La Scala Ballet Season 2023-2024

The new Ballet Season, devised by La Scala's ballet director Manuel Legris, presents seven titles ranging from 19th-century classics such as Coppélia – in a new version by Alexei Ratmansky to open the season – and La Bayadère by Rudolf Nureyev, to the great 20th-century titles such as MacMillan's Manon and Neumeier's La dame aux camélias as well as works by Robbins and Balanchine. There will be the first revival of Madina, a dramatic work by Mauro Bigonzetti and Fabio Vacchi, and works by Garrett Smith, Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, and Simone Valastro will be presented in a contemporary evening.

The opening is a creation, a new Coppélia by Alexei Ratmansky, which will be created at La Scala and continues the collaboration between Ratmansky and La Scala which began in 2012 when the company performed his Concerto DSCH. The work was performed again in 2013 in an all-Ratmansky programme with Russian Seasons and a new commission, Opera. The company has also mounted productions of his Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, though these ballets have recently been taken out of the repertoire to return to the Nureyev versions.

The next programme in the season is a triptych of contemporary works. Legris has chosen choreographers who have already worked with prestigious companies, but never at La Scala. The American choreographer Garrett Smith's Reveal is a work created for the Houston Ballet to music by Philip Glass and has never been performed outside the USA. The famous duo of choreographers, Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, bring one of their most famous pieces, Skew-Wiff, to music by Rossini. Simone Valastro will create a new work, Memento, for a large company of dancers. For Valastro, it will be a return to the theatre where he studied and graduated before continuing his career at the Paris Opéra.

Madina had its debut at a difficult time during the pandemic but will now return to the stage in more tranquil conditions. Roberto Bolle will again be seen in the role of the villain.

Legris brings back three repertoire ballets with revivals of Rudolf Nureyev's La bayadère, with the new sets and costumes by Luisa Spinatelli, Kenneth MacMillan's Manon, and La Dame aux camélias, renewing the company's collaboration with John Neumeier.

Two great maestros are celebrated in a triple bill: George Balanchine, with Theme and Variations, with a new look from Luisa Spinatelli, and Jerome Robbins with Dances at a Gathering and The Concert. These last two works are presented at La Scala for the first time.

Also in the new season will be the Gala Fracci, in its third edition, paying homage to dance in the name of the great étoile. Also in the dance programme is the performance from La Scala's ballet school.

The season will see the return of conductors Paul Connelly, Michele Gamba, Kevin Rhodes and Simon Hewett, and Fayçal Karoui will take the podium for the first time.

COPPÉLIA

Alexei Ratmansky
Teatro alla Scala New Production
World Premiere
Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company and Orchestra
With the participation of the students of the Teatro alla Scala Academy's Ballet School

From 17 December 2023 to 13 January 2024
ON SALE ON 25 OCTOBER 2023 10:00

Choreography — ALEXEI RATMANSKY
Music — LÉO DELIBES
Lights — MARCO FILIBECK
Conductor — PAUL CONNELLY

In brief
Performed for the first time in 1870 at the Opéra de Paris to the splendid music of Léo Delibes, Coppélia is a masterpiece in the world ballet repertoire. There have been many choreographic versions of this title, documented at La Scala since the end of the nineteenth century. Its most recent production for the La Scala Ballet dates back to 2009, but the new Season will open a new chapter in its history, which bears the eminent signature of Alexei Ratmansky.
One of the most sought-after choreographers of our time, he honours La Scala and its Corps de Ballet with the world premiere of a new Coppélia, thus reaffirming his long and stimulating collaboration with our Theatre and its Ballet Company. Featuring completely new scenes and costumes signed by Roberta Guidi di Bagno, Ratmansky's creative sensitivity and vision of this historic ballet will greatly enrich the Ballet Company's repertory.

SMITH/LEÓN AND LIGHTFOOT/VALASTRO

Garrett Smith, Sol León & Paul Lightfoot, Simone Valastro
Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company

From 7 to 18 February 2024
ON SALE ON 31 OCTOBER 2023 10:00

Reveal

Teatro alla Scala New Production
Garrett Smith, coreography
Philip Glass, music
Monica Guerra, costumes
Michael Mazzola, lights

Skew-Whiff

Production AT&T Danstheater, The Hague, 1996
Teatro alla Scala New Production
Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, coreography, sets and costumes
Gioachino Rossini, music
Tom Bevoort, lights

Memento

Teatro alla Scala New Production
World Premiere
Simone Valastro, coreography
Max Richter and David Lang, music
Thomas Mika, sets and costumes
Konstantin Binkin, lights

