Carla Fracci at the La Scala Theatre Ballet School celebrations

The La Scala Theatre Ballet School was formed 200 years ago, and its students are celebrating with a week of shows at Milan's Teatro Strehler. At last night's opening performance Carla Fracci, maybe the school's most famous student, was present, and the young ballet dancers were thrilled.

After an Overture (a version of Etudes/Class Concert), the students performed the Paquita wedding suite with an excellent dancer (one to watch!) called Jacopo Tissi, and Béjart's Gaîté parisienne with a vivacious Angelo Greco as the “young Béjart” and an energetic Gianmarco Romano as Offenbach. Lots of promising young dancers were obviously enjoying themselves, and we were too!

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Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.