António Casalinho (winner of this year’s Prix de Lausanne, as well as Varna and YAGP) talks about becoming a dancer, his teachers and his parents (+ photo album)
Tenors Michael Spyres and Lawrence Brownlee celebrate the star singers of Rossini’s time in a new album, Amici e Rivali (Friends and Rivals). The disc features arias, duets, and trios from seven of the composer’s operas, written between 1815 and 1826: Il barbiere di Siviglia, Otello, Armida, La donna del Lago, Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra, Le Siège de Corinthe, and Ricciardo e Zoraide.
There are also two guests on the disc – the Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught and the young Spanish tenor Xabier Anduaga. The recording was made at the artistic home of conductor Corrado Rovaris and I Virtuosi Italiani, the Teatro Ristori in Verona.
Except for Il barbiere which premiered in Rome, all the works represented on Amici e Rivali have their roots in Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Although Le Siège de Corinthe was written for Paris
I’ve interviewed The Royal Ballet’s principal ballerina Yasmine Naghdi several times over the past five years. The first time, she was a soloist and preparing to debut as Juliet with Matthew Ball as Romeo. The last time was 18-months ago, a few months after her debut in Swan Lake, a role she was scheduled to reprise this spring, but then The Royal Opera House closed its doors.
She is currently on holiday in my adopted homeland, Italy. However, while I’m in the north by the Ligurian Sea, Yasmine and her Italian boyfriend are in Puglia, the heel of Italy’s boot. I spoke to her via Skype in early May and asked her whether she was with him in lockdown.
“We’re in quarantine in our flat. I think when we last spoke, it must have been early on in our relationship. We’re now coming up to two years together
The Royal Ballet’s Argentinian principal dancer, Marianela Nuñez, is in lockdown in Buenos Aires. She went there to be near her family and partner, because now home, for Nela, is London, which also happens to be home to her beloved company at The Royal Opera House.
We caught up via Skype in June: I was in my office in Milan, and Nela was 11,000 km away, sitting against an orange wall which steadily turned maroon then almost black as the day drew in.
Lockdown in Argentina! How’s that working out?
It’s very strict here. We started lockdown at the same time as England, pretty much – I know you in Italy started earlier. There were only a few cases, but obviously here there are more difficulties compared to Europe, and they were worried that the health system would collapse.
On 14 March 2020, The Royal Ballet’s principal dancer Lauren Cuthbertson was dancing Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre… two days later a message arrived: The Royal Opera House was closing.
Everyone who has followed The Royal Ballet in rehearsal during World Ballet Day or watched the interval clips and interviews during the intervals of the company’s live cinema relays will know Christopher Carr. The Royal Ballet’s Guest Principal Ballet Master isn’t afraid of raising his voice, clapping his hands loudly and stamping the floor with…
Canadian dancer Shale Wagman turned 19 last May. Soon after he was guesting at the Mariinsky Theatre. What’s more, it was his first time dancing a principal role. Ever. Last season – his first as a professional dancer – he was dancing with English National Ballet’s corps de ballet, part of his prize after winning the Prix de Lausanne when he was 17, last year.
In an interview, before several appearances in the Italian peninsula over the next two months, Sergei Polunin said, I deeply believe in love. It’s a universal feeling; everyone wants to love and be loved. Today, I see a separation between men and women with too much aggressivity and competition between the sexes. For me, if…
Jakub Józef Orliński is the new countertenor name to add to an ever-growing roster of artists who are selling discs and selling out concert halls in this once rarefied area of the vocal arts.
