Patrice Bart’s Swan Lake, with Tsygankova and Kaniskin, in Rome

January 19, 2014, 7:27 am

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Swan Lake with Rome Opera Ballet

It can’t be easy to dance with the possibility of redundancy hanging over your head. The workers at Rome Opera have put on a brave face recently as the theatre’s heavy debts will almost inevitably lead to job cuts, but the dancers from the ballet company certainly didn’t let their anxiety show as they performed Swan Lake. A version of the same ballet in Milan a couple of months ago made my American ballet-pro companion remark, “But where’s the joy?” during the pas de trois. In Rome, there was joy. The company loves being on stage, and the pas de trois here was danced with confidence and smiles. The substitution of Svetlana Zakharova (her absence probably caused by the same budgetary crisis) wasn’t a tragic loss, as the Odette-Odile from the opening night of this new production, was available: Anna Tsygankova flew in from the Dutch National Ballet, to join Berlin State Ballet’s Mikhail Kaniskin.… [continue reading]

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The original Madame No: Ekaterina Maximova’s 75th anniversary celebrated in Moscow

January 25, 2014, 2:19 am

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“Les Sylphides” Ekaterina Maximova, Bolshoi Theatre, 1958. Photo Soloviev

It all began with a fouetté is the name of a new exhibition in Moscow to mark the 75th anniversary of the birth of Ekaterina Maximova.

Way before Sylvie Guillem came to be known as ‘Madame Non’, Maximova was nicknamed ‘Madame No’ at the Bolshoi for refusing interviews, photo shoots, and various proposals. Mikhail Baryshnikov admired her “elegant build, beauty, virtuosity and even more so her spontaneity and sincerity”. As The Times said,

Ekaterina Maximova was one of the greatest ballerinas in Russia or indeed anywhere else over the past half century.

The Daily Telegraph’s obituary, 5 years ago, read,

A tiny, ravishingly pretty woman, Ekaterina Maximova formed “the Golden Couple of the 20th Century”, as the Russians called them, with her husband, Vladimir Vasiliev.… [continue reading]

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Le Spectre de rose and La rose malade at La Scala

January 27, 2014, 1:31 am

≫ Next: En Avant with quality, integrity, musicality and artistic meaning in classical ballet

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Maria Eichwald and Igor Yebra in La rose malade — photo Brescia & Amisano/Teatro alla Scala

As an antipasto before the one act opera Cavalleria Rusticana, La Scala put on two related ballets — though unrelated to the opera — which fitted neatly together. Two ten-minute gems: Michel Fokine’s Le Spectre de Rose and Roland Petit’s La rose malade.

Le Spectre de Rose is one of those ballets which must be danced full out for what it is. It can’t be ‘modernised’, as could be attempted with Swan Lake, but, like Les Sylphides, the interpreters have to believe in what they are doing, and pull away from baroque gestures and movements. Such embellishments are smoothed out, if they are present at all, in most modern-day ballet schools, and so are not naturally within a dancer’s body.… [continue reading]

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En Avant with quality, integrity, musicality and artistic meaning in classical ballet

January 30, 2014, 8:52 am

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Cynthia Harvey — Artistic Director of the En Avant Foundation

En Avant is a “New Non-Profit Foundation for Specialised Ballet Coaching, Mentoring and the Awarding of Scholarships”. The Foundation is new, but what is it offering that’s new? After all the world is full of dance master classes, workshops and scholarships. En Avant is different because it aims to put all these together to provide a set of tools to help younger dancers with every aspect of the art form. Cynthia Harvey, En Avant’s artistic director, explains:

As well as class, we will be offering coaching of solos and pas de deux that the dancers bring to us to look at. These sessions will not be a replacement to work the student or emerging dancer does in the studio with their teacher or company; it is meant as a supplement and part of the never ending quest to improve. … [continue reading]

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Alessandra Ferri: an Italian girl in New York

February 15, 2014, 2:14 am

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Alessandra Ferri arrived to live in New York when she was 22, after Mikhail Baryshnikov invited her to join the American Ballet Theatre. She was born in Milan, and studied at the La Scala Ballet Academy until she transferred to the Royal Ballet School when she was 15, becoming part of the company just two years later. Ferri is Milanese, and feels Milanese, but her home is New York, and she loves it.

