Christmas, New Year and then the Epiphany – the day of the Befana, a sort of female Santa Claus who delivers presents to Italian children for the Twelfth day of Christmas – and Daniele Cipriani Entertainment now adds another date to this feast of abundance with a dance gala full of plums!
The 10th and 11th January in Rome will see Svetlana Zakharova, Marianela Nuñez, Vyacheslav Lopatin, Thiago Soares, Silvia Azzoni and other international ‘stelle del balletto' dance in the gala Les Étoiles.
The Bolshoi's Svetlana Zakharova and Mikhail Lobukhin will dance the pas de deux from Le Corsaire, and Anastasia Stashkevich and Vyacheslav Lopatin will perform The Talisman Pas de Deux as well as that from The Nutcracker.
The first husband and wife team of the evening – the Royal Ballet Principal dancers Marianela Nuñez and Thiago Soares – will dance the white swan pas de deux from Swan Lake and the Don Quixote pas de deux. The other married couple – Silvia Azzoni and Oleksandr Ryabko from the Hamburg Ballet – will perform two pieces by their boss in Hamburg, John Neumeier: Shall We Dance? set to Gershwin's music and his piece called Adagietto, set to the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th Symphony, aka the Death in Venice soundtrack.
Zakharova will also dance the solo created for her by Japanese choreographer Motoko Hirayama called Revelation, which she has been taking around the world for the last five years or so. It is set to John Williams' haunting melody for the film Schindler's List.
All in all, a fun way to kick off 2015 in the heart of the eternal city. Tickets are available now.
Les Étoiles
10 – 11 January 2015
Auditorium Conciliazione, Rome
Via della Conciliazione 4, 00193 Roma
Tickets Biglietti: €88 – €38
+39 06 93800262
www.auditoriumconciliazione.it
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.
Excellent line up of dancers there. Lucky people in Rome.
Just one thing though. Up in our neck of the woods (Veneto) La Befana is a witch who gets burnt on top of a big fire. :/ And San Nicolo bring presents to children, but on 6th December