Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler, Ballet by J. Neumeier
John Neumeier's ballet, The Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler, at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma showcases all of the American choreographer's artistic vision in a production that highlights the musical complexity of the symphonic form through dance. This staging at Teatro Costanzi features the renowned Teatro dell’Opera di Roma Orchestra and its Corps de Ballet, faithfully reproducing Neumeier's original choreography as well as his set, lighting and costume designs.
Mahler's music is often considered to be difficult to set to dance but, since the middle of the twentieth century, some notable choreographers have taken on this challenge. Famous ballets by the likes of Kenneth MacMillan, Maurice Béjart and Jiří Kylián, among others, made use of Mahler's works but few chose to choreograph an entire symphony as Neumeier did in the 1970s when he was the director of the Hamburg Ballet in Germany. Just two years into his long tenure in that role, he choreographed Mahler's Third Symphony, with its premiere taking place on 14 June 1975.
Subsequently, Neumeier would go on to choreograph other works by Mahler, including Rückert-Lieder, a set of five songs, in 1976, followed by his Fourth Symphony in 1977. In the 1980s, Neumeier returned to the composer's music, choreographing both the Sixth and Fifth Symphonies. Mahler's Symphony No. 9 also received the choreographer's treatment when he directed In the Between in 1994, using part of its score for this ballet, too. Nevertheless, it was his first ballet based on Mahler's music, the composer's seminal Third Symphony, that laid the foundations for this enduring exploration of the maestro's music through ballet.
Neumeier set out his concept for the symphony from the opening movement. Exclusively featuring male dancers, this first movement evokes an unremittingly militaristic tone. Neumeier uses repeated arm swinging and chest beating to interpret Mahler's music, making use of a variety of almost pained poses. The dancers are effectively portraying themselves through the music, not characters as would be the norm in a conventional narrative ballet. Female dancers appear in the ballet and are first introduced in the second movement. Neumeier changed the title of this section of the ballet to Summer, preferring it to Mahler's original, but later withdrawn, one, What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me. The same renaming occurs in the third movement which Neumeier retitled simply as Autumn. The ballet includes interpretations of all six of Mahler's movements, tracing a journey from the stark, exclusively male opening movement to the serene final one, inspired by love.
Rome's Opera House constitutes an exceptional venue to witness one of the late twentieth century's most ground-breaking balletic interpretations of nineteenth-century music, as John Neumeier's The Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler has turned out to be.