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: