The Philip Glass triple bill at Rome Opera Ballet showed off three very different choreographic styles to one composer’s music. Glass has a way of seducing the listener into his world —his music is guileful and hypnotising. The mainly minimalist component to his music results in there being a stronger connection with Vivaldi or Bach […]
Eleonora Abbagnato
Rome Opera Ballet presents a Philip Glass Evening featuring a new work with Eleonora Abbagnato and Friedemann Vogel
Rome Opera Ballet presents a Philip Glass Evening, which opens 29 March 2019, and features a new work with the company’s director, Eleonora Abbagnato, and guest artist Friedemann Vogel. The programme offers Benjamin Millepied’s Hearts and Arrows, Jerome Robbins’s Glass Pieces, and Nuit Blanche, a new piece by Sébastien Bertaud with designs by Christian Dior […]
Isaac Hernández answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? I was 8 years old. My father was teaching me in the backyard of our house. Why did you start dancing? We are a big family — 11 children — my parents had only what they knew to offer us at that point and Ballet was that gift. Which dancer […]
Eleonora Abbagnato is confirmed as Director of the Rome Opera Ballet until 2021
Rome Opera has announced that Eleonora Abbagnato, étoile of the Paris Opera Ballet and current Director of the Rome Opera Ballet, will remain in her post until 31 December 2021. Virginia Raggi, the city’s mayor and President of the Rome Opera Theatre Foundation, said, It is something of great pride for our city that we […]
The Sleeping Beauty with Marianela Nuñez and Vladislav Lantratov at the Rome Opera Ballet
Jean-Guillaume Bart, former Étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet, created his version of The Sleeping Beauty for the Yacobson Ballet Theatre in St Petersburg in 2016. His POB colleague Eleonora Abbagnato — currently both an Étoile in Paris as well as director of the Rome Opera Ballet — asked him to adapt it for Rome […]
La Scala’s fired ballerina, and eating-disorder author, Mary Garret on her first year back with the company
In 2016, Mary Garret walked through the artists’ entrance at La Scala, ready to take daily class again with the company that had fired her four years previously. The ballerina Mariafrancesca Garritano, who writes under the name of Garret, wrote a book where she reflected on the nature of stringent diets and the search for […]
Robbins-Preljocaj-Ekman with Eleonora Abbagnato and the Rome Opera Ballet
Eleonora Abbagnato, who became director of the Rome Opera Ballet two years ago (while retaining her position as Étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet, and commitments such as a panel judge for the reality show Amici) has brought several works to the Italian capital that she has danced in the French capital. So it was […]
Introducing Rebecca Bianchi, Rome Opera Ballet’s new Principal ballerina
At the end of The Nutcracker at Rome’s Teatro Nazionale on 20 December last year, 25-year-old Rebecca Bianchi was promoted to Principal Dancer of the Rome Opera Ballet by the theatre’s General Manager, Carlo Fuortes, and the head of the ballet company, Eleonora Abbagnato. It was something I wasn’t expecting and it was very emotional… […]
Nicola Alaimo answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Singers’ Edition
Q&A in italiano When did you start singing? I started singing when I was very young, but seriously in 1996, together with literature and music. I was a 17-year-old full of hopes and dreams that were securely locked away in my heart. Dreams that were not just centred on singing, obviously, and now, at 37, […]
Eleonora Abbagnato on being both an Étoile in Paris and a company director in Rome
I’m happy that the Mayor of Rome, Ignazio Marino, and Sovrintendente Fuortes, have had faith in my passion. My heart has always remained in Italy and this theatre needs people who believe passionately in dance. Eleonora Abbagnato was speaking at a press conference in Rome, her first appearance after her nomination as the Rome Opera Ballet’s […]
