La Scala 2021-2022 Ballet Season
Manuel Legris ballet season for La Scala 2021-2022 consists of ten titles, including new works, debuts for La Scala, and five repertoire titles.
Carla Fracci
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news | dance | obituaries
Luciana Novaro, Italian ballerina who danced with Massine and Lifar, dies at 98
Luciana Novaro, a hugely important figure in Italian ballet, died on 26 May at 98. She was a principal dancer at La Scala, its director, and a choreographer.
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La Scala pays tribute to Carla Fracci
La Scala’s director Dominique Meyer and the director of the theatre’s ballet company Manuel Legris pay tribute to Carla Fracci.
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news | dance | obituaries
Remembering Carla: ballet legend Carla Fracci dies at 84
Carla Fracci has died after a long illness which she successfully masked until recently. I offer some personal insights of my friend and an obituary.
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Alessandra Ferri and Massimo Murru give Manon masterclasses from La Scala
Before the gala from La Scala that includes a pas de deux from Manon, Ferri and Murru coach the roles of Manon and Des Grieux.
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[Photo Album] La Scala’s ballet company in docuseries and World Dance Day
La Scala’s dancers are featured in a new fly-on-the-wall documentary series filmed over the last six months. There’s also a ballet class for World Dance Day.
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A Covid-free La Scala to stream its gala ‘A Tribute to Nureyev’
After Covid delayed the filming of La Scala’s Tribute to Nureyev gala, it has been filmed and will be streamed on 28 March. (The post contains a gallery of photos from the gala)
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Patrick Dupond, much-loved ballet star, dies at 61
Patrick Dupond has died after a “devastating illness” – he was 61. His collaborator Leïla Da Rocha said, “Patrick Dupond flew away this morning to dance with the stars.”
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Tribute to Nureyev – free ballet gala streaming from La Scala
A Tribute to Rudolf Nureyev from La Scala in Milan can be seen on Sunday 28 February at 20.00 CET
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Filming starts on “Carla”, a biopic of the young Carla Fracci
Shooting has begun on the film for television, Carla, a biopic on the early life of Carla Fracci.
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Giselle: free streamed performance from La Scala with two casts
Giselle from La Scala on 30 January, at 20.00 CET and available for two days. It’s offered to viewers worldwide via the state television’s RaiPlay
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Online: Carla Fracci gives two Giselle masterclasses from La Scala
Carla Fracci works with La Scala’s dancers on Thursday 28 January and Friday 29 January in streaming.
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Carla Fracci and Manuel Legris’ Giselle masterclass from La Scala online
La Scala will stream a new recording of Giselle on 30 January. Carla Fracci will join Manuel Legris in working with the company dancers.
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Nureyev on staging the “ballet of ballets” The Sleeping Beauty
Rudolf Nureyev first staged Sleeping Beauty at La Scala in Milan and on 22 September 1966 the curtain went up on La Bella addormentata nel bosco with sets and costumes by Nicholas Georgiadis. Nureyev was Prince Florimund and Aurora was Carla Fracci.
In 1989, Nureyev said,
“When I was first learning to dance in Ufa, my ballet master, who had belonged to the Kirov ballet, used to tell me that Sleeping Beauty was the “ballet of ballets”. And I couldn’t wait to try it. It was with the Kirov ballet that I later discovered what a glorious delight it was.” -
[Review] Beethoven’s ballet The Creatures of Prometheus with striking Capucci costumes
Italian producer Daniele Cipriani seems to be resuscitating dance in Italy almost singlehandedly. The first main dance event in the country was conceived by him and presented in mid-July to open the Nervi Festival. It featured Hugo Marchand, Iana Salenko, Sergio Bernal and many other dancers with an international career, who flew into Genoa to dance for the first time after the four-month imposed break. Cipriani is presenting various socially-distanced galas during July and August, but he is also responsible for a coproduction between the Nervi Festival – organised by Genova’s Teatro Carlo Felice – and the Spoleto Festival, with live music from a (socially-distanced) orchestra playing Beethoven’s only ballet score, The Creatures of Prometheus.
The 1801 work was a collaboration with Italian dancer and choreographer Salvatore Viganò. The original scenario of the ballet no longer exists, but a theatre programme for the Viennese premiere gives an idea of the structure:
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American Ballet Theatre: Together Tonight – an 80th Anniversary YouTube celebration
May 2020 was to have been a special month for the American Ballet Theatre – the time to celebrate its 80th anniversary.
American Ballet Theatre – known as Ballet Theatre from 1939 until 1957 – was founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant and its first performance was on 11 January 1940.
Chase was its director, together with Oliver Smith, from 1945 to 1980. Mikhail Baryshnikov took over until 1989. Smith returned with Jane Hermann from 1990 to 1992, when Kevin McKenzie took over as artistic director, a position her still holds.
ABT will present American Ballet Theatre: Together Tonight, a virtual celebration in support of the ABT Crisis Relief Fund on its YouTube Channel…
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dance | music & opera | news
Google Arts & Culture puts thousands of images and documents from La Scala’s archive online
Google Arts & Culture is a non-profit initiative with the tech giant working alongside cultural institutions and artists around the world to bring some of the world’s art and culture online so that it can be accessible to anyone, anywhere.
La Scala Opera House has teamed up with Google Arts & Culture to bring online the largest opera house archive, with images from operas, ballets and concerts, with designs, and scores. Thanks to Google’s Street View – which usually helps you to spy on the new house your friend has bought or find your way around a city centre to find a particular pub – you can wander around La Scala’s auditorium, foyers, stage and corridors.
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[VIDEO] Massenet’s La Cigale with Carla Fracci and Paul Chalmer
A short compilation of clips from the first act of the little known ballet by Jules Massenet: La Cigale. The video was recorded in the Teatro Comunale in Treviso in 1988 and features Carla Fracci and Paul Chalmer.
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[VIDEO] Pas de Quatre with Carla Fracci, Margrethe Schanne, Josette Amiel, and Kirsten Bundgaard 1968
The ballet divertissement Pas de Quatre was choreographed by Jules Perrot in 1845 to music composed by Cesare Pugni, commissioned by Her Majesty’s Theatre in London. It was first seen on 12 July 1845 and was an immediate hit, mainly because it brought together some of the most famous ballerinas of the time: Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Cerrito, and Marie Taglioni. The great Romantic ballerina, Fanny Elssler didn’t wish to take part, so the young Lucile Grahn was the fourth dancer.
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Erik Bruhn and Carla Fracci – Romeo and Juliet, 1966
Erik Bruhn choreographed a version of Romeo and Juliet which he and Carla Fracci danced with the Rome Opera Ballet in 1966. The balcony scene is now on YouTube.
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Marianela Nuñez and Roberto Bolle lead a top-notch cast in Onegin at La Scala
John Cranko’s ballet Onegin was brought to La Scala in 1993 as a vehicle for Carla Fracci with Rex Harrington in the title role. It wasn’t, however, Fracci’s first contact with the ballet. Her close ties with Cranko began before he became the director of the Stuttgart Ballet when she created Juliet in his production…
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dance | news | obituaries
Alberto Testa – Italian dancer, choreographer, teacher and writer – has died at 96
Alberto Testa was a walking encyclopedia of dance, always elegantly dressed with never a hair out of place, and was very much of another time recalling Frederick Ashton with his old-school ways. Although he could be childlike and impish in his humour, he commanded great deference from those who collaborated with him and those who…
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In with the old – La Scala returns to Nureyev’s Sleeping Beauty
If there is a ballet that belongs to La Scala, it’s Rudolf Nureyev‘s production of The Sleeping Beauty, created for the ballet company in 1966 with Carla Fracci and Nureyev in the main roles. It was performed 152 times until 2007, when Tchaikovsky’s score fell silent for eight years until awoken by Alexei Ratmansky when…
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Video: Carla Fracci and Roberto Bolle dance Le Spectre de la rose, 1998
Shortly before Carla Fracci‘s 62nd birthday, she and 23-year-old Roberto Bolle went to Toyko for the 14th Toyko Summer Music Festival dedicated to Diaghilev and 20th Century Ballet. The young star had been promoted to principal dancer at La Scala in 1996 and had already embarked on an international freelance career. On 9 and 10…
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Interview with Alessandra Ferri: Maturing I find myself smiling more
“I’m enjoying a new chapter in my life having the fortune to play women of my age and not romantic roles like the Giselles, Carmens, Juliets, Manons… all wonderful, but enough, they’re part of another Alessandra. Now I’m a 55-year-old with the knowledge of how extraordinary that is.”
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Ballerina Jacquelin De Min dies at the age of 76
Ballerina Jacquelin De Min has died at the age of 76 at her home in Cannes after a long illness. She began dancing with the ballet company at the Opera House in Strasbourg when she was 16, and soon after with the Gran Ballet du Marquise De Cuevas, followed by the ballet companies in Nice…
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Antipasto to the annual Les Étoiles gala in Rome with Russian and Italian ballet stars
As an antipasto to the annual Les Étoiles gala in Rome — this year a sold out two days, next year there will be three — in the luxurious setting of the Hotel de Russie near the Spanish Steps, there was an intimate reception hosted by the hotel, with a Sergei Diaghilev theme. The event…
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Roberto Fascilla, former étoile at La Scala, dies at 82
Roberto Fascilla died yesterday morning, 23 January 2019, in Milan after a long illness. He entered the corps de ballet at Teatro alla Scala, before finishing its school, when he was just 13, and graduated from La Scala‘s dancing school in 1957. He became a Soloist in 1960, a Principal Dancer in 1963 and was…
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Carla Fracci and the Women’s National Volleyball Team
Carla Fracci, Rosita Missoni (founder, with her husband, of the Missoni fashion house in the 1950s), Marco Tronchetti Provera (Chief Executive of Pirelli), Javier Zanetti (the footballer) and Italy’s Women’s National Volleyball Team were recipients of the prestigious Grande Milano (not to be confused with Gramilano) Award for being Ambassadors for Italy throughout the world….
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Illustrated look at La Scala’s visit to Australia with Don Quixote and Giselle
After almost a month touring China, La Scala’s ballet company popped back to Milan for a run of Manon performances, before popping off to Australia for thirteen performances in Brisbane, from 7 to 18 November. It is the company’s first time in Australia and they are taking two of their most popular productions: Don Quixote…
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