Roberto Bolle & Friends arrives in Verona: not drunk and not vulgar!

Roberto Bolle and Friends is up and running with two dates in Genoa already ticked off the list. Tomorrow comes the Verona date at that biggest of all dance venues, the 15,000-seater Roman amphitheatre, the Verona Arena.

The line-up for 2014 is Alicia Amatriain, Polina Semionova, Daniil Simkin, Hee Seo, Eris Nezha, Julie Kent, Cory Stearns, Jason Reilly, Skylar Brandt and Signor Bolle himself.

In an interview with Piero degli Antoni in Il Giorno a few days before the tour's début, Bolle tried to clarify some of the much quoted statements that he's made in the past, including those about his infamous water and white rice diet.

Let's dispel some of this legend! I do drink a glass of tepid water in the morning, but I also eat. Sometimes when I've missed breakfast because I'm late for class, I find that I'm lightheaded even before I get halfway through. I eat rice-cakes with honey, fruit and dried fruit. Mid-morning maybe a banana.

I do eat white rice with parmesan cheese, but I only usually eat it when I'm doing a show. I like eating risotto, fish, vegetables…

The more you are disciplined with how you eat, the better the body will function. My attitude has changed a lot over the years. Until I was 25 I wouldn't worry about eating junk food, now I wouldn't go near it!

The journalist also asked about his semi-naked photos that often appear in magazine shoots, calling them ‘blatant':

I wouldn't say that they were blatant. The body is my tool, I'm not a writer or violinist. To photograph it is like photographing a Stradivarius. It's right that I should show it off though, obviously, without being vulgar.

When Bolle states that he prefers not to answer questions about his private life, degli Antoni points out that in 2010 he opened up to a journalist saying that he'd only really had one lasting relationship, that he'd been unfaithful, that he lost his virginity with a ballerina when he was 17…

I must have been under the effect of alcohol!

Verona 2014

First Part

Romeo and Juliet, Act I – Pas de deux
Choreography Kenneth MacMillan; Music Sergej Prokof'ev
Hee Seo, Eris Nezha

Il lago dei Cigni Atto III – Pas de deux
Choreography Marius Petipa; Music Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Polina Semionova, Roberto Bolle

Le Bourgeois
Choreography Ben Van Cauwenbergh; Music Jacques Brel
Daniil Simkin

Apothéose
Choreography Marcelo Gomes; Music Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony n°7 – Allegretto
Julie Kent, Cory Stearns

Mono Lisa
Choreography Itzik Galili; Music Thomas Höfs
Alicia Amatriain, Roberto Bolle

Second Part

Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux
Choreography George Balanchine; Music Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Hee Seo, Cory Stearns

Carmen Suite
Choreography Roland Petit; Music Georges Bizet
Polina Semionova, Roberto Bolle

Fanfare LX
Choreography Douglas Lee; Music Michael Nyman
Artisti Alicia Amatriain, Jason Reilly

Sinatra Suite
Choreography Twyla Tharp; Music Frank Sinatra
Artisti Julie Kent, Roberto Bolle

Le Corsaire Act II – Pas de trois
ChoreographyMarius Petipa; Music Riccardo Drigo
Skylar Brandt, Eris Nezha, Daniil Simkin

Passage
Choreography Marco Pelle; Music and video Fabrizio Ferri
Polina Semionova, Roberto Bolle

Further dates:

Friday 25 July
Terme di Caracalla — Rome

Sunday 27 July
Teatro Rossetti — Trieste

Tuesday 29 July
Gran Teatro all'aperto — Torre del Lago

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.