Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala

Twice as Tragic

October 2, 2023 0 Comments

“Swan Lake”
Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala
Teatro alla Scala
Milan, Italy
September 27, 2023 (livestream)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2023 by Ilona Landgraf

Last Wednesday’s livestream of “Swan Lake” was the third such event since Manuel Legris took over the artistic reins of the Teatro alla Scala’s ballet company in December 2020. What a pity that I missed the previous livestreams – “Le Corsaire” and “Romeo and Juliet”!

La Scala dances a version of Rudolf Nureyev’s “Swan Lake” that, if I’m not mistaken, is the one he created for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1984. As all of his ballets, this one has jam-packed choreography. Last time it was shown in Milan in 2014 under the directorship of Makhar Vaziev. After Vaziev left to the Bolshoi Ballet in 2015, La Scala’s company entered unsteady waters. Legris’s guidance seems to be returning the company to its previous standards. Olga Smirnova and Jacopo Tissi (former colleagues at the Bolshoi and meanwhile at Dutch National Ballet) guested in the leading roles twice. The livestream was given to in-house soloists – Maria Celeste Losa (Odette / Odile) and Navrin Turnbull (Prince Siegfried). (more…)

What Became of …?

May 15, 2021

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Teatro dell’Opera di Roma Ballet School
Teatro Nazionale
Rome, Italy
May 2021

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2021 by Ilona Landgraf

Earlier this May, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma unearthed an archival recording of a 2014 performance by the opera’s ballet school: Shakespeare’s romantic comedy (or, rather, satire on romantic comedy) “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, choreographed and directed by Alessandra Delle Monache. Her genre-spanning production is grounded by the explanations of a narrator (Giulia Tomaselli, a student of the Accademia Nazionale D’Arte Drammatica Silvio d’Amico, Rome) who helps us sort out the tangle of romances blossoming in the forests outside Athens. It’s an understandable move, since – unlike in other productions – two of the four couples (Hermia & Lysander, Helena & Demetrius) are dressed so similarly that mixing them up is inevitable. (more…)

La Scala’s Tasteless New “Cinderella”

January 22, 2016 0 Comments

“Cinderella”
Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala
Teatro alla Scala
Milan, Italy
January 15, 2016

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2016 by Ilona Landgraf

Last Friday a huge crowd queued up in front of La Scala, eagerly waiting to gain entry for Mauro Bigonzetti’s new “Cinderella”. Just ten minutes before the performance was to begin did things finally get going. Passing policemen, who lined the entrance area, people hurried to their seats. Only a few minutes late the curtain went up.
What had happened? The police had decided to do bag checks but, having started much too late, necessarily had to stop to not overly delay the performance. Later, the young Italian woman sitting next to me told me that “Italians already feel safe when police are within sight.” (more…)

And Now?

October 2, 2015 0 Comments

“The Sleeping Beauty”
Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala
Teatro alla Scala
Milan, Italy
September 26, 2015

Six months after Alexei Ratmansky’s “The Sleeping Beauty” received its premiere in Costa Mesa, California, with American Ballet Theater, gracing the company’s 75th anniversary, European audiences now have the opportunity to enjoy the lavish production as well. It premiered on September 26 at the Teatro alla Scala, which shouldered the costs of the project with ABT.

Today’s traditionally known “Sleeping Beauty” is the result of adaptions and changes made since the piece’s premiere in St. Petersburg in 1890. (more…)