Eleonora Abbagnato brings her Icone della Danza gala to Rome Opera
Daniil Simkin, Lucia Lacarra, Nicoletta Manni and Iana Salenko are among the international stars joining the director of Rome’s ballet company for one night, in a programme running from Balanchine’s Diamonds to Roland Petit’s Cheek to Cheek.
After its debut in Paris, Icone della Danza, the gala conceived and directed by Eleonora Abbagnato, comes to the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma on Monday 26 October at 8.30pm. Abbagnato, an étoile of the Paris Opera and now director of the Rome Opera Ballet and its ballet school, has gathered some of the biggest names in international dance for the evening.
The line-up includes Victor Caixeta, Matthew Golding, Osiel Gouneo, Lucia Lacarra, Maia Makhateli, Nicoletta Manni, Paul Marque, Sae Eun Park, Giorgi Potskhishvili, Iana Salenko and Daniil Simkin.
Abbagnato says the gala grew out of a wish to bring artists of the highest calibre, from the world’s leading companies, to the same stage, sharing with audiences what she calls “the beauty, the emotion and the universal strength of dance”. Bringing it to Rome is personal:
Bringing this gala to the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, where I direct the Corps de Ballet and the Dance School, is a great joy for me and a deeply meaningful moment.
Petit, Neumeier and Preljocaj
Abbagnato opens the evening with Roland Petit’s La rose malade, partnered by Giacomo Castellana to the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. She later dances John Neumeier’s La Dame aux camélias with Gouneo, to Chopin, and the pas de deux from Angelin Preljocaj‘s Le Parc with Marque, to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, K. 488.
She closes the programme with Petit’s Cheek to Cheek to Irving Berlin, alongside Nikita Perotti. The piece is closely tied to her own career: she studied it directly with Zizi Jeanmaire, Petit’s muse and celebrated interpreter.
Classics and contemporary pieces
Caixeta and Makhateli dance the pas de deux from Balanchine’s Diamonds and the balcony scene from Leonid Lavrovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Manni and Marque perform Grand Pas Classique, and Manni also dances the solo from Maurice Béjart’s La Luna.
Simkin and Salenko dance the Le Corsaire pas de deux, and Salenko pairs with Potskhishvili in the Flames of Paris pas de deux. Potskhishvili and Park dance the Don Quixote pas de deux, while Marque and Park perform Frederick Ashton’s Rhapsody.
On the contemporary side, Lacarra and Golding dance Edwaard Liang’s Finding Light and Christopher Wheeldon‘s After the Rain, and Simkin performs Ben Van Cauwenbergh’s Les Bourgeois, to Jacques Brel.
Icone della Danza is a co-production with Enpi Entertainment.
Booking
Icone della Danza, Teatro Costanzi (Teatro dell’Opera di Roma), Monday 26 October 2026, 8.30pm. Tickets €22–€120 from operaroma.it, TicketOne and the Opera’s box office.
