me. Dance was like a huge gust of wind pushing me forward and I had no choice but to go with it.
“I still feel that way, and although it comes with a lack of normalcy I wouldn’t live my life any other way.”
The Times
The Australian Ballet presents George Balanchine’s Jewels at the Sydney Opera House, May 4-20, and Arts Centre Melbourne, June 29-July 8. The London season is at the Royal Opera House, August 2-6.