Swede Emotion, 25 Years Later

It is the fourth oldest ballet company in the world, yet the Royal Swedish Ballet isn’t as well known in the United States as are many much-younger European and Russian troupes.

That’s because the troupe, founded in 1773, hasn’t toured this country much. It’s been 25 years since its last visit.

Now it is bringing a full-length “Swan Lake” and a mixed bill honoring the Ballet Suedois, a largely Swedish group that once rivaled the fabled Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev for innovation in Paris in the 1920s.

“Swan Lake” will run evenings Tuesday through June 19, and the Ballet Suedois tribute will be danced June 19 and June 20 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

The Orange County engagement is the company’s only other appearance in this country after its run at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. By sharing costs, the two centers have been able to bring major European dance companies to the United States.

The Royal Ballet was founded by Gustav III as part of the monarch’s then-innovative program of having theatrical works performed in Swedish. The ballet company was created as part of the Royal Opera. Only Paris Opera Ballet (1661), Royal Danish Ballet (1722) and St. Petersburg (1738) companies predate the Royal Swedish.

Many opera-goers know about Gustav and his assassination through Verdi’s 1859 “Un Ballo in Maschera,” although to satisfy the political censors of his day, Verdi had to shift the location of the story from Sweden to far-off Boston and change “Gustav” to “Riccardo.” The assassination of a king was considered too radical for nervous Italian bureaucrats.

Verdi wrote a terrific opera, but its story is a bit trumped up--except for the fact that Gustav was assassinated at a masked ball in 1792. The fatal shot wasn’t fired by a jealous husband, however, as in the opera, but by a disgruntled nobleman. That’s the difference between life and opera. The king spent days suffering in horrible agony before he died, and he became a martyr to his people.

The opera and ballet company he founded thrived nevertheless, soon drawing some dance-world luminaries. These included both Antoine Bournonville and his son, August (who brought the Royal Danish Ballet to great eminence), and Filippo Taglioni, father of Marie Taglioni, one of the greatest ballerinas in history.

But like many ballet companies, the Royal Swedish went through a period of creative decline toward the end of the 19th century. Dance became a decorative rather than an expressive art.

Serge Diaghilev and the musical, choreographic and dance geniuses he gathered around him in his Ballets Russes changed all that.

One of Diaghilev’s choreographers, Michel Fokine, helped reinvigorate the Swedish company too. But when he left to return to Paris, many of the best dancers followed to join Rolf de Mare’s new Ballet Suedois.

A fresh start for the home team came in 1950, when the great British choreographer Antony Tudor became company director, raising standards and increasing repertory, including major works by Swedish choreographer Birgit Cullberg. But Tudor soon moved on.

He was followed by Mary Skeaping and a number of others, including the great Danish dancer Erik Bruhn, and Gunilla Roempke, now first ballet master in the current regime of Frank Andersen, formerly director of the Royal Danish Ballet.

Roempke entered the company school when she was 10. She joined the company as a dancer in 1958. She was company director from 1980-84.

“I was in Tudor’s ‘Pillar of Fire,’ ‘Dark Elegies’ and ‘Echoing of Trumpets,’ which he made for us,” Roempke said in a recent interview from Sweden.

“Over the years, we have developed a rather wide range of ballets and styles, and that has become a trademark for our company. I think we are now pretty up-to-date with what major companies are doing today.”

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During her tenure, Roempke increased the number of performances because “we danced too seldom,” she said. “Dancers need to dance. I wanted to increase the opportunities. We had more performances, more touring and a more active professional life.”

But she eventually stepped down to devote herself to her family.

“I had three children,” she said. “They were small then and in school, and it was too heavy a burden. Being a director, you are swallowed by your job. The family couldn’t cope with it. It was a difficult decision, but afterward, I was happy. You have your family. It was absolutely for private reasons.”

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Roempke came in from time to time to look after productions, but she wasn’t steadily associated with the company. She also worked with Andersen at the Royal Danish Ballet and accepted his offer to return as ballet master when he took over the Swedish company in 1995.

The Swedes take their lack of name recognition among Americans in stride.

“We don’t feel overlooked,” Roempke said. “We are rather humble when it comes to that. But coming to the United States is a challenge. . . . We want to conquer America because it’s a new audience.”

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The Royal Swedish Ballet will dance “Swan Lake” June 15-19 at 8 p.m. and a tribute to Ballet Suedois on June 19 and 20 at 2 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $10-$68. (714) 556-2787.

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Chris Pasles can be reached by e-mail at Chris.Pasles@latimes.com.