In New York you need to create your own city within the city, making your own reality among the thousands of possibilities that exist here. I am very happy here, and after almost thirty years I still find it stimulating. The theatre world is fantastic.

She is less enthusiastic about what she sees in Italy.… [continue reading]

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La Scala’s eating-disorder dancer loses her case and her job

February 15, 2014, 11:32 pm

≫ Next: Coppélia: with tutus or wafers?

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Mary Garret’s current Facebook profile photo

Mariafrancesca Garritano, a soloist with the La Scala Ballet Company, wrote a book in 2010 exposing the eating-disorders which afflict one in five dancers, she claimed. “La ver­ità, vi prego, sulla danza!” (The Truth, Please, About Bal­let) made international waves, and when The Observer newspaper picked up the story just before the glamorous opening of La Scala’s season on 7 December 2011, the company’s management had had enough, and fired Garritano, who writes under the name, Mary Garret.

This week it was announced that her appeal against La Scala’s action has been unsuccessful, with the courts upholding La Scala’s position in the case.

Garritano, who has not been dancing with the company since 2012, now finds herself, at 35, without a job, having started at La Scala’s Ballet Academy when she was 16.… [continue reading]

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Coppélia: with tutus or wafers?

February 17, 2014, 10:02 am

≫ Next: Hey Old Friend… Carla Fracci and Roberto Bolle get together

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Yosvani Ramos in front of Coppélia

An ice-cream parlour around the corner from my home is called Coppélia. It’s just opposite the new Fendi showroom and offices in via Solari in Milan. Now I’m sure regular readers of this blog will roll their eyes in disbelief on reading my query in the next sentence, but for those who don’t know the answer either, this article is for you. I wanted to know why the owners had decided to name a gelateria after a Delibes ballet.

As I was waiting for my polystyrene tub to be filled (tiramisù, stracciatella, and yoghurt, in case you were wondering) the owner explained that he was Cuban, and the state-run ice-cream chain in Cuba is called Coppélia.… [continue reading]

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Hey Old Friend… Carla Fracci and Roberto Bolle get together

February 22, 2014, 7:30 am

≫ Next: Dancer Ivan Nagy dies at 70

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Carla Fracci and Roberto Bolle at the Eni dinner

At Milan’s Teatro alla Scala the most important date of the year is 7 December, the opening of the opera and ballet season. The theatre bursts with stars and starlets, Fendi and face-lifts. One of the theatre’s stars who has burned brightest and longest, Carla Fracci, has often been on stage or in the platea for the gala opening, for more than half a century. She was with her husband, director Beppe Menegatti, for the opening of the current season as the guest of Italian energy company Eni, who are long-standing and important sponsors of La Scala. 

The dinner that Eni hosts after the opera, is something of a Scala family reunion.… [continue reading]

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Dancer Ivan Nagy dies at 70

February 22, 2014, 11:48 pm

≫ Next: Ivan Nagy, Carla Fracci, John Prinz and Natalia Makarova in the 70s

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Ivan Nagy and Marilyn Burr

Ivan Nagy, one of the great names in dance during the twentieth century, died yesterday in Budapest; he was 70-years-old.

Nagy was born on 28 April 1943 in Hungary. He trained first with his mother going on to perform with the Budapest State Opera Ballet. Frederic Franklin spotted the young man when Nagy won a silver medal at the International Ballet Competition at Varna in 1965. As director of the National Ballet of Washington at the time, Franklin invited  Nagy to appear as a guest artist with the company. He went on to perform with the New York City Ballet and became a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre in 1968.

He danced with all the great ballerinas of his day including Margot Fonteyn and Carla Fracci, but it perhaps with Cynthia Gregory, Gelsey Kirkland and Natalia Makarova that he formed his most famous partnerships.… [continue reading]

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Ivan Nagy, Carla Fracci, John Prinz and Natalia Makarova in the 70s

February 23, 2014, 3:03 am

≫ Next: To Ivan with love… Carla Fracci

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Ivan Nagy, Carla Fracci, John Prinz and Natalia Makarova as captured by photographer Jack Mitchell in the 1970s when all were part of the American Ballet Theatre.

… [continue reading]

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To Ivan with love… Carla Fracci

February 24, 2014, 12:59 am

≫ Next: Julien Benhamou, the French photographer, on shooting dance and dancers

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A caro Ivan con amore…

A man is a man

Ivan was a man

A man who danced

Who danced with his soul

As true dancers must.

