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Behind the Scenes

Final
Applause

Applause, too, is celebrated in ballet — Angelika Bulfinsky arranges dancers, curtains, and children with dedication

by Angela Reinhardt

"As you wish," the taciturn young Westley always says to his mistress in the fairytale film Die Braut des Prinzen; we later learn that by this, he's actually saying "I love you" each time. "As is desired," Angelika Bulfinsky frequently says in our conversation, and no one needs to explain that it's out of love for the theater. What we as audiences (or even critics) tend to lose after years of watching, emanates from every sentence of hers: a tremendous respect for the artists and their work. Like all theater people and colleagues behind the scenes, she knows the effort and tension; she knows exactly how much nerves, heart and soul, and years of life go into a new creation or even just a perfectly normal repertoire performance.

At the Stuttgart Ballet, the former dancer supervises the children dancing, for example in Dornröschen, and she ensures that the extras, such as the stretcher bearers in Romeo und Julia, are where they belong: in the right number and pose, in the right places. She manages up to 50 pupils and extras in some productions; occasionally, she plays a character role herself, and often enough, as she says herself, she's a bit of a "jack of all trades" at performances. She keeps a flashlight or a bandage handy, teaches children to sing when needed in Der Nussknacker, or gives the signal to lower Juliet into her grave: "Someone has to be there and work by sight, to the music." The stage manager can't leave his desk; Bulfinsky supplements him in the side alleys. Above all, the woman with the boyishly short hair ensures the order of applause, which means she directs the bows after each performance.

Nothing Is Accidental
Like a ritual, applause concludes every theater evening around the world. It's the moment when the actors leave their roles and become themselves again, when behind the curtain pure adrenaline turns into relief. For the audience, too, it functions as a decompression chamber between the immediate reaction and the uplifting aftermath of what they've seen, an outlet for enthusiasm and outrage — although in dance, the choreographer might be booed at most, but dancers almost never are. That this cathartic ritual by no means functions automatically can sometimes be seen in the spontaneous, disorderly rushing in after a play or an opera. In a concert, the task lies with the conductor; he or she calls the orchestra or individual soloists to stand up; in musicals, the applause is usually choreographed to music. Otherwise, personalities and hierarchies tend to break through here, and everyone stages themselves for a few seconds: There are the modest ones who stay at the back of the row with a quick bow, the still-absorbed ones who linger on the stage for one moment too long, the veteran divas and directorial gods who clutch their hearts or, like the Pope, stretch their consecrated hands towards heaven.

Dancers, on the other hand, already as students pay their respects to their ballet teacher every day, and as professionals they extend this same greeting to their audience with consummate courtesy. This danced "thank you" comes in variations, with or without a curtsy for the ladies, with elaborate, sweeping arms, with steps forward and backward. So no one needs to practice the bow itself anymore, just the order. This is determined by the choreographer or, if he is not present, the responsible ballet master. "Nothing is accidental," explains Angelika Bulfinsky; everything is noted down: "Does the piece end with a blackout or a curtain, with the black top curtain or the decorative curtain? Sometimes you even have to change the curtain during the applause." Individual curtains for the soloists, for example, are only available with the decorative curtain that can be divided in the middle.

Everything Is Noted Down
This order is established in Stuttgart at the dress rehearsal, because there is usually an audience present (the superstition about not being allowed to clap at the dress rehearsal is long gone). Bulfinsky asks in the ballet studio beforehand what they want, makes suggestions, and the choreographers nod or make changes. If a work is taken over by another company, their applause order is usually followed. And if there's a revival from the repertoire, the “bible” comes into play: Bulfinsky's thick binder, in which the applause order for every dance piece of the past decades is filed from A to Z. Because once it's established, it's valid forever, archived on the computer, sent to the ballet masters, and posted on the bulletin board for the dancers. In the evenings, it's kept in Bulfinsky's pocket as a cheat sheet. She's been doing this since 1986; before that, the legendary Georgette Tsinguirides had "sort of" written it down. Bulfinsky is a perfectionist; now every piece is documented.

