Dates

15-30 June 2021

Location

Dutch National Opera & Ballet, Auditorium

Running time

1:24 hours, no breaks

Tickets

From €22,-

Four Seasons

Invigorating creations set to seductive music

In Four Seasons, Dutch National Ballet presents two new creations by internationally celebrated choreographers David Dawson and Christopher Wheeldon. With choreographies set to Max Richter's atmospheric adaptation of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and music by Joni Mitchell, they give a new meaning to the classical ballet technique.

Behind-the-scenes The Four Seasons by David Dawson

The Four Seasons
Four Seasons
Four Seasons
Four Seasons

Programme

With the Dutch premiere of Dawson’s The Four Seasons and the European premiere of Wheeldon’s The Two of Us, the programme of Four Seasons provides an exciting insight into the latest developments in the choreographic world.

Programme

The Four Seasons

DAVID DAWSON

As a part of  this programme, ‘associate artist’ David Dawson’s The Four Seasons, a co-production with Semperoper Ballett, will have its Dutch premiere. Dawson is known for demanding his dancers to surrender themselves completely to the choreography, in order for both them and the audience to be transported to a otherworldly, poetic and yet sublime reality. For this choreography, he was inspired by Max Richter's arrangement of Vivaldi's famous Four Seasons. The result is a monumental and distinctly athletic work with the cycle of life as its subject. In The Four Seasons, Dawson uses his aesthetic movement language and snapshots of many lives in constant change to tell a personal story about the course of the seasons. 

Dawson attributes the success of his works partly to the special, intense collaborations with composers and set, costume and lighting designers. He even refers to his work as 'Gesamtkunstwerken'. Dawson created The Four Seasons, just like previous pieces, in close collaboration with his regular creative team: the German set designer Eno Henze, the Japanese costume designer and former principal with Dutch National Ballet Yumiko Takeshima and the Dutch lighting designer Bert Dalhuysen. Henze created a set design for The Four Seasons in which the four seasons are represented by various geometric figures which are floating through the stage space.

The Two of US

CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON

“When ballet dancers go folk or pop, it can be forced and awkward, but the outcome here is good: like a casual outfit through which you can sense the bones of classical technique underneath”, The New York Times wrote about Christopher Wheeldon’s latest creation The Two of Us. Wheeldon choreographed this work to four wistful songs by the famous Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell and allows the clear but melancholic sentiment that characterises this music to resonate in his choreography. With free, spontaneous movements full of emotion and in both solos and pas de deux, the two dancers carrying this piece tell the story of two people who are drifting away from each other. A story that speaks of memory, longing and vulnerability, but that is, above all, utterly genuine and heart-catching.

In the last couple of years, Christopher Wheeldon has proved himself a highly versatile choreographer. With Dutch National Opera & Ballet he successively presented his works Continuum (2005), Tryst (2009), Duet (2012) and Concerto Concordia (2015) and in 2012 he choreographed the full-length ballet fairytale Cinderella, a co-production of Dutch National Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. His latest work The Two of Us will have its European premiere as part of Four Seasons.


Receive the free programme

Click on the link below to receive the online programme. With wonderful images and information about the choreographies and the cast. 

In the media
Raving reviews

Elegance, grace and geometry: these are the key words of Four Seasons by Dutch National Ballet (...)

16 June

It is, as always with Dawson, an ostentatious display of supreme body control, in which every muscle fibre seems to be under constant tension.

16 June

Christopher Wheeldon manages to match that atmosphere in his duet The Two of Us with a choreography that is as fragile and intimate, delicate and light as Chinese porcelain.

16 June
Four Seasons

Credits

Choreography - The Four Seasons

David Dawson

Composer - The Four Seasons

Max Richter

Set design - The Four Seasons

Eno Henze

Light design - The Four Seasons

Bert Dalhuysen

Costume design - The Four Seasons

Yumiko Takeshima

Choreography - The Two of Us

Christopher Wheeldon

Composer - Compositie The Two of Us

Joni Mitchell

Light design - The Two of Us

Wijnand van der Horst

Costume design - The Two of Us

Harriet Jung

Reid Bartelme

Violin

Isabelle van Keulen

Dutch Ballet Orchestra

Musical accompaniment: Dutch Ballet Orchestra

Conducted by Marzio Conti 

Since its inception in 1965, the orchestra has been proud to accompany its partners, Dutch National Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater. The working method is unique in the Netherlands.

Dutch Ballet Orchestra

Dutch Ballet Orchestra, with Matthew Rowe as principal conductor, consists of a regular core of 45 musicians, supported where necessary by highly qualified guest performers. This gives the orchestra its unique character: flexible, dynamic and high-quality.

More about Dutch Ballet Orchestra