Ballet by John Neumeier | The Nutcracker
Marie
Ana Torrequebrada
Soloist
BORN
3.5.2000 in Burgos, Spain. Spanish
EDUCATION
Escuela Profesional de Danza "Ana Laguna"
Ballet School of the Hamburg Ballet
MAIN TEACHERS
Ana González Barca, Juan Carlos Santamaría, Gigi Hyatt, Leslie Hughes, Ann Drower
ENGAGEMENT
Hamburg Ballet since 2019, Soloist since 2023
REPERTORY
Marie, The Beautiful Girl from Granada and The Chinese Bird in "The Nutcracker"
Cupid's Blessing and the Moon in "The Sleeping Beauty" (new version 2021)
Princess Claire in "Illusions – like Swan Lake"
Stella in "A Streetcar Named Desire"
Prudence Duvernoy in "Lady of the Camellias"
Circe in "Odyssey"
A Shepherdess in "The Winter's Tale" (Christopher Wheeldon)
Young Jane Eyre in "Jane Eyre" (Cathy Marston)
solos in
Broadway's Pavlova
Ghost Light
Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler
Préludes CV
The Times Are Racing (Justin Peck)
Blake Works V – The Barre Project (William Forsythe)
AWARD
Dr. Wilhelm-Oberdörffer-Prize 2024
Drosselmeier
Matias Oberlin
Principal
BORN
27.4.96 in Santa Fe, Argentina. Argentinian/German
EDUCATION
Seminario Provincial de Ballet – Santa Fe, Argentina
The School of the Hamburg Ballet
MAIN TEACHERS
Elizabeth Sture, Christian Schön, Janusz Mazon, Kevin Haigen, Gigi Hyatt
ENGAGEMENT
Hamburg Ballet since 2014, Soloist in 2018, Principal since 2023
CREATIONS
Beethoven Project
Ghost Light
Epilogue
Pain Pushed me Forward (Braulio Alvarez)
REPERTORY
Lord Capulet and Brother Lorenzo in "Romeo and Juliet"
Gaston Rieux in "Lady of the Camellias"
The King in "Christmas Oratorio I-VI"
Drosselmeier und Günther in "The Nutcracker"
Count Alexander in "Illusion: like Swan Lake"
Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Fenge in "Hamlet 21"
The Wanderer, the Gondolier, a Dance Couple, Dionysos, the Hairdresser, the Guitar Player in "Death in Venice"
The Thorn, Cupid's Blessing, a Spanish Prince and an Egyptian Prince in "The Sleeping Beauty" (new version 2021)
The Balloon Man in "Liliom"
Serge Diaghilev and Thomas Nijinsky in "Nijinsky"
Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire"
Alexei Karenin and Levin in "Anna Karenina"
Mr. Brocklehurst in "Jane Eyre" (Cathy Marston)
and solos in
The Fifth Symphony of Gustav Mahler
Beethoven Project I
Saint Matthew Passion
Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler
Préludes CV
Liebeslieder Walzer (George Balanchine)
Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (George Balanchine)
Variations for Two Couples (Hans van Manen)
The Times Are Racing (Justin Peck)
Blake Works V – The Barre Project (William Forsythe)
HE CHOREOGRAPHED
"Flash"
Premiere: Young Choreographers, Hamburg, 2017
AWARD
Scholarship from the "Pierino Ambrosoli Foundation" (2011-2013)
Dr. Wilhelm Oberdörffer-Prize 2019
Louise
Madoka Sugai
Principal
BORN
12.7.94 in Atsugi City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Japanese
EDUCATION
Sasaki Mika Ballet Academy (Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture)
MAIN TEACHERS
Mika Sasaki, Mikio Ikehata
ENGAGEMENTS
National Youth Ballet in 2012
Hamburg Ballet since 2014. Soloist in 2017, Principal since 2019
CREATIONS
A Mystic and A young Woman in "Dona Nobis Pacem"
A Wise Woman in "Slow Burn" (Aszure Barton)
and solos in
Beethoven Project
Ghost Light
Beethoven Project II
Epilogue
Solo for Two (Konstantin Tselikov)
Little Requiem (Aleix Martínez)
Götterboten (Aljoscha Lenz)
REPERTORY
Peasant Pas de deux in "Giselle"
Cinderella in "A Cinderella Story"
Marguerite Gautier and Prudence Duvernoy in "Lady of the Camellias"
