Photo album: Gala Les Étoiles at Ravenna Festival with international ballet stars

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)

Daniele Cipriani's galas, Les Étoiles, have become staples of the ballet stars' calendar with top names participating from Russia, France, the US, Britain, Korea, South America, Spain and so on, representing the Bolshoi, Royal Ballet, ABT, Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, Mariinsky, Mikhailovsky, and many, many more.

Galas can have that karaoke feeling: without those 1980's hits, the evening doesn't feel complete. So, of course, at Ravenna there was Le Corsaire, Swan Lake et al., but most dancers are keen to show another side of their dancing too, and Cipriani is willing to include alternative programming alongside the bonbons that festival organisers and audiences demand.

Therefore, for the closure of the 2019 Ravenna Festival, Dorothée Gilbert and Hugo Marchand from the Paris Opera Ballet danced the Esmeralda pas de deux – with choreography attributed to Marius Petipa and Jules Perrot, though someone else had evidently had a hand in modifying the choreography to something that resembled Don Quixote – but they also offered Benjamin Millepied's charming Amovéo to music by Philip Glass. The Dutch National Ballet's Anna Tsygankova and Constantine Allen danced Christopher Wheeldon's Duet to music from Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major after having been seen as the Black Swan and Seigfreid. There was also Spain's Sergio Bernal performing his crowd-pleasing flamenco (Zapateado de Sarasate by Antonio Ruiz Soler) as well as dancing Ricardo Cue's sensual The Swan (to Saint-Saëns' music, used by Fokine for The Dying Swan).

It was great fun and celebratory, creating the perfect festive feeling for the concluding event of this prestigious six-week festival. From the Martha Graham Company to Police's Stewart Copeland, from Riccardo Muti to the Labèque sisters, from the Hamburg Ballett to Maurizio Pollini this year's festival has been all embracing and of the highest quality – now celebrating its thirtieth year, the Ravenna Festival is one of the most important and exciting cultural events there is.

For most of my time in Ravenna, my eye was glued to the viewfinder of my camera; below is a selection of photos from Les Étoiles at the 2019 Ravenna Festival.

Programme: Les Étoiles, Ravenna 2019

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

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

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

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.