PRINS HENRIK AND THE VERDENSBALLETTEN – the story of a special work returning to the program in 2022

By Jens-Christian Wandt.

In the fall of 2013, ARoS in Aarhus was the setting for Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik’s first joint exhibition. The title was “Pas de deux Royal”, and the exhibition beautifully showed how great artists they both were – and are.

One of the rooms was dedicated to Prince Henrik’s poems. The first thing you saw was the poem “Côte á côte” – in Danish: “By your side”. The poem hung on a banner from gold to the ceiling, and to the right of the poem you could hear Prince Henrik reading the poem in French from a loudspeaker, and to the left you could hear actor Joen Bille reading it in Danish.

Among the guests at the opening were Anne Sophie and Stig Gamborg from Møllerup Gods, where Verdensballetten had been presented for several years, and where the Royal Couple have also seen the performance several times. When Anne Sophie saw the poem at ARoS and heard Prince Henrik read it, she got the idea for a new ballet. She contacted me, and I immediately went to Aarhus to see the exhibition and agreed with her – both the text of the poem and Prince Henrik’s reading were very suitable for building a small ballet.

We contacted the Royal Family and asked if we could use the poem and they said yes. We went one step further and asked if we could persuade the Prince to record the poem himself. We got a yes to that too. We asked the renowned Danish sound artist Katrine Ring to do the recording and editing. Katrine and I were invited to Amalienborg on a cold March day in 2014 so we could make the recording with Prince Henrik. It was an unforgettable visit. The Prince was very professional in his approach to the recording. He told me that he wanted the underlying music to be by French composer Gabriel Fauré, preferably his “Apres un reve” for piano and cello.

The recordings were finished, Katrine created a beautiful and poetic soundscape with Fauré’s music as an underlay. Everything was sent to London where the English choreographer Kristen McNally was to create the new steps. The dancers were two of the Royal Ballet’s biggest names, Frankie Hayward and Tom Whitehead. It was a very strong pas de deux, where the choreographer focused on the farewell, and where she – to emphasize the power of the farewell, had given the man an army costume. In other words, a soldier saying goodbye to his beloved. Is he going to war? Will he come back?

Prince Henrik attended the performance at Møllerup Gods together with Queen Margrethe, and at the applause at the end, the Prince came on stage to be applauded together with Katrine Ring for the strong soundscape. After the performance, I asked the Prince if he was satisfied with the result, and he said he was. However, I had a strange feeling that he was not completely satisfied. The following year I was a guest at Gråsten, and here – in a more informal setting, I again asked Prince Henrik if he was satisfied with the result. He said – I think it has become a very fine pas de deux, but to be honest, my poem has been interpreted in a way that doesn’t quite match what I thought when I wrote it. The farewell is not final, the young man is coming back. We talked about it and decided that what needed to be changed was the costume. The choreography was very nice. I asked Prince Henrik if he could choose freely which costume he wanted the couple to wear. He replied: “If I could choose freely, they wouldn’t have to wear anything at all”. We found a compromise and gave them a very light and summery costume, he with an open jacket and she with a very light white summer dress.

In the summer of 2017, the Royal Couple were to experience VerdensballETTEN at Møllerup again, and we had put “Côte á côte” on the program again, now with the summer light costume. On the day of the performance, Prince Henrik fell ill and had to be hospitalized in Aarhus, and the Queen came to the performance alone. We recorded the new version of the Prince’s pas de deux and showed it to Prince Henrik at the hospital. The message from the hospital bed was that everything was now just as it should be, that it had become a very beautiful and poetic pas de deux, completely in the spirit of the poem.

We regularly receive greetings from the audience with requests for the program. One of the most common requests is the ballet with Prince Henrik’s soundscape. Therefore, for Verdensballetten 2022, we have chosen to have the ballet on the program again in a slightly adapted version – but with the same costumes. Choreographer Kristen McNally is responsible for the rehearsals, and the two dancers will be Iana Salenko and Marian Walter from the Berlin State Ballet.

We look forward to having this wonderful work on the program again in 2022.

Watch a movie with pictures from the ballet and listen to the full soundtrack with Prince Henrik’s poem and beautiful voice.