Theatre makers find Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt to be rather problematic. While challenging to mount on the stage, the dramatic poem with episodic structure featuring fantastical elements turned out to be perfect material for a ballet. In 2015 Slovenian dancer of Romanian origin, Edward Clug created a choreographic adaptation of Peer Gynt. The ballet’s Maribor world premiere was a triumph and the work was subsequently staged in Zurich, Vienna, Dortmund, Hannover, and Leipzig. What is the reason for its popularity? It is not intimidated by the original’s broken narrative, leaving questions about the meaning of the protagonist’s individual adventures unanswered, and, crucially, uses a very contemporary visual language, without treating the Ibsen play as a dusty old fairytale inspired by folklore.
Ibsen’s Peer Gynt is a very modern character: Everyman and an antihero in one. He comes from an impecunious family, does not posses many attributes, is egoistical by nature, can tell bare-faced lies, or fabrications, telling trumped-up or totally made-up stories about the things that happened to him. Thanks to the work of Peer’s imagination, his parents’ meagre dwelling is transformed into a shiny palace and his morally questionable adventures become acts of heroism, offering him an escape from reality. Peer’s goal in life is ambiguous: he would like to be somebody (preferably, somebody else) and find love, yet to appreciate the affection and loyalty of Solveig who develops feelings for him, Peer hast to face trolls, set out to conquer the Orient, be committed to an asylum, and return to where he started his journey.
Edvard Grieg’s music naturally plays a crucial role in the performance. The score combines two suits created from incidental music to Ibsen’s play as well as the composer’s other instrumental pieces: String Quartet in G minor Op. 27, Piano Concerto in A minor Op. 16, and a selection of Lyric Pieces, which in the choreographers view perfectly portray the atmosphere of the poem.
Clug’s true fascination with Ibsen’s ambiguous dramatic poem produced a surreal ballet with elements of the theatre of the absurd, palpably gloomy, yet marked with a large measure of irony. The choreographer managed to capture both aspects of Peer Gynt, which is both a fanciful féerie and a story of a man’s growth into maturity. And so the performance works in an extraordinary way: it portrays a fantastical world which turns out to be very close to present-day reality.
Creative
Edward Clug
Choreography
Alexei Baklan
Conductor
Miloš Isajlović
Mirjana Šrot
Staging
Marko Japelj
Set Designer
Leo Kulaš
Costumes
Tomaž Premzl
Lighting Designer