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Guillaume C?t? as Albrecht and Greta Hodgkinson as Giselle in the National Ballet of Canada?s version of Giselle.
Photograph by: Aleksandar Antonijevic
MONTREAL ? Quebecers love their homegrown artistic stars, especially those like C?line Dion and Cirque du Soleil who are recognized internationally. The province puffs up with pride when Arcade Fire and pianist Marc-Andr? Hamelin win Grammys and when Denis Arcand?s movie wins an Oscar. Dance has provided Quebec with recognized heroes, too. Anik Bissonnette is virtually Quebec?s sweetheart, and Louise Lecavalier and Margie Gillis are names that resonate even in households little interested in dance.
One dancer who has won international acclaim but is still not a household name in his native Quebec is Guillaume C?t?, principal dancer since 2004 of the National Ballet of Canada. Here is a classical dancer who has performed star roles with American Ballet Theater, Stuttgart Ballet and Russia?s Mikhailovsky Ballet among other top foreign companies. He was one of seven international male stars who made up the virtuoso Kings of the Dance show that played New York?s City Center and toured Russia. Last Sunday, he and his wife, NBC principal Heather Ogden, danced the opening duet at Hamburg Ballet?s famous annual five-hour gala.
His resum? doesn?t end there. NBC artistic director Karen Kain recently appointed him as choreographic associate, which means he?ll be creating works for the company (and possibly even composing the music, which he has already done for his previous works and for other choreographers to boot).
What more does a fellow from Lac St-Jean have to do to get known at home?
In a telephone interview from Hamburg a few days before the gala, C?t?, 31, talked about his relative lack of fame in Quebec.
?It really bothered me a lot for a long time. It would be nice if my many aunts and uncles would know that I was doing something great, but now I?ve started to understand that dance in Quebec is going in a certain direction that I?m not really relevant to.?
C?t? began dance training in Lac St-Jean with France Proulx, a teacher whom his parents had invited to give classes to his sister and cousins. At 10, he was studying in Toronto at the National Ballet School. Having NBC as his base company has made him a star in Canada?s largest city, but NBC?s infrequent appearances in Quebec over the past decade meant local audiences had few chances to see him in the lead classical roles in which he excels.
His earliest appearances at the St-Sauveur arts festival showed a dancer still on the way to becoming a finished artist. In 2006, performing Balanchine?s iconic Apollo, he looked picture perfect ? C?t? has the height, proportions and features of a classic danseur noble ? but his interpretation to my mind failed to show any personal understanding of the role or its choreography. A Swan Lake duet with Ogden at the Gala Des ?toiles the same year was ?correct? rather than compelling.
It was his Romeo in Alexei Ratmansky?s wonderful 2011 version of Romeo and Juliet that revealed to me how far he had come along the road to artistic maturity. With the calm assurance that marks a world-class dancer, C?t? gave a rounded, nuanced interpretation of one of the most familiar characters in the world and made it his own.
Guesting with celebrated foreign companies greatly helps artists to develop, a secret NBC artistic director Kain learned in her own storied career. Having lived in the era of celebrated Soviet defectors like Nureyev, Makarova and Baryshnikov, Kain understands that to keep star dancers at home you must let them occasionally dance outside the fold.
?Karen made some of my guesting happen. I couldn?t be more grateful,? said C?t?. ?You kind of take for granted things when you?re at home, whether the audience or conditions or repertoire. In a new place, you have to gain respect all over again. It gives you this whole new fire to push yourself.?
C?t? especially credits Hamburg Ballet?s famously formidable choreographer John Neumeier for helping him develop.
?He opened a whole different spectrum of emotions, of ways of approaching a role, of acting, simplicity, using different stage crafts that I?d never really been exposed to at home.?
Next month, C?t? will dance the lead Albrecht role in two performances of Giselle that NBC will present on the big outdoor stage at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga, N.Y., three hours? drive from Montreal. .
It was in 1966 that New York City Ballet inaugurated the Saratoga stage with a performance of Balanchine?s A Midsummer Night?s Dream. Dancing in the Oberon role that was created for him was Edward Villella, one of the great male dancers of the era.
?Midsummer Night?s Dream takes place basically in a forest. The outdoor setting of the theatre and the outdoor setting on stage was a wonderful situation for the dancers and I think as well for the audience,? recalled Villella, 76, in a recent phone interview from New York, where he and his wife, former Canadian figure skating champion Linda Carbonetto, moved into a brownstone not long ago.
?Just almost everything we did there was unique because of the setting if nothing else. For many years, it was my favourite place to dance.?
C?t? has his own fond memories of performing outdoors. In his case, it was the stage at Toronto?s Harbourfront.
?I did my first Romeo and Juliet pas de deux with my now-wife. We were 19 or so and just starting out. It was by the lake, a lot of wind, the moon ? one of the most beautiful experiences I ever had. It felt real, as though we were actually there. I think Giselle will be really beautiful and special (in Saratoga) because it?s supposed to take place outside.?
Two veteran NBC ballerinas, Greta Hodgkinson and Sonia Rodriguez, will be his Giselle. In the third show, Giselle will be Jillian Vanston. C?t??s wife will also be on hand in a role that leaves him bemused.
?Heather dances the Queen of the Wilis. She condemns me to death.?
Last February, C?t??s childhood teacher, France Proulx, led 60 Lac St-Jean residents on a bus trip to Ottawa to see him perform as Romeo.
?What?s touching to me is that I feel that Lac St-Jean has been so behind me. I?ve got the new St-Jean arts award, the Ordre des bleuets, they involved me in the 100th anniversary of the region and nominated me for a medal at the National Assembly. It?s incredible that my little region in northern Quebec really cares about what I?m doing in Toronto.?
It behooves the rest of Quebec to care, too.
National Ballet of Canada, July 16-18 at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. For tickets and full SPAC schedule, call 518-584-9330 or see spac.org
? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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