The Intendant at Rome Opera, Carlo Fuortes, and the director of the opera house's ballet company, Eleonora Abbagnato, together with theatre employees, today inaugurated the Sala Elisabetta Terabust, the main ballet rehearsal room, formerly known as Sala Ballo A.
Virginia Raggi, Rome's mayor, said,
Elisabetta Terabust, a woman with a strong personality, was appreciated throughout the world for the excellence of her dancing, her uniqueness, and the emotion she gave in each performance.
Terabust studied at the ballet school of Rome Opera Ballet, joining the corps de ballet after her graduation, and becoming a principal dancer with the company in 1966 and an étoile in 1972.
In 1973 she embarked on her international career, working extensively with the London Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet) and later joined Roland Petit's Ballet de Marseille. Her partners included Erik Bruhn, Rudolf Nureyev, Patrice Bart, Michail Baryshnikov, Fernando Bujones, Patrick Dupond, Vladimir Derevianko, and Paolo Bortoluzzi, but it was with Peter Schaufuss that she danced extensively and their relationship continued beyond the stage.
In 1990 she became director of Rome Opera's ballet school and the company. She headed the company at La Scala twice (from 1993 to 1997 and again from 2007 to 2009), as well as the company in Florence, the corps de ballet of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (from 2000 to 2002) and the ballet company of Teatro San Carlo in Naples (from 2002 to 2006).
The Mayor added,
Being that Elisabetta took her first dance steps right here at the Rome Opera House, naming this room after her was something the city of Rome had to do. It is a homage to the talent of an artist who never feared to confront major challenges and had the talent to communicate emotion to everyone.
Fuortes said,
The passing of Elisabetta Terabust was an artistic and human loss for the dance world and for our theatre. Today we want, with this ceremony and naming this room after her, to remember her forever and to bring her name constantly into the minds of new generations of dancers.
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.