A dancing friend

A friend who has left us

A man who has left us

Until we meet again… Arrivederci.

Dear handsome, beautiful Ivan, we will miss you always.

Carla Fracci and Beppe Menegatti… [continue reading]

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Julien Benhamou, the French photographer, on shooting dance and dancers

March 1, 2014, 6:41 am

≫ Next: Royal Ballet fields a starry cast for Wheeldon’s Winter’s Tale

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French photographer Julien Benhamou has a passion for photographing dancers, musicians, and artists of all kinds. His style is crisp and vibrant which makes him an automatic choice for magazine assignments and even giant posters outside the Palais Garnier. His precise and detailed approach could easily make the resulting photos uncommunicative, yet while Benhamou’s work has the sumptuousness of a fashion shoot, it always says something about the subject, essential when his models are professional communicators such as actress Fanny Ardant, journalist and interviewer Bernard Pivot, and the future Paris Opera Ballet boss Benjamin Millepied.

Then there are the dancers, lots of dancers: Marie-Agnes Gillot, Agnes Letestu, Emmanuel Thibault, Mathilde Froustey… the list is a long one.

He started snapping away as a teenager, and was immediately drawn to portrait photography, using family and friends as his subjects.… [continue reading]

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Royal Ballet fields a starry cast for Wheeldon’s Winter’s Tale

March 13, 2014, 8:52 am

≫ Next: Stepping in for Vasiliev & Osipova: Vittoria Valerio’s turn

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The Royal Ballet’s publicity graphic for The Winter’s Tale

The Royal Ballet have released casting details for Christopher Wheeldon’s latest project for the company, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.

It will be the first full length adaptation of a Shakespeare play by The Royal Ballet since Kenneth MacMillan’s 1965 production of Romeo and Juliet. It has been timed to coincide with the 450^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth in 1564, and there will be a performance on the 23 April, Shakespeare’s birthday.

Opening night is the 10 April, but in cinemas world-over there will be the chance to see the ballet on Monday 28 April. A very brave decision by the Royal Ballet, and indicates the faith it has in Wheeldon.… [continue reading]

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Stepping in for Vasiliev & Osipova: Vittoria Valerio’s turn

March 16, 2014, 9:44 am

≫ Next: Marianela Núñez and Thiago Soares… giving back

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Marta Romagna, Ivan Vasiliev and Vittoria Valerio in Rubies

Natalia Osipova, down to dance with Ivan Vssiliev in Rubies at Teatro alla Scala, was indisposed for the dress rehearsal, the first night, and has now been replaced for the run by Vittoria Valerio.

Just last season, Vasiliev’s last minute injury before a performance of Roland Petit’s Notre-Dame de Paris, gave the unknown Claudio Coviello the chance to step in (he’d just completed the matinée performance, and was in the wings) — a couple of months later he was promoted to Principal Dancer.

Vittoria Valerio is not even a permanent member of the company, but a ‘supplementary’ dancer for the current season. She outshone Vasiliev who was visibly uncomfortable his role, and showed with seeming nonchalance every nuance of Balanchine’s fiendishly complex choreography.… [continue reading]

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Marianela Núñez and Thiago Soares… giving back

March 17, 2014, 3:15 pm

≫ Next: Roland Petit on Colette, Poulenc, Cocteau, Fracci, Murru and his ballet Chéri

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Marianela Núñez and Thiago Soares

London’s Royal Opera House is involved in lots of charitable work, and during a charitable event Royal Ballet principal dancer Thiago Soares was introduced to Richard Street, head of Street Kids in the UK.

