Italy’s Les Étoiles galas arrive in Milan for the first time – from the moon to the stars
Italian producer Daniele Cipriani has been presenting his Les Étoiles galas in Italy and abroad since 2015, the first being in Rome with Svetlana Zakharova, Vyacheslav Lopatin, Marianela Nuñez, and others, with Nuñez becoming something of a regular fixture. The only Italian dancers to appear are those who work with companies abroad (Davide Dato in Vienna, Silvia Azzoni and Alessandro Frola in Hamburg, Matteo Miccini in Stuttgart…).
Odd, then, that Milan has never hosted these étoiles. Now the Cipriani bandwagon arrives in town at Teatro Arcimboldi, the theatre built two decades ago to house La Scala during extensive renovations. It has La Scala’s generous stage dimensions but with far better sightlines as the seating is raked and fans out slightly for its 2,400 spectators.
Billed as a ‘best of’ edition, the programme contains many pieces seen in other cities. Spanish dancer Sergio Bernal, for example (who is a favourite of Les Étoiles) will dance in costumes designed for him by the ‘king of haute couture’, Roberto Capucci. Bernal is both a bailarín (classical dancer) and bailaor (flamenco dancer) and he will exhibit both sides of his dance coin in Milan.
Former Paris Opera Ballet étoile Eleonora Abbagnato will dance the well-known swinging kiss pas de deux from Angelin Preljocaj’s Le Parc – a work created for the Paris Opera in 1994 – with fellow étoile Mathieu Ganio, who stars in the full-length video of the ballet from 2021. It is a ballet close to Abbagnato’s heart and was scheduled for her final performance with POB at the Palais Garnier.
The duo Riva & Repele – the choreographers and dancers Sasha Riva and Simone Repele – always score a success with their performances. They are sometimes touching, sometimes humorous, and often a combination of both, like tragic clowns. They will present one of their idiosyncratic choreographies combining a traditional Irish song with Simon & Garfunkel’s hymn-like 1970 hit, Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Other dancers participating in Milan include several ‘regulars’ as well a couple of new faces: Alessandro Frola (Hamburg Ballet), Catherine Hurlin (American Ballet Theatre), Maia Makhateli (Dutch National Ballet), Matteo Miccini (Stuttgart Ballet), Daniil Simkin (formerly with American Ballet Theatre and Berlin State Ballet), Madoka Sugai (Hamburg). The gala will be performed on two days: the first sees Polina Semionova and Martin ten Kortenaar (Berlin State Ballet) on 29 November, then Olga Smirnova and Jacopo Tissi (Dutch National Ballet) on 30 November.
The programme contains gala favourites – Don Quixote final pas de deux with Madoka and Simkin – but also rarer treats such as the pdd from John Neumeier’s A Cinderella Story with Semionova and Ten Kortenaar, who will also dance the pas from George Balanchine’s Diamonds as well as David Dawson’s On the Nature of Daylight.
Other gala fare includes pas de deux from Il Corsaro (Smirnova/Tissi) and Raymonda (Sugai/Frola). Miccini will dance a solo from Marco Goecke’s Äffi, and Simkin will perform one of his party pieces, Alejandro Cerrudo’s delightful Pacopepluto.
Cipriani says that a gala is “in miniature, a world without borders, a society without barriers of gender or otherwise. The word ‘peace’ today has a dramatic urgency, and the political arena seems unable to find solutions. I may seem like a dreamer, but I try, through dance, to offer the soul a concentration of beauty, convinced that it can ignite a desire for a higher beauty – that of true brotherhood and sisterhood. To paraphrase Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, maybe our small dance steps can somehow become grands jetés for mankind.”
Les Étoiles, Teatro Arcimboldi Milan, 29 and 30 November 2024 at 9pm
Les Étoiles, Sala Santa Cecilia, Rome, 4 January 2025 at 9pm; 5 January at 4.30pm and 9pm
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.
Looks wonderful. Love ballet.