In brief
New choreographic signatures, new debuts: the European premiere of Reveal, created for Houston Ballet, showcases the style of Garrett Smith, an eclectic dancer and choreographer with a large international following. Of his three “meditative” ballets, Reveal focuses on duality in its many forms, showing the hidden parts of both sides of the coin. Explosive energy, irony and experimentation on movement: this is Skew-Whiff, a special combination of contemporary choreography and classical music, an iconic work by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, a highly original choreographic duo active since 1989, in residence at the Nederlands Dans Theater from 2002 to 2020 with over sixty creations. A graduate of La Scala and a former dancer at the Paris Opéra, with a choreographic career in eminent companies, Simone Valastro, after reprising his duet Árbakkinn, will now make the most of the Company's potential, the strength of the group, and the personality of the soloists in the world premiere of his new creation, Memento.

MADINA

Mauro Bigonzetti
Libretto by Emmanuelle de Villepin based on her novel La ragazza che non voleva morire
Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company, Chorus and Orchestra
Teatro alla Scala production
Commission by Teatro alla Scala and SIAE

From 28 February to 9 March 2024
ON SALE ON 28 NOVEMBER 2023 10:00

Choreography — MAURO BIGONZETTI
Music — FABIO VACCHI
Lights and scenes — CARLO CERRI
Costumes — MAURIZIO MILLENOTTI
Collaborator costume designer — IRENE MONTI
Video designer — CARLO CERRI
Video designer — ALESSANDRO GRISENDI
Video designer — MARCO NOVIELLO
Conductor — MICHELE GAMBA

In brief
After the success of the world premiere, Madina returns to La Scala. This is a new project in both its approach and its hemes, current but universal, and rarely expressed in ballet. The events, based on a true story, revolve around a young girl named Madina who grows up in a land devastated by a war that claims her parents. Driven by her family to carry out a suicide attack in a Western city, she chooses at the last minute not to die and not to kill, and is put on trial. It is a story of ancestral impulses, symbolic places, and the perverse dynamics of self-destructive violence, where good and evil are pitted against each other but also continue to intermix. With choreography by Mauro Bigonzetti and music composed by Fabio Vacchi to the libretto by Emmanuelle de Villepin from her novel La ragazza che non voleva morire, it is a work of both dance and theatre, where words, song, music, and body come together in a synthesis of the traditional and contemporary forms of musical theatre, breaking down the divisions among these different forms of expression.

GALA FRACCI

Third edition
Principals, Soloists and Artists of the Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company
Guest artists
Teatro alla Scala Orchestra

19 April 2024
ON SALE ON 16 JANUARY 2024 10:00

In brief
The tribute by La Scala and its artists to Carla Fracci, who was and remains a cardinal figure in the history of dance, continues in the 2023-2024 Season. Hers is a story of talent, perseverance, and work that has inspired and continues to inspire generations of young people, and not only in the world of ballet.
To honour this legendary étoile, the Ballet Director Manuel Legris has instituted a seasonal gala to celebrate international dance and ballet in her name, and to look beyond the milestones in the repertoire to new and contemporary creativity.

LA SCALA ACADEMY'S BALLET SCHOOL EVENING

Student of the Teatro alla Scala Academy's Ballet School
Teatro alla Scala Academy's Orchestra

18 May 2024
ON SALE ON 13 MARCH 2024 10:00

In brief
Once again this year the young Ballet School students become acquainted with the great masters of the classical, modern and contemporary repertoires. To these aspiring young artists, dancing at the Teatro alla Scala means something more than simply putting their technical and interpretive skills to the test: it means having an educational and professional experience of the highest level on a much dreamed-of stage.

LA BAYADÈRE

Rudolf Nureyev
Libretto by Marius Petipa and Sergej Kudekov
Ballet in three acts
Teatro alla Scala Production
Teatro alla Scala of Ballet Company and Orchestra
With the participation of the students of the Teatro alla Scala Academy's Ballet School

From 26 May to 21 June 2024
ON SALE ON 13 MARCH 2024 10:00

Choreography and Staging — RUDOLF NUREYEV
from — MARIUS PETIPA
Music — LUDWIG MINKUS
Orchestration — JOHN LANCHBERY
Conductor — KEVIN RHODES
Sets and costumes — LUISA SPINATELLI
Lights — MARCO FILIBECK

In brief
Evoking an India of legends, intrigues, and dramatic love, La bayadère is one of the cardinal ballets of the classical repertoire and an expression of the consummate mastery of Marius Petipa. Nureyev's production, the last of his interpretations of the great classics, came to La Scala for the first time in December 2021 with new sets and costumes designed for the occasion by Luisa Spinatelli.
An extraordinary debut for a sumptuous production, rich in virtuosity and variations, which concludes with the third act, a memorable evocation of the classic in the purity of the whiteness of the Kingdom of the Shades, a vision that has embellished the success of this ballet in the West and the brilliant star of Rudolf Nureyev, who both danced in and choreographed this extraordinary ballet.

