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My Big Fat Italian Ballet Gala

ByGramilano Reading Time: 5 minutes

The Gala des Étoiles at La Scala made me feel as though I’d eaten all the icing on the cake: happy, but a little woozy. Don Q? Check! Corsaire? Check! Manon and Romeo and Juliet? Check! Spartacus? Check!

As you can see if you scroll down to the programme, it wasn’t all hoary favourites, and when the interpreters are some of the best dancers in the world it would be churlish to let even the slightest doubt on the programming flit through one’s mind.

The best bits? Well, for me, the two pieces with Lucia Lacarra and Marlon Dino – Arpino’s Light Rain and Stevenson’s Three Preludes – were danced magnificently, especially by the pliant and sensual Lacarra, and beautifully lit too, as was the whole evening. In the same vein, and were both superb in Petit’s La rose malade: both are such expressive dancers.

as The Dying Swan was full of despair and pathos but she remains a noble creature without the touching fragility of other noteworthy interpretations I prefer. When she teamed up with for Le Corsaire however, her regal quality came to the fore and she illuminated the auditorium. She smiles with her shoulders, her neck, her face… not just with lips and teeth. Sarafanov was elegant and refined, as we have come to expect from this dancers’ dancer.

The Don Quixote wedding pas de deux closed the first half and brought and together again. They have danced together both at La Scala and at the Bolshoi. Vasiliev’s predilection for this extract is well known, and Manni danced the role of Kitri recently at La Scala to huge acclaim showing off her seemingly easy virtuosic technique, so it was a good idea to team them up here. Young Manni’s first-night nerves got the better of her, which is only worth mentioning because she is a dancer who apparently is fazed by nothing, but on the next night she was splendid. In fact, every dancer looked as though they’d relaxed a little and were having a thoroughly good time on the second evening.

I was perplexed by the decision to ask two excellent dancers – The Royal Ballet’s and La Scala’s Claudio Coviello – to dance the bedroom pas de deux from Manon in such a gala and live in cinemas and television, after just an hour of rehearsal. They have both danced in Manon but never together. The same went for Romeo and Juliet which brought together La Scala Principal and Maria Eichwald. Murru has danced MacMillan’s version which is in La Scala’s repertoire, but Eichwald, who was until recently a Principal at Stuttgart, has only ever danced John Cranko’s version. She danced it better than could have been imagined, but think how much finer if she had had the choreography under her skin. Only her exceptional artistry allowed her to get so far with the role so quickly.

Another odd presence was a piece created for two years ago. There were hi-tech video projections which conjured up multiple-Bolles so it seemed more an homage to Bolle than an homage to ballet. He danced it well, of course, and it contained many precisely coordinated passages as he interacted with both images of himself and swirling mists of light. It just felt out of place somehow.

This evening marked the closing of the Milan Expo 2015, and it felt like a party. There was lots of whooping and foot stomping which is very rare at La Scala. Having been involved with the evening myself, for the backstage streaming, I appreciate how much work goes in to bringing it all together – just organising the scores for the orchestra is a major undertaking – but the audience was more than appreciative… “Please, sir, I want some more”.

Lucia Lacarra – Marlon Dino
Light Rain – Pas de deux
Choreography by Gerald Arpino
Music by Douglas Adams and Russ Gauthier

Melissa Hamilton – Claudio Coviello
Manon – Pas de deux – Act I
Choreography by Kenneth MacMillan
Music by Jules Massenet

Maria Eichwald – Mick Zeni
La rose malade
Choreography by Roland Petit
Music by Gustav Mahler

Alina Somova – Leonid Sarafanov
Grand Pas Classique
Choreography by Victor Gsovsky
Music by Daniel-François Auber

Polina Semionova – Roberto Bolle
Carmen – Pas de deux
Choreography by Roland Petit
Music by Georges Bizet

Svetlana Zakharova
The Dying Swan
Choreography by Mikhail Fokine
Music by Camille Saint-Saëns

Nicoletta Manni – Ivan Vasiliev
Don Quixote
Grand Pas de deux, Act III
Choreography by Marius Petipa
Music by Ludwig Minkus

Lucia Lacarra – Marlon Dino
Three Preludes
Choreography by Ben Stevenson
Music by Sergei Rachmaninov
Piano Roberto Cominati

Maria Eichwald – Massimo Murru
Romeo and Juliet – Balcony Pas de deux
Choreography by Kenneth MacMillan
Music by Sergei Prokofiev

Maria Vinogradova – Ivan Vasiliev
Spartacus – Pas de deux
Choreography by Yuri Grigorovich
Music by Aram Khachaturian

Roberto Bolle
Prototype
Concept and choreography
Original music by Piero Salvatori produced by Fausto Dasè
Visual effects and video editing Avantgarde Numerique e Xchanges Vfx Design

Svetlana Zakharova – Leonid Sarafanov
Le Corsaire – Pas de deux
Choreography by Marius Petipa
Music by Riccardo Drigo

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Graham Spicer, aka 'Gramilano', is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.

Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.

He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.

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