Street Kids is an organisation which believes that young people on the street have the potential to change their own lives. Over more than twenty years they have developed a way to unlock this potential, and are striving to provide more and more street youth around the world with the support, knowledge and tools to start up their own sustainable businesses and earn a decent living. They work with local partners around the globe, engaging kids on their own turf and on their own terms.… [continue reading]

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Roland Petit on Colette, Poulenc, Cocteau, Fracci, Murru and his ballet Chéri

March 22, 2014, 12:40 pm

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Roland Petit rehearsing Chéri with Carla Fracci

Roland Petit’s evocative and charming ballet, Chéri, was created at La Scala in 1996 for the mature Carla Fracci who turned sixty that year. Colette’s story of an ageing woman’s six-year relationship with a young man was the perfect choice for Fracci and Massimo Murru, who was 35 years her junior. In Colette’s story the boy is 19 and the woman 43 when they first meet. Roland chose Francis Poulenc’s music for his ballet. In his programme notes, Petit writes,

Chéri is a ballet that I created, in a way, in the family. When I was a boy I’d go to see Jean Cocteau and sometimes we’d go with Colette — who was his neighbour — to walk in the gardens of the Palais Royal, where Colette would throw bread crumbs for the birds.… [continue reading]

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Black Swan Gala with Bouder, de Luz and Picone, tours Italy

March 25, 2014, 11:29 am

≫ Next: Portrait of Dame Monica Mason is unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery

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The title may make serious fans of ballet balk: Gran Gala Il Cigno Nero — Black Swan Gala. If Daniele Cipriani, the producer, wants to cash in on some of the publicity from the Darren Aronofsky film of the same name, the content of the gala has nothing to do with the superficiality of the film. Although climaxing with the Odile-Siegfried Swan Lake pas de deux, beforehand there is a rich mix of dance choreography, and no shards of glass or sprouting feathers to be seen.

The pretence is to show black and white, light and shade, good and evil… but then without the pull and push of drama, its conflicts and subsequent restoration of harmony, the stage would be a boring space to watch, so these elements are evident in almost all ballet pieces, even plotless works.… [continue reading]

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Portrait of Dame Monica Mason is unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery

March 27, 2014, 3:40 am

≫ Next: Carla Fracci returns to dance on Italy’s heel

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Dame Monica Mason and portrait - copyright Jorge Herrera Photography

Copyright: Jorge Herrera Photography

A newly commissioned portrait of Dame Monica Mason, by artist Saied Dai has been unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery.

In the larger than life-size portrait, Dame Monica — former ballerina and Director of the Royal Ballet - takes on a commanding pose as she sits holding a mask; a position reflective of a dancer’s poise combined with a director’s authority and scrutiny. Dai first met Dame Monica at the Royal Opera House during her final weeks as Director of the Royal Ballet before her retirement in 2012. The sittings for the portrait took place at the artist’s studio in Bath over a period of eight months.… [continue reading]

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Carla Fracci returns to dance on Italy’s heel

March 28, 2014, 8:57 am

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Carla Fracci, now in her 78th year, will be opening in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice tomorrow, at Lecce’s Teatro Politeama Greco.

The Italian ballet icon will be appearing with the Balletto del Sud in the numerous ballet interludes during the opera. Choreography is by the company’s founder Fredy Franzutti.

I interpret a character who comes to symbolise the concept of divinity,

she told La Repubblica.

My life hasn’t been only La Scala and other wonderful theatres, but also dancing in piazze, churches and prisons. I’ve never stopped taking dance everywhere, and in so doing I have created work.

If fact, those who remember her arriving in their city for an open-air performance or one under a circus tent — dates squeezed in between performances with the American Ballet Theatre and a La Scala or filming for the cinema or tv — have paid back her investment over the years: “Starring Carla Fracci” in big letters on the posters guarantees ticket sales.… [continue reading]

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Tsiskaridze: Real ballet dancers are trained in Paris, Moscow or St Petersburg

March 31, 2014, 7:48 am

≫ Next: New YouTube Video: Roland Petit’s Chéri with Carla Fracci and Massimo Murru

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Nikolai Tsiskaridze — photo by Ilya Grigoriev/RIA Novosti

Forget the Royal Ballet School or the The School of American Ballet, Nikolai Tsiskaridze says there are only three real ballet schools in the world: the Paris Opera Ballet School, the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and the Vaganova Ballet Academy, which he is currently running.

I always said there are only three schools in the world: if you want to be a real ballet artist, you must train in Paris, St Petersburg or Moscow. That’s it! These are the three main centres for ballet culture,

Interfax reported him as saying.

Tsiskaridze — who will shortly return to the stage as Widow Simone in Ashton’s La fille mal gardée at the Mikhailovsky Theatre — went on to say,

Graduates at the Vaganova Ballet Academy have no problems in finding employment.… [continue reading]

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