L'HISTOIRE DE MANON

Kenneth MacMillan
Teatro alla Scala Production
Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company and Orchestra

From 8 to 18 July 2024
ON SALE ON 27 MARCH 2024 10:00

Choreography — KENNETH MACMILLAN
Music — JULES MASSENET
Arrangement and orchestration — MARTIN YATES
Sets and costumes — NICHOLAS GEORGIADIS
Conductor — PAUL CONNELLY

In brief
Manon, a winsome girl with dangerously innocent allure, gives in to the temptation of wealth and becomes calculating and corrupt. For her brother Lescaut she is a bargaining chip, for old Monsieur G. M. she is an object of desire, for the student des Grieux she is pure and simple love.
L'histoire de Manon by Kenneth MacMillan gives new life to the character created by Prévost and popularized through opera, delineating the allure and tragedy of the protagonist and crafting splendid male roles in an exhilarating and engaging ballet, which captivates audiences at the dramatic, psychological, and choreographic levels. Fifty years after its debut, it has lost none of its dramatic and theatrical power.

LA DAME AUX CAMÉLIAS

John Neumeier
Production of the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen
Teatro alla Scala Production
Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company and Orchestra

From 25 September to 16 October 2024
ON SALE ON 05 JUNE 2024 10:00

Choreography and Staging — JOHN NEUMEIER
from the novel by — ALEXANDRE DUMAS FIGLIO
Music — FRYDERYK CHOPIN
Sets and costumes — JÜRGEN ROSE
Lights — JOHN NEUMEIER
Conductor — SIMON HEWETT
Piano — VANESSA BENELLI MOSELL

In brief
Seven years after its last appearance on the La Scala stage, one of the milestones in John Neumeier's choreographic work returns to it. La Dame aux camélias is representative of his predilection for narrative full-evening ballets and his conception of contemporary dramatic ballet. Neumeier turns to the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, written in one go in 1848, a few months after the death of Marie Duplessis, whose story inspired Verdi's Violetta in La Traviata. Set to the ardent notes of Chopin—with an intense and refined choreography, a splendidly crafted, almost Viscontian scenery, and a neoclassical vocabulary—it leads to its dramatic climax through a series of stunning pas-de-deux, grand ball scenes, and powerful numbers for the soloists.

TRITTICO BALANCHINE/ROBBINS

Teatro alla Scala Ballet Company and Orchestra

From 8 to 23 November 2024
ON SALE ON 26 JUNE 2024 10:00

Theme and Variations

Teatro alla Scala New Production
George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust, choreography
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, music
Luisa Spinatelli, sets and costumes

Dances at a Gathering

Teatro alla Scala New Production
Jerome Robbins, choreography
Fryderyk Chopin, music
Holly Hynes, costumes
Jennifer Tipton, lights

The Concert

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma Production
Teatro alla Scala New Production
Jerome Robbins, choreography
Fryderyk Chopin, music
Saul Steinberg, sets
Irene Sharaff, costumes
Jennifer Tipton, lights
Conductor — FAYÇAL KAROUI

In brief
Three twentieth-century classics, three iconic titles for an evening that brings together and celebrates two unrivalled masters of ever-vibrant modernity. George Balanchine's Theme and Variations returns to the stage with wholly new scenes and costumes by Luisa Spinatelli. A concentrated development of the lexicon of classical ballet, this masterpiece of the purest Balanchine style grew out of the intent – as the choreographer himself stated – to evoke the grand period of classical ballet, which flourished in Russia with the help of the music of Tchaikovsky. On the other hand, this will be the first time at La Scala for two of the best-known ballets by Jerome Robbins, both set to piano pieces by Chopin: Dances at a Gathering, a jewel of pure dance, inspired by musical texture and nuances, and The Concert, a wholly unique piece providing a brilliant and witty cross-section of the human fantasy and extravagance of a series of characters at a piano recital.