She demonstrates exactly what this looks like using the complicated applause plan for Marcia Haydée's Dornröschen which meticulously notes the order of the corps de ballet, the countless fairy-tale characters from the third act, character soloists, and the stars of the evening. Who comes from which alley, from the right or the left, where do they line up on the stage? When the mistress of the applause has noted the line «—><— 4 Princes (under the arcades) ⁄ \», this translates as: two princes each come from the right and left at the back under Jürgen Rose's rose arcades into the middle, bow and then line up in front of their colleagues who are already standing, two on the right, two on the left. The first round lasts a good four minutes until everyone has had their turn and the conductor has been invited in by Aurora. In this production the curtain remains open the entire time, in other narrative ballets the applause officer rushes in right behind the decorative curtain as it billows in. The left half of the curtain is pulled back by two stage technicians to open the door for the solo bows and is held in place for as long as it takes: "You can't do that mechanically," explains Bulfinsky. She stands directly at the opening and loudly calls the dancers, who are often excited or deep in conversation, by their first names to send them out. This opening of the curtain for applause is called "paging" — of course, Bulfinsky knows the necessary English vocabulary, she is present on all tours and organizes extras and children worldwide.

The Audience Clapping Along? Please, No!
In modern ballets or ensemble pieces, there is no hierarchical order; usually all the dancers bow at once, then individually from outside to inside or from left to right. Then all the ladies, all the gentlemen, and often all over again from the beginning. Bulfinsky stands at the front, hidden behind the portal, conducting: "I just say 'Ladies! Ladies!' They read my lips," or she signals with her hands. Who calls in the conductor, who calls in the instrumental soloists? If it's a premiere or there are role debuts, the ballet management in Stuttgart arranges for flowers to be presented. Students from the Cranko School must then be requested, dressed in black, and informed of the exact recipients of their bouquets. The Royal Opera House in London, by the way, employs a full-time "flower presenter" for this purpose. When exactly does the confetti shower begin at a New Year's Eve performance, and when does the "Thank you!" sign descend during a farewell ceremony? Someone has to find the perfect moment and give the command — certainly not immediately after the end of the piece, so that the soloists and orchestra still receive their full applause. In roughly 3,000 performances, Bulfinsky has developed perfect timing, knowing exactly when to give the command "Curtain down" so that the curtain will continue to close over the long distance while the applause is ongoing. How long will we continue? Is there still a desire on the part of the audience? "Someone has to make that decision! No two evenings are the same. I always strive to ensure that the applause remains really good until the end."

There is naturally no arrangement for applause between the acts; it is rarely intended, for example after the Pas de deux in the third act of Schwanensee, when the dancers bow in the middle of the piece. Angelika Bulfinsky doesn't like it, and she certainly doesn't like the rhythmic clapping during the Fouettés, which only distracts the ballerina. She doesn't like entrance applause either; respect for the music and the integrity of the work are simply more important to her. However, the two cool camels in the Stuttgart Nussknacker are celebrated so enthusiastically that the children who appear after them don't hear the music if the conductor just carries on — so she has arranged for him to wait so the little beetles can get into the rhythm. Sometimes, as in Kenneth MacMillan's Requiem, the cast actually asks not to clap between movements; George Balanchine did something similar in his time.

Always From Behind the Curtain
Indeed, after particularly moving performances, there is sometimes a brief silence after the orchestra's final notes (something you can actually experience quite often at the opera); but most of the time, the applause erupts immediately. Things aren't quite as vibrant as in ancient Rome, where people snapped their fingers or even hissed, but there are certainly intensifications of the banal clapping that often arise spontaneously in Stuttgart: foot stomping, rhythmic acclamations (sometimes accelerated), standing ovations, or the famous primal scream when the entire house roars "Bravo" as the curtain rises. Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev are said to have received 89 curtains after their Schwanensee in Vienna, there were 101 for the last Ring by Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Boulez in Bayreuth, and the Guinness Book of Records records 165 curtains for Luciano Pavarotti in Berlin in 1988.

Angelika Bulfinsky loves her job: "I attend every ballet performance, at the Schauspielhaus, at the Opera House. Which is wonderful because I'm close to the ballet, even though I'm no longer a dancer. I love the company; I've seen many of them as students, then they become professionals, and I see their careers. I always try to put myself in the children's shoes, just as I once felt myself. I try to continue to incorporate this happiness and enthusiasm for theater into my career." She talks about the young Demis Volpi and Christian Spuck: "The people inspire me, including the dancers, the way they warm up. I love simply watching how Friedemann Vogel prepares, how the dancers work on their pointe shoes." She herself has never, "really never," seen a ballet performance from the auditorium. She usually catches a dress rehearsal from the front, simply so she knows the overall picture; everything else she experiences from backstage. And she knows that there, too, she contributes to the audience's enjoyment: "Everything is seen. Everything has to do with aesthetics, right down to the applause. It's my ambition to make every evening look as beautiful as possible and never end in chaos. Only when the final curtain is closed do I feel: Okay, now my day is over."

www.stuttgarter-ballett.de


Portrait Angelika Bulfinsky by Carlos Quezada