Concours at the Paris Opera Ballet

A scene from “La Danse The Paris Opera Ballet”

The New York Times
December 6, 2009
So You Think You Can Compete?
By ROSLYN SULCAS
PARIS

The stage of the Palais Garnier is bare and bright. Eleven people sit at a table in the empty orchestra section, frowning at their notebooks. A tinkling bell sounds, and an announcer appears onstage and formally introduces a dancer. For three minutes or so she plows through the technical minefields of the obligatory variation and finishes, smiling brightly. There is no applause. A few seconds’ silence and the bell rings again.

The annual Concours at the Paris Opera Ballet is not for the faint of heart. In this company, one of the world’s leading classical dance troupes, it’s not enough to be talented. It’s not enough to be consistently cast in soloist or leading roles, or chosen by visiting choreographers. It is not enough to be adored by audiences or find special favor with the artistic staff.

That’s because, unlike any other ballet company in the world, the Opera has a hierarchy and system of promotion almost military in its Spartan exactitude. In order to be promoted a dancer must enter the annual Concours, or promotional competition, and perform two variations (one set, one “free”) before an 11-member jury made up of fellow company members, Opera officials and two outside judges (this year the choreographer Pierre Lacotte and Igor Zelensky, director of the Novosibirsk Ballet).

The competition has existed at the Opera in one form or another since 1860, instituted by Marie Taglioni as an obligatory exam to maintain standards. (Only in the 1970s did participation become voluntary for the company’s 154 dancers, roughly half of whom take part.) The most recent competition was two weeks ago, and it offered the same spectacle of ambition, hope and despair that plays out every year.

The jury’s rankings determine who is promoted into the few places available in each grade: after the entry level quadrille come coryphée, sujet and premier danseur. Once dancers join the Opera, a state-supported company, they have little incentive to abandon a guaranteed salary until the mandatory retirement age of 42, and a pension thereafter. (This year the coveted top spots went to Ludmila Pagliero, Josua Hoffalt and Vincent Chaillet.)

The only rank not possible to acquire through competition is the elusive étoile, or star. The title is mostly given to premier dancers, but not always.

Most dancers, however, depend on the competition both for improvements in their salaries (roughly a 15 percent gain with each grade) and better roles, since casting is determined largely by rank.

It’s a grueling system. Injury, illness, nerves or just a bad day can derail a career for a whole year, or longer. The dancers find themselves judged by, and pitted against, friends and colleagues, with whom they will soon — perhaps that very night — dance onstage. But the competition is regarded favorably by the dancers, said Ariane Dollfus, a writer for Danser magazine.

“We are a nation of competitions,” Ms. Dollfus said. “The idea that excellence is recognized through an exam or competition is prevalent in every walk of French life. There are competitions to get into the grandes écoles, for administrative jobs, for architects, for civil servants. It’s very French. We have more confidence in a formal, official structure than in something that seems like an arbitrary decision.”

To non-French ears, the idea of the competition as a democratic procedure can sound strange. Can’t wonderful artists who may not be technical virtuosos be overlooked? Surely the personal likes and dislikes of the five company members who make up half the jury can influence the outcome?

“There are some dancers who aren’t competition animals,” said Brigitte Lefèvre, director of dance at the Opera, looking somewhat weary after the first rounds. “Sometimes that has serious consequences. If you don’t pull off your pirouettes, your balances, at least there are a group of insiders on the jury who know what you can do and take that into account.”

Ms. Lefèvre acknowledged that the competition is psychologically grueling for the dancers, who work on their solos for months while also rehearsing and performing a changing repertory. (Ms. Lefèvre and the ballet master Patrice Bart choose the set variations each year.)

“It’s brutal on the day of the competition,” she said. “There is so much at stake. There are always tears, always dancers coming to see me after to discuss. I tell them, and I believe, that over the course of a career talent finds its way. And after all, nerves and tests are something dancers have to face in the course of their onstage lives.”

For dancers of clearly outstanding promise the competition is probably no more than routine. Agnès Letestu, Dorothée Gilbert and Mathias Heymann are just a few of the current étoiles who shot through the ranks in short order. But for others the path can be harder. Isabelle Ciaravola, recently named an étoile, had to endure 11 rounds of the competition before finally being promoted to première danseuse in 2003.

“For me, doing the competition has nothing to do with the joy of dancing,” Ms. Ciaravola said in a telephone conversation. “Your life, your career is at stake for four minutes. You need nerves of steel.”

But even Ms. Ciaravola spoke positively of the competition, pointing out that it is a chance for corps de ballet dancers to be noticed, and that it motivates dancers who have permanent jobs to keep working hard.

“It’s an amazingly stressful system, but it’s just normal for them,” said David Hallberg, an American Ballet Theater principal dancer who spent a year in the final division at the Paris Opera Ballet school, watching his fellow students prepare for the entrance exam to the company. “Not only do the dancers not question the system, they are proud of it. It’s part of their institution, their tradition. In France, that counts for a lot.”

Personal comment: Marie-Claude the POB sujet who is with us for a year for escort training [Her first appearance in this blog was in the October 17, 2009 entry.] has competed in the annual Concours for promotion from quadrille to coryphée to sujet and agrees that the competition is intense and a dancer needs to concentrate on focus and have nerves of steel.