Princess Natalia in "Illusions – like Swan Lake"
Woman III in "Bernstein Dances"
Hermia in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Ophelia in "Hamlet 21"
Sylvia in "Sylvia"
Princess Aurora, Princess Florine, Mercury and Aurora, the Dawn in "The Sleeping Beauty" (new version 2021)
Louise and The Beautiful Girl from Granada in "The Nutcracker"
Bronislava Nijinsky in "Nijinsky"
Circe in "Odyssey"
Dolly in "Anna Karenina"
Aschenbach's Concepts in "Death in Venice"
Woman in Apricot in "Dances at a Gathering" (Jerome Robbins)
Kitri/Dulcinea in "Don Quixote" (Rudolf Nurejev after Marius Petipa)
Princess Perdita in "The Winter's Tale" (Christopher Wheeldon)
Jane Eyre in "Jane Eyre" (Cathy Marston)
and solos in
Soldier Songs (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
The Fifth Symphony of Gustav Mahler
Vaslav
Broadway's Pavlova
Saint Matthew Passion
Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler
Préludes CV
Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (George Balanchine)
Variations for Two Couples (Hans van Manen)
The Times Are Racing (Justin Peck)
Blake Works V – The Barre Project (William Forsythe)
AWARDS
Prix de Lausanne 2012
Dr.-Wilhelm-Oberdörffer-Prize 2018
Günter
Alexandr Trusch
Principal
BORN
26.6.89 in Dnipropetrovsk. Ukrainian
EDUCATION
The School of the Hamburg Ballet
MAIN TEACHERS
Kevin Haigen, Marianne Kruuse, Christian Schön, Irina Jacobson
ENGAGEMENT
Hamburg Ballet since 2007, Soloist in 2010, Principal since 2014
CREATIONS
Vaslav Nijinsky as a student in "Le Pavillon d'Armide"
Hermes' Attendant in "Orpheus"
A Shy Young Man in "Liliom"
Angel in "Christmas Oratorio I-VI"
Vladimir Lensky in "Tatiana"
The Soldier (Luciano Nicastro) in "Duse"
Prince Désiré in "The Sleeping Beauty" (new version 2021)
A Mystic in "Dona Nobis Pacem"
and solos in
Purgatorio
Beethoven Project II
Epilogue
The Rain (Miljana Vracaric)
Let's Keep it Black (Orkan Dann)
Zozula (Edvin Revazov)
Renku (Yuka Oishi/Orkan Dann)
Into this Wild Abyss (Braulio Alvarez)
Solo for Two (Konstantin Tselikov)
Vesna (Edvin Revazov)
REPERTORY
Joseph in "The Legend of Joseph"
A Young Man (Daphnis) in "Daphnis and Chloe"
Vaslav Nijinsky and Leonid Massine in "Nijinsky"
Günter and Fritz in "The Nutcracker"
The King, Count Alexander and Quadrille in "Illusions - like Swan Lake"
Vaslav Nijinsky in "Le Pavillon d'Armide"
Des Grieux and Count N. in "Lady of the Camellias"
Philostrat/Puck and Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Allan Gray in "A Streetcar Named Desire"
Bohort in "Parzival – Episodes and Echo"
Louis in "Liliom"
Arlequin in "Carnaval" and The Spirit of the rose in "Le Spectre de la rose" in "Nijinsky"
Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet"
Ler Beau in "As You Like It"
Cassio in "Othello"
Albrecht in "Giselle"
The Prince in "A Cinderella Story"
Peer's Aspect – Vision in "Peer Gynt"
Man I and Love in "Bernstein Dances"
Hamlet in "Hamlet 21"
Aminta in "Sylvia"
Prince Désiré and Catalabutte in "The Sleeping Beauty" (new version 2021)
Odysseus in *Odyssey"
Alexei Vronsky in "Anna Karenina"
Pas de deux of the Scotts in "La Sylphide" (Pierre Lacotte after Filippo Taglioni)
The Prodigal Son in "The Prodigal Son" (George Balanchine)
Man in Brick and Brown in "Dances at a Gathering" (Jerome Robbins)
The Shy Boy in "The Concert" (Jerome Robbins)
Gennaro in "Napoli" (August Bournonville / Lloyd Riggins)
Basil in "Don Quixote" (Rudolf Nurejev after Marius Petipa)
Prince Florizel in "The Winter's Tale" (Christopher Wheeldon)
