200 Years Of Bournonville

It’s the 200th anniversary of August Bournonville’s birth. Writes Tobi Tobias: “It seems to me that Copenhagen’s ambience is embodied in Bournonville’s ballets: the human scale; the lavishing of attention on details of quotidian life; the idea of “home”—of domesticity—as a haven of warmth, safety, and simple, incorruptible goodness; and a corresponding universe of enchantment that tends to be quaint and whimsical—unthreatening—veering as it does from the imagination’s extremes of passion and violence. To have seen the ballets in their native setting, to have experienced something (if only the traveler’s wonderstruck “something”) of Copenhagen, is to have penetrated a little further into Bournonville’s unique world.”