Happy 80th Birthday to Luciana Savignano (with video tribute)
Today, Luciana Savignano celebrates her 80th birthday. An étoile at La Scala, she was also a muse for several choreographers, including Maurice Béjart.
“The body must be listened to, and if you are able to pay it attention, as I have always done, it will not betray you”, says Savignano, who still dances today.
She was born in Milan on 30 November 1943, and trained at the Teatro alla Scala ballet school from 1953. After graduating in 1963 she went with a small group of La Scala’s dancers to the Bolshoi to attend an advanced course, and on her return, she joined the corps de ballet of La Scala.
In 1968 Mario Pistoni chose her to star in his ballet Il mandarino meraviglioso, to music by Béla Bartók, and in 1972 Savignano became a principal dancer at the theatre. Three years later, in 1975, she was promoted to étoile.
Savignano worked extensively with the choreographer Maurice Béjart – Boléro, Ce que l’amour me dit, La Voce. She said, “Maurice once wrote to me, ‘The first time I saw you, I thought you came from the highlands of Tibet or the great Mongolian steppe. I saw you dancing and knew then that you were an extraterrestrial. Now that I know you, I know that you are Italian.’”
Her very individual physical characteristics – extraordinarily flexible with a softness and ‘boneless’ quality – led her to feel out of place in a ballet-based school. “It was not always easy as a child at the ballet school. In group photos I would stand to the side shrinking – I was always shy. I was tall and thin, and so different from the others. Yet the peculiarity of my body was my luck, what inspired the creativity of the choreographers. With time, I then realised that shy little girls can become fearless women as they grow up. Even today, I savour the moment before the curtain opens – that absolute silence, before the music starts, is pure ecstasy. When my mother, a smoker, was there, her cough alerted me that she was there to support me. Since she is no longer there, it is as if, in that moment, I feel my energy mounting.”
That ‘shy little girl’ still seems that way at 80 – she is polite, unassuming, and quietly spoken, but she knows her worth and under her gossamer wings is a steely core – a rose, yes, but there are thorns to protect its beauty.
For Savignano, Béjart also created La Luna set to Bach’s Violin Concerto in E major in 1976. La Scala has announced that she will remount the piece for the theatre’s new étoile, Nicoletta Manni, to be performed at the annual Fracci Gala on 19 April 2024.
After Carla Fracci died in 2021, Savignano said, “’She was a colleague whom I held in great esteem. Above all, there was always something to learn from watching the greats and she was another of those dancers who, when they came on stage, were there, like Nureyev.”
In 1995 Savignano began a collaboration with choreographer Susanna Beltrami that continues to this day. For Savignano, Beltrami devised several shows, many with a tango influence including Tango di luna.
Luciana Savignano married a doctor from Turin, Carlo Bagliani, when she was 60 – “I met Carlo just as my mother was dying – like a passing of affection” – who is also quietly spoken and supports her in an unassuming way. Last year, Savignano told the Corriere della Sera newspaper, “I have never mentally observed the categories of different ages… I do what I feel. Labels do not interest me. I live like a 30-year-old, dividing my time between two houses – one in Milan and the other in Turin – a husband, and a dog, my Kalù.”
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
