Video: Carla Fracci and Roberto Bolle dance Le Spectre de la rose, 1998

Shortly before Carla Fracci's 62nd birthday, she and 23-year-old Roberto Bolle went to Toyko for the 14th Toyko Summer Music Festival dedicated to Diaghilev and 20th Century Ballet. The young star had been promoted to principal dancer at La Scala in 1996 and had already embarked on an international freelance career.

On 9 and 10 July 1998 they danced Le Spectre de la rose. I have just uploaded the video of both performances to YouTube.

On the occasion of Bolle's 40th birthday, Fracci said:

I have been very fond of Roberto Bolle for many years… twenty? twenty-five?

We've danced various ballets together and, several years ago, at the World Ballet Festival in Tokyo [sic], we danced a ballet that is emblematic for me, Le Spectre de la rose, which I performed for my diploma on leaving La Scala's Ballet School. It was in March 1955 after a performance of La sonnambula with Maria Callas when I danced it with the great Mario Pistoni. Forty-three years later, in 1998, I danced it with Roberto.

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.