Italian ballet dancer Francesco Gabriele Frola has been promoted to Principal Dancer of the National Ballet of Canada and, at the same time, has become Principal at English National Ballet. Dance is in his DNA. His parents, both former dancers, run a dancing school, Professione Danza, in Parma, the city where Gabriele spent the first…
Anna Netrebko, soon after her performances of Andrea Chénier at La Scala, talked about her son, his autism and the abandonment by his father, bass-baritone Erwin Schrott. When I realized that Tiago was a child who was different from the others I was desperate. My best friend’s son had the same problem, though his condition…
A new song cycle exploring the realities of life as a black man in America will receive its world premiere performance with Opera Philadelphia tonight, then in Chicago at the DuSable Museum of African American History on 22 February, and the Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall on 24 April. Cycles of My Being is commissioned…
Opera singing is a high-wire profession. Only the most tone-deaf will not wince when a note is off. It is all too obvious when part of a role lies too high or too low, or, indeed, hovers too much around the centre of the voice for a particular singer. Audiences reach out in empathy when…
Swan Lake ‘in the round’ has been performed for 7 seasons at the Royal Albert Hall since its conception in 1997, so this year marks its 20th anniversary. It has also been seen in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide to record breaking attendances for ballet in Australia. In all, Derek Deane‘s Swan Lake has been…
Q&A When did you start singing? In the crib. Apparently, I was a very vocal baby … no seriously, I already sang as a child. Why did you start singing? I loved tunes and music always made sense to me. Which singer inspired you most when you were young? Frank Sinatra. Which singer do you…
Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni will make his house debut at La Scala in 2017 as Leporello. It will be only the second opera he has sung in Italy. The performances of Don Giovanni are just before his 42nd birthday. Astonishing: a prophet is not without honour save in his own country. I grew up musically outside…
‘Being injured is part of our job, it happens, we will get back stronger!’ That’s what we say when we try to sweet talk ourselves and make it ok. But it always hurts. Being injured means dealing with letting go what you love. Its sounds really dramatic, I know… but it is. Of course, one…
In 2007, I entered the stage as Romeo and I honestly thought that I was living the dream. I was on the Royal Opera House stage dancing alongside one of the world’s greatest ballerinas, Alina Cojocaru. I had been in the company for two years at this point and I was trying to learn as…
To get an insider’s view of dance-related injuries, some leading dancers talked to Gramilano about their experiences – how they coped both physically and mentally – and gave advice to help keep a dancer injury-free. Principal dancers from the world’s top companies took time out to share some unpleasant memories in the hope that their…
When Renata Scotto made her début in I vespri siciliani at La Scala to open the theatre’s season on 7 December 1970, one of the singers that she admired the most was in the theatre. Maria Callas had opened the season with the same opera 19 years previously, and was now sitting in the box…
The indefatigable Maina Gielgud is a freelance stager, guest teacher and coach. In 1983, two years after leaving her successful and varied career as a dancer, she became Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet, where she stayed for a remarkable fourteen years. It was the beginning of a long second career in company administration and…
The audiences laugh, sometimes the dancers laugh, but getting a dozen or so male dancers on pointe through more than one hundred performances a year is no laughing matter. Being a Trock is a serious business. I talked to three of the Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo company – Alberto Pretto from Italy, Chase…
Q&A When did you start singing? I don’t remember exactly when… Why did you start singing? Because it felt good. Which singers inspired you most when you were young? ABBA. Which singer do you most admire? The great mezzosopranos. What’s your favourite role? There is not a favourite, I love them when I am doing…
Vittorio Grigolo is not normal. While no artist is normal – and some are downright strange – Grigolo is something of an eccentric, both onstage (just look at that marvellous baroque bowing he does) and off. Here’s an extract from an interview with Italy’s Io Donna magazine which begins in a toy shop on the outskirts…
Dancing, like acting and singing, often runs in the family. There are countless dancers whose parents danced: Zenaida Yanowsky (Royal Ballet), Yury Yanowsky (Boston Ballet) and Nadia Yanowsky (Het Nationale Ballet) are the children of Russian ballet dancer Anatol Yanowsky and Spanish ballet dancer Carmen Robles. Ballet’s in their blood. What makes the Khan-MacKay family special is that…
Vadim Muntagirov on his love of horror films, basketball, admiration of Sergei Vikulov, dislike of doing the dishes, and his motto: “Be nice.”
When Roberto Bolle popped out and in of the closet four years ago internet forums and gossip rags foamed at the mouth. Openly gay ballet dancers, like openly gay actors and singers, are few and far between. In 2005, after the British Navy introduced an advertising campaign aimed at recruiting gay men, Colin Richardson wrote in…
Q&A When did you start singing? I can’t ever remember I time when I didn’t sing. Why did you start singing? I can’t remember the first “why” but there exists now a definite need to do it. Which singer inspired you most when you were young? Barbra Streisand. Which singer do you most admire? Ella…
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