James Hobley, first known to the general public as a Britain’s Got Talent finalist in 2011, has graduated from English National Ballet School and has a contract to start his professional career with Scottish Ballet. I wrote about his story three years ago, because it is extraordinary and reads like a fable. Here is the […]
Rome Opera Ballet
Interview with ENB Principal Isaac Hernandez : I’m dreaming of seeing real change
It was a strange feeling that all the work a person can do in their lifetime, seven days a week of dedicating your life, goes out the window and is not even mentioned, is put aside for a headline. It was shocking. Is that how quickly it goes? English National Ballet Lead Principal Isaac Hernandez […]
Italian ballerina Elisabetta Terabust has died in Rome at 71
The magnificent Italian ballerina Elisabetta Terabust died in Rome this morning, 5 February, at her home near the Campo de’ Fiori, after a long illness. She was just 71. She became a Principal Dancer at the Rome Opera ballet in 1966 and an Etoile in 1972. She worked extensively with the Royal Festival Ballet (now […]
Dance Oscars 2017 are awarded in Rome
The ceremony for the first edition of the Oscar della Danza has been held at Cinecittà World in Rome. In Italy, there are the David di Donatello awards for cinema, the Italian Musical Awards, the Franco Abbiati awards for opera, Premio Le Maschere for theatre, and many for literature, but the various dance awards — […]
Nutcracker in Milan – Bouder and Macario open tomorrow night
There is a rare opportunity to see Amedeo Amodio and Emanuele Luzzati’s glorious Nutcracker which has been dusted down and is ready to conqueror Italian ballet-goers once again. The famous production is from 1989, when Elisabetta Terabust and Vladimir Derevianko created the roles of Clara and Prince. At the Arcimboldi Theatre in Milan on 2 and […]
Amodio and Luzzati’s Nutcracker and Coppélia once again go on tour
One of the most charming and winning productions of The Nutcracker seen in Italy during the last fifty years, was created for the relatively small company AterBalletto. The company is now known as a contemporary group (it was transformed as such by former Artistic Director Mauro Bigonzetti, whose works dominated its programming from 1997); however, […]
Passion, Love, Life… InternationBalLET makes its debut in Italy
InternationBalLET has arrived in Italy for two performances of its programme Passion, Love, Life… The newly-formed group is made up of dancers from the Hungarian State Ballet in Budapest but, remarkably, six of the twelve dancers are Italian, underlining something that this Italian-based blog has held to be true for a long time: Italians dance, […]
Carla Fracci gives her first ever masterclass… Giselle
After years of refusing offers from all over the world to share her intimate knowledge of the characters she has portrayed, Carla Fracci has agreed to give her first masterclass. The Ecole Superieure de Danse de Cannes-Mougins Rosella Hightower, one of the world’s leading professional dance schools, has managed to persuade Fracci to share some […]
Carla Fracci is the ‘white lilac lady’ in Moscow tonight
Carla Fracci will perform in Moscow this evening in Lilacs, part of an evening dedicated to Sergei Rachmaninov. The concisely named Moscow State Musical Folklore Theatre Russkaya Pesnya (Russian Song), will host Mystery of the Ballet. Italian pianist Gregorio Nardi enters holding some white lilacs and offers them to Fracci who recites Ekaterina Beketova’s […]
Carla Fracci 79 (today) to Roberto Bolle 40
Today Carla Fracci turns 79∗ and during August, she has been performing once again. Roberto Bolle is half her age and at 40 shows no sign of ending his career on stage. In 2007 Bolle famously criticised Fracci – at the time she was the director of the Rome Opera Ballet – saying that it […]
