Opera translated into ballet

Created in honor of Kang Sue-jin, “Madama Butterfly” will have its Korean premiere in July at Seoul Arts Center. / Courtesy of Credia

Kang Sue-jin to lead dance version of Puccini's magnum opus

By Do Je-hae

When the Innsbruck Dance Company commissioned a ballet version of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” its choreographer had only one dancer in mind.

An arresting beauty with exceptional musicality and charisma, Kang Sue-jin seems like an impeccable pick for Cio-Cio San who, unable to overcome the heartbreak of unrequited love, takes her own life.

In choosing Kang as his muse, choreographer Enrique Gasa Valga was convinced he would have a definitive Cio-Cio. “This project and Kang are inseparable,” the former dancer from Cuba said. “I would not have attempted to tell this story without Kang.”

A household name at the Stuttgart Ballet for almost three decades, Kang has a special history with dramatic roles like Cio-Cio. In fact, the role that brought her the ultimate prize in the professional world of ballet — the Benois de la Dance Prize — is the ill-fated Marguerite Gautier from “The Lady of the Camellias,” a ballet adaption of Verdi’s “La Trativata.”

In the last few months, Valga’s “Madama Butterfly” has been at the center of her extensive repertoire. Kang led the work’s successful premiere with the Innsbruck Dance Company, where Valga serves as artistic director, on Oct. 19, 2013 at the Tyrolean State Theatre in the Austrian city of Innsbruck. They will bring the production to Korea, with Kang dancing the lead role in all of the three performances from July 4 to 6 at the Seoul Arts Center.

“The work is famous as an opera, but it had never been turned into ballet until now. Madama Butterfly was created specifically for me, so it is designed to perfectly accommodate my dancing style,” Kang said in a statement. “Each dramatic role in ballet has its unique appeal, but I was particularly drawn to Cio-Cio because it has a different kind of drama.”

“Madama Butterfly” borrows the storyfrom the opera of the same title by Puccini. This is the first time the tragic love story of a Japanese girl and a U.S. naval officer in 1904 has been adapted to ballet.

The Korean premiere of “Madama Butterfly” is the highlight of the local ballet community this year. “Valga’s Butterfly is set to beautiful music, which will certainly move the Korean audience,” Kang said.

Since becoming a principal dancer at the Stuttgart Ballet in 1997, Kang has been mainly associated with dramatic roles such as Tatiana in “Onegin” and Marguerite in “The Lady of the Camellias.”

She is an avid opera fan who once professed in a TV interview a wish to become a singer if she hadn’t been a dancer. Incidentally, the roles that have defined her career — Tatiana and Marguerite — are all rooted in operas.

Valga first approached Kang for Madama Butterfly two years ago, but she was preoccupied with other projects at the time. Before arriving in Korea as the new director of Korea’s national ballet company early this year, she devoted herself to the work’s European premiere. Kang performed the lead role in all 14 performances of “Madama Butterfly” in October and November 2013 in Innsbruck.

At 46, she is one of the oldest principals anywhere. Even with her new appointment at the Korea National Ballet, she will continue to dance until 2016 at her home company in Stuttgart until she reaches her 30th anniversary there.

Kang entered the Stuttgart Ballet at 17, becoming the youngest member in the history of the company. She was also the first Asian laureate of the Prix de Lausanne. Among her many honors and achievements includes being named the “Kammertanzerin” or chamber dancer, the highest recognition the German government bestows on an artist.

The dance world is keenly watching her transformation into an artistic director from prima ballerina since the culture ministry named her chief of the nation’s top ballet company. She has been leading the Korea National Ballet since February after almost 30 years at the Stuttgart Ballet, 17 years of which she has served as principal dancer.

Her post-Stuttgart career had been the subject of media speculation for several years, but few expected her to helm Korea’s biggest ballet company as she has not resided here since the mid-1980s.

The formerly German-based dancer now divides her time between Seoul and Stuttgart. Her appointment at the Korea National Ballet is expected to raise the profile of the company, given her lengthy career at one of the most iconic ballet companies in Europe.

The Korea National Ballet, founded in 1962, is trying to build an international reputation, while spreading ballet to a larger audience domestically. It has demonstrated noticeable artistic growth in the last decade, but at the moment, the company lacks big names and a strong identity of its own.