Dear audience

This year marks one hundred years since the birth of Glen Tetley – and for the Norwegian National Ballet, this anniversary is closely tied to our own history. The company has danced no fewer than ten of his ballets, and our collaboration dates to 1971. Tetley never had the chance to see the opera house in Bjørvika completed, but he studied the architectural drawings closely and expressed one heartfelt wish: that Voluntaries would be the first of his ballets to be performed on the new Main Stage. And so it was, in 2010, two years after the building opened.

It is easy to understand why his wish came true. Voluntaries (1973) is a refined and sacred ballet, beautifully lit and composed with an architectural clarity Tetley felt was made for our building. But perhaps even more importantly: this work contains so much of what he has meant to our company. Glen Tetley is among those who have shaped the identity of the Norwegian National Ballet. He was a choreographer who saw the individual — the bodies, the distinct qualities, the very specific ways dancers move. Many of us former dancers of the company feel a direct line from Tetley to Jiří Kylián and onward to the choreographers of today. This is not only an artistic heritage — it is a physical experience that shapes the way we meet each other in the studio.

Working on Voluntaries is a shared experience that binds generations together. Everyone who enters this work encounters the same intensity and the same resistance: the extremely demanding technique — the almost figure‑skating‑like throws and lifts — and at the same time, the tension between the grounded and the utterly ethereal. Voluntaries captures these contrasts more than any other work. It is a piece that creates unity. And it is within this tension that Tetley’s artistry has had such significance for us — and continues to inspire the dancers on stage today.

The world premiere that follows carries its own, yet related, force — and springs from a sense of community. Samantha Lynch debuted as a choreographer on the Main Stage only five years ago. STUDIO C is her largest work to date and draws on music many will recognize. Many dancers associate Georges Bizet’s Symphony in C with the iconic Balanchine ballet of the same name. In Lynch’s choreographic language — interwoven with Henrik Skram’s newly composed music and framed by Åsmund Færavaag’s scenography and Oscar Udbye’s lighting design — the material gains new associations. The title STUDIO C points to the ballet studio where the work took shape. In a dancer’s life, the rehearsal studio is a place for both repetition and risk, exploration and experimentation — and equally a space for identity, friendship, and belonging.

STUDIO C is not only created here in our house — Samantha Lynch’s artistic voice has also grown within our company. Her choreography is shaped by the camaraderie, working methods, and history here, but also by a clear, personal drive to explore. Her rare combination of precision, playfulness, and musicality has led several of Europe’s leading ballet companies to commission work from her.

Wayne McGregor provides the evening’s powerful finale. In Chroma, created in 2006, the classical foundation is still clear — but McGregor points toward something radically new. Here, the body gives form to the stripped‑down stage space, with lines, precision, and surprising explosiveness. Where Tetley renewed the language of ballet, McGregor pushes the boundaries even further. In Chroma, he opens a physical and sensory universe where movement draws the music — compositions by Joby Talbot and orchestrations of The White Stripes, performed with brilliance by our opera orchestra under the direction of Kevin Rhodes and Per Kristian Skalstad — with surgical clarity and raw nerve.

The Norwegian National Ballet performed Chroma for the first time in 2020 as part of the festival Mesteraften x 12 — but only for one performance before the country’s stages shut down due to the pandemic. Therefore, it almost feels like a new Norwegian premiere when McGregor’s groundbreaking work finally meets the audience in the Opera House again.

The strong sense of togetherness runs as a red thread through this entire evening: from Tetley’s collective force in Voluntaries, through McGregor’s rhythmic drive, to Lynch’s exploration of the longing to belong — to be part of something larger. This performance embraces what lies at the heart of the Norwegian National Ballet’s identity: classical grounding, modern masterpieces — and works that bear the imprint of the present moment, created right here, right now.

As ballet director, I am immensely proud of our dancers, who approach these three works with both respect and a willingness to take risks. We hope this season’s Mesteraften reminds us all why we seek dance: to be moved, to experience something new, and to feel the sense of community in the theatre.

Welcome!