24*, 25, 26, 29 May 2018 Serata Nureyev – An Evening for Nureyev Remembering the 80th Anniversary of Rudolf Nureyev's birth, 25 years after his death with Corps de ballet of La Scala, Director Frédéric Olivieri Étoiles Svetlana Zakharova, Roberto Bolle Guest Artists Marianela Nuñez, Germain Louvet, Vadim Muntagirov Conductor David Coleman Orchestra of the La Scala … [Read more...]
Picasso in Rome, with Diaghilev, Cocteau and Massine: The Ballets Russes and Parade
One hundred years ago, Pablo Picasso lived Rome for two months. It was his first trip to Italy. The Ballets Russes was in town and Picasso was eager to begin work on his designs for Parade, the ballet which would open on 18 May 1917 in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet. Two years previously, Picasso had found himself relatively alone in Paris. His mistress Eva Gouel had died … [Read more...]
Men in Motion at La Versiliana Festival: classics, premières and surprises
The latest incarnation of Ivan Putrov's Men in Motion comes to Italy's La Versiliana Festival. Men in Motion was first presented at Sadler's Wells in 2012 and has since been performed with great success in Moscow and at the Ravenna Festival, Italy. This version, first presented in London at the Coliseum in January of this year, devised by Putrov, is an exploration of the … [Read more...]
100 years after the riot: The Rite of Spring by those who were there
One day, when I was finishing the last pages of The Firebird in St Petersburg [in 1910], I had a fleeting vision… I saw in my imagination a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a single girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring. On 29 May 1913 Igor Stravinsky's vision became reality when The Rite of Spring (Le … [Read more...]
Alex Ross at the grave of Stravinsky
Yesterday I took a vaporetto out to San Michele, the cemetery island of Venice. It was seven-thirty on a Sunday morning, and my only fellow passengers were several elderly people whom I took to be widows and widowers, bearing flowers for their loved ones. I was preparing to pay my respects to Igor Stravinsky, who loved Venice and held the premieres of The Rake's Progress, … [Read more...]