Edward Rochester in "Jane Eyre" (Cathy Marston)
and solos in
Fourth Symphony of Gustav Mahler
Seasons – The Colors of Time
Nocturnes from "Songs of the Night"
Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler
Saint Matthew Passion
Vaslav
The Song of the Earth
Soldier Songs (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
The Fifth Symphony of Gustav Mahler
La Vivandière (Pierre Lacotte after Arthur Saint-Léon)
Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (George Balanchine)
Variations for Two Couples (Hans van Manen)
The thing with feathers (Demis Volpi)
The Times Are Racing (Justin Peck)
Blake Works V – The Barre Project (William Forsythe)
AWARD
Dr. Wilhelm Oberdörffer-Prize 2010
Fritz
Louis Musin
Soloist
BORN
20.4.2002 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Belgian/Brazilian
EDUCATION
Dance Area (Geneva)
The School of the Hamburg Ballet
MAIN TEACHERS
Fernanda Diniz, Nicolas Musin, Gigi Hyatt, Kevin Haigen, Janusz Mazon, Christian Schön, Konstantin Tselikov
ENGAGEMENT
Hamburg Ballet since 2021, Soloist since 2023
CREATIONS
A young Soldier in "Dona Nobis Pacem"
and solo in
Epilogue
REPERTORY
A young Aschenbach in "Death in Venice"
Louis in "Liliom"
Fritz in "The Nutcracker"
A Manon Lescaut's Admirer in "Lady of the Camellias"
Count Alexander and The Speaker in "Illusions - like Swan Lake"
Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet"
A Thorn Creature in "The Sleeping Beauty" (new version 2021)
Stanislav Nijinsky in "Nijinsky"
Telemachos in "Odyssey"
The Wanderer, the Gondolier, a Dance Couple, Dionysos, the Hairdresser, the Guitar Player in "Death in Venice"
and solos in
Saint Matthew Passion
Ghost Light
Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler
The Times Are Racing (Justin Peck)
Blake Works V – The Barre Project (William Forsythe)
Conductor
David Briskin
Conductor
Music Director and Principal Conductor of The National Ballet of Canada since 2006, David Briskin is widely recognized as one of contemporary ballet’s most accomplished conductors.
Mr. Briskin lived and worked for 23 years as a conductor in New York City, working in opera, ballet and in concert. He conducted for seven years with American Ballet Theatre and was a seasonal conductor for New York City Ballet. He has also conducted for nearly all the major North American ballet companies as well as for The Juilliard School’s Dance Division for 12 years. Internationally, Mr. Briskin has appeared with The Royal Ballet, The Royal Swedish Ballet and The Royal Danish Ballet, where in 2021/22 he conducted productions of John Neumeier’s "Romeo and Juliet "and "La Sylphide" in Copenhagen and on tour throughout Denmark. He conducted the world premiere of "The Winter’s Tale" at Covent Garden in 2014 as well as productions in Toronto, New York and Washington DC. He is currently serving as Music Director for the Nureyev Legend and Legacy Gala Programme featuring dancers from the Royal Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, English National Ballet and other international guests at the Drury Lane Theatre in London in September 2022. He will make his first appearance with Dutch National Ballet in 2023. Mr. Briskin has appeared with orchestras and opera companies in North America and abroad including the Pittsburgh, Detroit, Baltimore, Cincinnati Pops, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Windsor and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, as well as Calgary, Manitoba, Sarasota, Lake George Opera and Opera Carolina, among others.
