La Scala's new production of La Bayadère, which was moved from the holiday period to the end of January because of multiple Covid-19 infections among the dancers, has resulted in recasting because of the change of dates.
Svetlana Zakharova, who will now arrive in Milan only for a single performance, will now be dancing with the Bolshoi's newest principal dancer, Jacopo Tissi. Presumably because rehearsal time with her scheduled partner at La Scala will be tight and she is already dancing with Tissi in this period. On Sunday 23 January, the Bolshoi Ballet opens its 2022 cinema season with George Balanchine's Jewels and Zakharova and Tissi will be dancing in Diamonds: www.BolshoiBalletInCinema.com.
Tissi – who trained at La Scala's academy – first danced with Zakharova in Alexei Ratmansky's The Sleeping Beauty in 2015 just before he left Milan for Moscow. He returned to La Scala with the Bolshoi company in 2018 to dance in Yuri Grigorovich's version of La Bayadère when the Bolshoi was on tour.
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.
