The Ravenna Festival was founded in 1990 by Cristina Mazzavillani Muti, with a rich programme which includes symphonic and chamber music, opera, drama, dance, ballet, musical theatre, jazz, and ethnic music.
It's the perfect location for a summer festival as Ravenna is a stunningly beautiful city, with eight UNESCO World Heritage sites including its stunning gilded basilicas encrusted with the famous ancient mosaics, and also because it only takes only quarter of an hour to drive to the beaches and pine forest.
Opening the festival on 5 June this year was Mazzavillani's husband, Riccardo Muti, conducting the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini with Maurizio Pollini, and closing it on 16 July is Daniele Cipriani's Les Étoiles gala: a mosaic of dance in the city of mosaics.
The dancers come from Korea, France, Italy, Kazakhstan, Russia, Spain, America representing ballet companies also in Hungary and Holland:
Dorothée Gilbert and Hugo Marchand (Paris Opera Ballet)
Jacopo Tissi and Alena Kovaleva (Bolshoi Ballet)
Bakhtiyar Adamzhan (Astana Opera, Kazakhstan)
Tatiana Melnik (Hungarian National Ballet)
Constantine Allen, Anna Tsygankova, Young Gyu Choi and Rebecca Storani (Dutch National Ballet)
Sergio Bernal (Spanish National Ballet)
Les Étoiles
16 July 2019 at 21.30 at the Palazzo Mauro de André
Programme: Les Étoiles, Ravenna 2019
FIRST PART
Diamonds (from “Jewels”)
©The George Balanchine Trust
Choreography George Balanchine
Music Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
with Alena Kovaleva and Jacopo Tissi
Esmeralda
Choreography Marius Petipa (from Jules Perrot)
Music Cesare Pugni
with Dorothée Gilbert and Hugo Marchand
Flames of Paris (pas de deux)
Choreography Vasili Vainonen
Music Boris Asafyev
with Rebecca Storani and Young Gyu Choi
Le Corsaire (pas de deux Act II)
Choreography Marius Petipa
Music Riccardo Drigo
with Tatiana Melnik and Bakhtiyar Adamzhan
Zapateado de Sarasate
Choreography Antonio Ruiz Soler
Music Pablo de Sarasate
with Sergio Bernal
Swan Lake (Black Swan pas de deux, Act III)
Choreography Marius Petipa
Music Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
with Anna Tsygankova and Constantine Allen
INTERVAL
SECOND PART
The Swan
Choreography Ricardo Cue
Music Camille Saint-Saëns
with Sergio Bernal
Amovéo
Choreography Benjamin Millepied
Music Philip Glass
Costumes Benjamin Millepied and Paul Cox
with Dorothée Gilbert and Hugo Marchand
Diana and Actaeon (pas de deux)
Choreography Agrippina Vaganova
Music Riccardo Drigo
with Rebecca Storani and Young Gyu Choi
Duet
Choreography Christopher Wheeldon
Music Maurice Ravel
with Anna Tsygankova and Constantine Allen
Grand Pas Classique
Choreography Victor Gsovsky
Music Daniel Auber
with Alena Kovaleva and Jacopo Tissi
Don Quixote (pas de deux, Act III)
Choreography Marius Petipa
Music Ludwig Minkus
with Tatiana Melnik and Bakhtiyar Adamzhan
Défilé
Music Riccardo Drigo
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.
