Alec Kinnear

Le Concours, that concluded its 2011 run Jun. 4 at the Volksoper, is an amusing confection of a ballet put together by Maurice Béjart at the height of his fame in 1985.

January has been another flurry of activity within the Staatsoper ballet. The dancers are both euphoric and exhausted from this season’s eight premieres.

The main event in January was a mixed evening of modern works called Schritte und Spuren (Steps and Traces), including works from four contemporary choreographers who came to Vienna to prepare their pieces. For the dancers, the opportunity to work extensively with first-rate living choreographers seemed to make all the difference.

When Manuel Legris retired as an étoile at Paris Opera last year, he immediately took up residence in Vienna as the artistic director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet. While the Staatsoper Ballet outside the Renato Zanella years has always been a very classical company, the Paris Opera has always danced both modern works and classical works with equal aplomb – and many would argue, the finest mixed repertoire company in the world.

In spite of the recession of the last twelve months, Vienna Fashion Week was back at Museums Quartier, bigger and better than last year. With thirty- three shows and over sixty exhibiting designers, Vienna Fashion Week is thriving. While over one hundred extra seats were added, the runway shows were almost completely sold out in the evenings.

Austrian immigration policy is a black box, deliberately kept that way by both the politicians and the media. Bad people get sent away and good people get to stay, it seems – at least according to members of both the upper and middle classes I’ve spoken to on my travels.

Slovakia continues to struggle with its national theater for music, opera and dance, the SND. The SND has been in a hunt for new leadership for the last nine months. The latest conflagration comes as the Bratislava public and new general director Ondrej Šoth trade blows over the fate of popular ballet director Mário Radačovský.

With Stefan Zweig and Franz Kafka, Arthur Schnitzler is the last great writer of the Habsburg Monarchy. Born in Vienna in 1862, Schnitzler graduated from the University of Vienna as a medical doctor in 1885. From that point on, he split himself between his work as physician, literary activities and love affairs. He was a successful dramatist from his first hit play the sensational Anatol (1893) and continued as a successful dramatist up until the Great War.

The advertising for both ballet productions was surprisingly similar: A beautiful woman in a stark pose. In Vienna, Georgian dancer Ketevan Papava holds a fan high in the air, as her red lace dress slips off her left shoulder as Carmen. In Bratislava, a mystic woman surrounded by emerald demons glares out at the world from the peaks of Mount Everest. One would not think this poster was for a home-grown production.