Premier danseur Alessio Carbone puts on a tutu and wonders about having the body of Gisele and the voice of Bartoli

Alessio Car­bone is a Premier Dan­seur at the Paris Opera. He comes from a fam­ily of dan­cers. His father, Giuseppe Car­bone, was the dir­ector of the com­pany at Milan’s La Scala and his mother, Iride Sauri, was a prima baller­ina at the La Fenice theatre in Venice. His sis­ter dances at La Scala and his younger brother is a suc­cess­ful fla­menco dan­cer. He is mar­ried to Paris Opera étoile Dorothée Gilbert.

Dance is every­where in his life, but the Italian magazine Amica had a way for him to exper­i­ence a new dance emo­tion, yet some­thing his mother, sis­ter and wife have done for years: wear a tutu.

Except for a brief exper­i­ence in stilet­tos and fish­nets — dan­cing in Béjart’s Man­darin Mer­veil­leux — this was to be a first. It was his wife who told him to go for it and not worry about seem­ing ridicu­lous, after Car­bone was ini­tially per­plexed by the pro­ject. She was right, the pic­tures are strong and beautiful.

Among the replies to the 12 ques­tions he was asked about ‘being a woman’ were:

What did you feel wear­ing a tutu?

I thought of my mother, who stopped dan­cing when I was 16, and her gen­tle­ness. In pro­file I noticed that we look alike.

Whose body would you like to have?

Gisele Bündchen’s, who knows that she’s beau­ti­ful, but knows how to be herself.

And whose voice?

That of Cecilia Bar­toli: she has a God-given gift which she uses magnificently.

P.S. Before this shoot you would never have said…

…that I would have enjoyed dress­ing like this. If they offer me a bal­let in tutu I’ll accept immediately.

On these two pages from Amica are pho­tos by Andrea Gandini and the ques­tions were asked by Paola Tavella

Share