La Scala Ballet’s programme change for the US – with Bolle, Nuñez and Copeland

The previously announced ballet to be performed at California's Segerstrom Center by La Scala's Ballet Company was Mauro Bigonzetti's Cinderella, a ballet created for the opening of La Scala's ballet season in 2015.

Bigonzetti had a short-lived tenure at the helm of the La Scala company: less than ten months, in 2016. His departure because of ill-health – though voices in the theatre corridors indicated other factors may have come in to play – resulted in the substitution of his planned new creation (a Coppélia) for the beginning of the 2016-2017 season with the repertory Romeo and Juliet. Now it seems as though his Cinderella is being dismissed, but no babies are being thrown out with the bathwater here: while his Cinderella was ‘ok', it was hardly a masterpiece.

The substitution at the Segerstrom Center has a certain poetic flair to it. Bigonzetti was at La Scala creating Cinderella when Makhar Vaziev unexpectedly interrupted his contract as head of the ballet company and left for the Bolshoi. La Scala's Intendant, Alexander Pereira, who seems to favour smaller scale, modern ballets, (like those he experienced as director of the Zurich theatre, such as Heinz Spoerli's Cello Suites that Periera brought to La Scala), had much in common with Bigonzetti, who was used to directing the chamber-sized Aterballetto company. A marriage made in heaven, though much of the public and the corps members were soon pushing for divorce.

So now the very traditional Giselle has taken its place, and Roberto Bolle with Misty Copeland will open the three day run, followed by La Scala principals Nicoletta Manni and Claudio Coviello for an afternoon matinee, and then Bolle again with Marianela Nuñez for the remaining two performances.

Nicoletta Manni and Claudio Coviello, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala

Roberto Bolle, photo by Brescia e Armisano, Teatro alla Scala

This will be the first time that La Scala Ballet has visited the United States since July 2001, when it performed at the Center and in New York State Theatre. It brought Sylvie Guillem's production of Giselle and a double-bill of Amarcord and Carmen.

The Company was in the US only twice before the 2001 tour: 1981 (Metropolitan Opera House with four different productions, among them Rudolph Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet and again Giselle with stars that included Nureyev, Carla Fracci and Margot Fonteyn) and in 1986 (Atlanta, St. Louis and San Francisco, with Swan Lake and different double-bills).

The official first appearance of Teatro alla Scala in the US was in 1967 with Verdi's Requiem at Carnegie Hall, under the baton of Herbert von Karajan. From that year until 2001 the theatre made six tours in the US with a total of 74 performances (14 of opera, 54 of ballet, and six concerts).

The production of Giselle that La Scala brings to Segerstrom Hall has been acclaimed during many tours, the most recent being in Oman (2011), Brazil (2012), Hong Kong (2014, inside the Hong Kong Arts Festival, where it was awarded the Best Performance of the Year), in Paris (2015), and then in China (Tianjin, Shanghai and Canton, in 2016).

The La Scala production, with Aleksandr Benois' sets and costumes, features the original Coralli-Perrot choreography in a revival by Yvette Chauviré. Giselle is now staged by the Company as a homage to Chauviré, who died last year. In her version of Giselle, performed at La Scala for the first time in 1950, Chauviré herself starred.

The virtuosity of Giselle consists in making the technique invisible. I studied all choreographic elements, entrances and stage exits and the ‘downtimes' – if they can be called that – between the enchaînements: the floating of the arabesques and the breathing pose of the arms. When I was dancing, my obsession was to make people forget the physicality of the feet and give the feeling of ‘the appearance of a breath.'

July 28 – 30, 2017 in Segerstrom Hall; tickets on sale now

Friday, July 28 at 7:30 p.m.
Misty Copeland (Giselle)
Roberto Bolle (Albrecht)

Saturday, July 29 at 2:00 p.m.
Nicoletta Manni (Giselle)
Claudio Coviello (Albrecht)

Saturday, July 29 at 7:30 p.m.
Marianela Nuñez (Giselle)
Roberto Bolle (Albrecht)

Sunday, July 30 at 1:00 p.m.
Marianela Nuñez (Giselle)
Roberto Bolle (Albrecht)

Ticket holders are invited to attend Free Preview Talks one hour prior to each performance. The Friday, July 28, 2017 Preview Talk will be sign-language interpreted.

Tickets – Start at $29

In person – The Box Office
600 Town Center Drive
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Open 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. daily

Online – SCFTA.org

Phone – (714) 556-2787
Open 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. daily

Group Sales – (714) 755-0236

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.