Interview: Hugo Marchand on bringing French flair to ballet in LA
Ann Haskins spoke with Paris Opera Ballet Étoile Hugo Marchand about bringing ballet to Los Angeles’ Disney Hall.
Ann Haskins spoke with Paris Opera Ballet Étoile Hugo Marchand about bringing ballet to Los Angeles’ Disney Hall.
Graham Spicer sees the Milanese edition of Daniele Cipriani’s Les Étoiles gala and enjoyed its varied offerings, with Natalia Osipova and Aurélie Dupont stepping in at the last minute.
Les Étoiles, the well-known gala format seen across Italy, returns to the Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan this weekend – on 11 April at 9 pm and on 12 April at 5 pm.
English National Ballet’s 2026-2027 season “opens up the possibilities of ballet, offering more ways to discover, feel and engage with ballet, on stage and beyond”.
Matthew Paluch sees Paris Opera Ballet in Notre-Dame de Paris and was appreciative, but not affected by Roland Petit’s ballet.
Graham Spicer sees The Royal Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet at the Nervi Festival, with the London company pulling aces out of its sleeve.
The Nervi International Ballet Festival 2025 opens on Saturday 28 June 2025 in Genoa with top companies offering starry casts.
Graham Spicer sees Rudolf Nureyev’s The Nutcracker at La Scala – some odd dramatic choices but the company has never looked so good.
Matthew Paluch sees the Programme B gala at the 17th World Ballet Festival in Tokyo with 33 of the world’s top dancers.
Matthew Paluch sees the Programme A gala at the 17th World Ballet Festival in Tokyo with 33 of the world’s top dancers.
Guest author Matthew Paluch sees Mayerling at The Royal Opera House with Marcelino Sambé and Francesca Hayward – a night full of dazzling performances.
Guest author Jonathan Gray sees four performances of Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling in London and Paris.
The Paris Opera Ballet returns to international touring, performing two performances at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
In his book, Paris Opera Ballet étoile Hugo Marchand wanted to show the difficulties of a career that is a minefield of emotional and physical danger.
Italy’s DANZA&DANZA magazine has announced its prize winners for 2020 with artists and productions from Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Opéra de Paris and Finnish National Ballet.
Dance programming for the festive period from companies all over the world are many: free, subscription and pay-per-view. Here are some that have caught my eye.
Free streaming of the all-male dance gala Duets and Solos from the Luciano Pavarotti Municipal Theatre in Modena on 6 December at 8pm
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:
The first live dance event in Italy took place at the Nervi International Festival of Ballet and Music, opening the two-week festival in Nervi’s coastal park with a backdrop to the stage of palm trees and sea.
The idea for the evening of dance, called Duets and Solos, came from Daniele Cipriani, the Italian dance impresario, who, while watching couples sitting close together while eating in restaurants as Rome reopened after the lockdown, thought that the same would be possible for dancers – households can remain together. Silvia Azzoni and Alexander Ryabko from Hamburg Ballet, and Iana Salenko and Marian Walter from Berlin, are offstage couples and were therefore allowed to dance together. Salenko and Walter had their two children with them so, in theory, a pas de quatre would have been permitted. They were joined by Hugo Marchand from the Paris Opéra Ballet, Matteo Miccini from Stuttgart, and the Spanish dancer Sergio Bernal.
Music was provided by the brilliant 26-year-old Italian pianist
After theatres were forced to close their doors three months ago, in Italy there is some tentative nudging to open them creating a chink of hope.
As with the Arena in Verona, Pesaro and other summer Festivals that are putting on concerts or semi-staged presentations, Daniele Cipriani’s dance gala for the Ravenna Festival is a sign that art and artists are still with us.
Dorothée Gilbert and Hugo Marchand (Paris Opera Ballet), Jacopo Tissi and Alena Kovaleva (Bolshoi Ballet), Bakhtiyar Adamzhan (Astana Opera, Kazakhstan), Tatiana Melnik (Hungarian National Ballet), Constantine Allen, Anna Tsygankova, Young Gyu Choi and Rebecca Storani (Dutch National Ballet), Sergio Bernal (Spanish National Ballet) Daniele Cipriani’s galas, Les Étoiles, have become staples of the ballet stars’ calendar with top names participating from Russia,…
The Ravenna Festival was founded in 1990 by Cristina Mazzavillani Muti, with a rich programme which includes symphonic and chamber music, opera, drama, dance, ballet, musical theatre, jazz, and ethnic music. It’s the perfect location for a summer festival as Ravenna is a stunningly beautiful city, with eight UNESCO World Heritage sites including its stunning…
Last night, on the Bolshoi’s Historical Stage, the recipients of the Benois de la Danse prizes for 2017 were announced. Crystal Pite won the prize for Best Choreographer for The Seasons’ Canon, commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet. Of the six nominated ballerinas, Ludmila Pagliero was awarded for her performance in Jerome Robbins‘ Other Dances…
End of content
End of content