This morning, Frédéric Olivieri, director of La Scala's ballet company, announced the theatre's 2019-2020 season:

Sylvia

14 December 2019 – 14 January 2020

Music: Léo Delibes
Choreography: Manuel Legris based on Louis Mérante and others
Story and libretto: Manuel Legris and Jean-François Vazelle based on Jules Barbier and Jacques de Reinach
Sets and costumes: Luisa Spinatelli
Assistant for sets and costumes: Monia Torchia
Lighting: Jacques Giovanangeli

Conductor: Kevin Rhodes

New production Teatro alla Scala; Coproduction with Wiener Staatsballett

Wiener Staatsballet, Sylvia, photo Ashley Taylor 01

Wiener Staatsballet, Sylvia, photo Ashley Taylor 02

The ballet first appeared on the stage of the Paris Opera in 1876. Continuing in the French tradition, Manuel Legris created in his version in 2018 for the Vienna State Ballet, coproduced with La Scala. It will be the ballet that opens the season on 14 December with a preview performance for young people, followed by the official opening on 17 December 2019. The production is designed by Luisa Spinatelli who designed La Scala's new production of Le Corsaire.

Serata van Manen – Petit

24 January – 8 February 2020

Adagio Hammerklavier

Music: Ludwig van Beethoven, Adagio from Piano Sonata No. 29
Choreography: Hans van Manen
Sets and costumes: Jean-Paul Vroom
Lighting: Jan Hofstra

Kammerballett

Music: Kara Karayev, John Cage, Domenico Scarlatti
Choreography: Hans van Manen
Sets and costumes: Keso Dekker
Lighting: Joop Caboort

Sarcasmen

Music: Sergei Prokofiev, Sarcasmes Op. 17
Choreography and costumes: Hans van Manen
Lighting: Jan Hofstra
New production

Le combat des anges

Music: Gabriel Fauré, Elégie Op. 24 for cello and piano
From Roland Petit's ballet Proust, ou les intermittences du coeur
pas de deux Morel et Saint Loup
Remounted by Luigi Bonino

Le jeune homme et la mort

Music: J S Bach, Passacaglia in C minor  582
Choreography: Roland Petit
Remounted by Luigi Bonino
Story by Jean Cocteau
Sets: Georges Wakhevitch
Costumes: Karinska
Lighting: Jean-Michel Désiré

Étoile Roberto Bolle (24, 25, 28, 31 January)

Adagio Hammerklavier, Het Nationale Ballet, photo Hans Gerritsen

Hans van Manen photo Erwin Olaf

Le combat des anges, photo Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala

Roland Petit at La Scala, photo Marco Brescia, Teatro alla Scala

Continuing the project of chamber ballets at La Scala is this programme with five pieces by Hans van Manen and Roland Petit. Sarcasmen and Kammerballett are being performed at La Scala for the first time.

Madina

22 March – 16 April 2020

Music: Fabio Vacchi
Story by Emmanuelle de Villepin taken from her book La ragazza che non voleva morire
Choreography: Mauro Bigonzetti
Lighting and sets: Carlo Cerri
Costumes: Maurizio Millenotti

Étoile Roberto Bolle (22, 24 March; 1, 2, 16 April 2020)

Conductor: Michele Gamba

Narrator: Filippo Timi

World premiere Teatro alla Scala

Fabio Vacchi

Mauro Bigonzetti

Madina is a new musical and choreographic creation on universal themes, rarely touched on in ballet. With choreography by Mauro Bigonzetti and a specially written score by Fabio Vacchi based on Emmanuelle de Villepin's novel The Girl Who Did Not Want to Die.

The young Madina, a kamikaze but not by choice, chooses not to kill and does not want to die. A work abundant with mixed feelings and hope for change, of ancestral impulses, symbolic places, and the perverse dynamics of violence that kills itself, where good and evil are opposed but continue to mingle.

Romeo and Juliet

29 April – 15 May 2020

Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Choreography: Kenneth MacMillan
Sets: Mauro Carosi
Costumes: Odette Nicoletti
Lighting: Marco Filibeck
Conductor: Felix Korobov

Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet returns in the production created for La Scala in 2010 by Mauro Carosi and Odette Nicoletti. It will be accompanied by the Orchestra of the La Scala Academy conducted by Felix Korobov.

Performance by the Ballet School of the La Scala Academy

28 May – 21 June 2020

Présentation
Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 23
From an idea by Frédéric Olivieri

Prometeo
Music: Ludwig Van Beethoven, The Creatures of Prometheus (Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus), Op. 43
Choreography: Heinz Spoerli
World premiere Teatro alla Scala
Conductor: Theodor Guschlbauer

The 200-year-old ballet school brings to La Scala's stage a new work by Heinz Spoerli to the only ballet Beethoven wrote, Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus. 2020 marks the 250 anniversary of the composer's birth.

Swan Lake

24 June – 9 July 2020

Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Choreography: Rudolf Nureyev from Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov
Sets: Ezio Frigerio
Costumes: Franca Squarciapino
Conductor: Michail Jurowski

With the French director, Frédéric Olivieri, back at the helm of La Scala's corps de ballet, it's out with the Alexei Ratmansky and a return to Nureyev's production. It is to be hoped that both productions can coexist. This version was first mounted at La Scala in 1990.

La Dame aux camélias

18 – 30 September 2020

Music: Frédéric Chopin
Choreography: John Neumeier
Sets and costumes: Jürgen Rose (Staatsoper Stuttgart 1978)
Lighting: John Neumeier
Étoiles Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle (18, 23, 26, 29 September 2020)
Conductor: Theodor Guschlbauer

La Dame aux camélias with Roberto Bolle, photo by Brescia, Teatro alla Scala

La Dame aux Camélias, with Roberto Bolle and Svetlana Zakharova, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2017

La Dame aux Camélias, with Timofej Andrijashenko and Nicoletta Manni, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2017

La Dame aux camélias with Svetlana Zakharova

One of John Neumeier's most representative pieces, La Dame aux Camélias, shows his fondness for the narrative ballet. On the podium, Theodor Guschlbauer, an expert in the French repertoire, returns to conduct the Orchestra of the La Scala Academy.

The Nutcracker

3 – 20 October 2020

Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Choreography: George Balanchine
Sets and costumes: Margherita Palli
Lighting: Marco Filibeck
Conductor: Felix Korobov

George Balanchine's The Nutcracker®, Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018 02

George Balanchine's The Nutcracker®, Nicola Del Freo as Sugar Cane, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine's The Nutcracker®, Samuele Berbenni as Mother Ginger, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine's The Nutcracker®, Martina Arduino as Dewdrop, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

This new production of Balanchine's The Nutcracker opened the current ballet season. Felix Korobov returns to the podium conducting the Orchestra of the La Scala Academy.

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.