photo: Karolina Kuras
Orchestra
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg
Orchestra
The Philharmonic State Orchestra is Hamburg’s largest and oldest orchestra, looking back on many years of musical history. When the “Philharmonic Orchestra” and the “Orchestra of the Hamburg Municipal Theatre” merged in 1934, two tradition-steeped orchestras combined. Philharmonic concerts have been performed in Hamburg since 1828, artists such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms being regular guests of the Philharmonic Society. The history of the opera company goes back even further: Hamburg has been home to musical theatre since 1678, even if a regular opera or theatre orchestra was only formed later. To this day, the Philharmonic State Orchestra has embodied the sound of the Hansa City, a concert and opera orchestra in one.
During its long history, the orchestra encountered great artist personalities. Apart from composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Telemann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, since the 20th century chief conductors such as Karl Muck, Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Aldo Ceccato, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gerd Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young have shaped the orchestra’s sound. Renowned conductors of the pre-war era such as Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt gave brilliant performances, as did outstanding conductors of our times: suffice it to mention Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Petrenko, Adam Fischer and Sir Roger Norrington.
Starting with the 2015/2016 season, Kent Nagano has taken on the position of Hamburg’s General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera and since June 2023 also its honorary conductor. In his first season Kent Nagano initiated a new project, the Philharmonic Academy, focusing on experimentation and chamber music. In 2016, Nagano and the Philharmonic toured South America, followed by concert tours to Spain and Japan in 2019, and in the spring of 2023, the Philharmonic State Orchestra made its debut at New York's Carnegie Hall under his direction, which was acclaimed by audiences and the press. Since 2017 Kent Nagano and the Philharmonic State Orchestra have continued the traditional Philharmonic Concerts at the new Elbphilharmonie, for which they commissioned Jörg Widmann to compose the oratorio ARCHE, which was given its world premiere during the hall’s opening festivities. The concert recording has been released by ECM, for which Widmann received the OPUS KLASSIK as Composer of the Year 2019, and ARCHE was performed again in 2023 to great acclaim.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra offers approximately 35 concerts per season and performs more than 240 performances per year at the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier, making it Hamburg’s busiest orchestra. The stylistic bandwidth covered by the 140 musicians, ranging from historically informed performance practice to contemporary works and including concert, opera and ballet repertoire, is unique throughout Germany. Chamber Music has a long tradition at the Philharmonic State Orchestra: what began in 1929 with a concert series for chamber orchestra has been continued since 1968 by a series of chamber music only.
In 2008 Simone Young and the Philharmonic State Orchestra won the Brahms Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society. The orchestra has recorded the complete Ring by Wagner as well as the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner – the latter in the rarely-performed original versions – as well as works by Mahler, Hindemith and Berg, and has released DVDs of opera and ballet productions by Hosokawa, Offenbach, Reimann, Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Puccini, Poulenc and Weber.
The members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra feel equally beholden to Hamburg’s musical tradition and responsible for the city’s artistic future. Since 1978 the musicians have been participating in education programmes in Hamburg’s schools. Today, the orchestra maintains a broad education programme, including school and kindergarten visits, patronage for music projects, introductory events for children and family concerts. The orchestra’s own academy prepares young musicians for their professional careers. The Philharmonic’s musicians thereby make an equally enjoyable and valuable contribution to tomorrow’s music education in the music metropolis of Hamburg.
photo: Foto: Felix Broede