Q&A When did you start dancing? When I was 4 my mother started to teach me dance; my grandfather, as all good Italians, was a lover of art, opera and ballet, so in my family there was always an artistic atmosphere. At 8 I told my mother I wanted to start studying ballet, and so…
After the success La Scala‘s ballet company during their dates in Tokyo – 10,000 people saw the 5 performances of Romeo and Juliet – they now return to Milan with four performances of Swan Lake from 14 to 18 October. This is a continuation of the performances in July, dedicated to Rudolf Nureyev in the…
Those who don’t live in Italy probably don’t know that ballerina Carla Fracci has a younger sister, Marisa, who was also a dancer. No Giselles for Marisa however, as she was a show dancer specialising in television studio work. This was in the ’60s and ’70s when there was real choreography to be seen on…
Good news for dance at La Scala. Cutting down on the budget has meant axing three opera productions, but opera’s loss is ballet’s gain, for the ‘cheaper’ ballet performances have been bumped up from 49 this season to a healthier 61. More guests too will liven up the 2013-2014 season. House fixtures Svetlana Zakharova, Roberto Bolle and Massimo Murru…
Q&A When did you start dancing? At 4 years old. Why did you start dancing? As a child, I was always dancing around the house so it made sense. What’s your favourite role? Giselle. What role have you never played but would like to? I would love to dance the role of Baroness Mary Vetsera in Kenneth…
In three weeks’ time the National Ballet of Canada will arrive at London‘s Sadler’s Wells. After a 26 years away from the capital The Times asked director Karen Kain why: Until this season we hadn’t been anywhere. Basically we didn’t have the repertoire that was allowing us to get the invitations. I knew that part of what I needed…
Q&A When did you start dancing? When I was 13 years old. Why did you start dancing? Because I liked it and in my house it was something normal to see ballet; although first I wanted to be a football or basketball player! Which dancer inspired you most as a child? Fred Astaire, Antonio Gades and Vladimir…
The Kennedy Center Honors award is the nation’s highest honour for those who have influenced American culture through the arts. It comes with a dinner with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and a reception hosted by President Barack Obama. The honourees will be saluted by their fellow artists on 2 December in a show…
What to think of Filippo Timi? After the extraordinary success of his Amleto² (Hamlet squared) comes Giuliett’ e Romeo (a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet). There are just five characters: the Nurse, Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio and Cupid. Yes Cupid – it’s a very loose adaptation. As Cupid, Timi comes on as though Jason Bieber had been styled by…
Italians are great dancers, but they don’t get much opportunity to demonstrate that in their homeland. The history of ballet is adorned with Italian talent: Giuseppina Bozzacchi was the first Swanhilda in Coppélia; three dazzling stars, Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Cerrito, and Marie Taglioni (also the first Sylphide) were celebrated by Perrot in his Pas de Quattre; Pierina Legnani was named Prima Ballerina Assoluta by Petipa…
Romeo and Juliet by Italian choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti was created for his company Aterballetto in 2006, and has received international acclaim ever since. But what a strange bird it is. Exotic and sensual, yes, beautiful to behold, certainly, but the storytelling is vague and, even for a viewer who knows traditional versions of Prokofiev’s ballet…
In today’s Sunday Times, Adam Cooper – ex-Royal Ballet dancer, and currently tip-tapping in the West End – talked about the places where he and his elder brother, Simon, grew up. Until their teens they lived in a ‘poky’ flat in Tooting. The flat was much too small for two energetic boys with a musician father who had…
Q&A When did you start dancing? When I was 6. Why did you start dancing? At first was for fun. Which dancer inspired you most as a child? Alessandra Ferri, Carla Fracci and Pina Baush. Which dancer do you most admire? I admire all dancers for their hard work and passion. What’s your favourite role?…
Q&A When did you start dancing? Age 6, then National Ballet School, Toronto, age 9. Why did you start dancing? Saw ballet on TV. Which dancer inspired you most as a child? Nureyev. Which dancer do you most admire? Anthony Dowell. What’s your favourite role? Onegin by John Cranko. What role have you never played…
Nino Machaidze, the 28-year-old soprano from Georgia, graduate of Milan‘s Teatro alla Scala Academia, is in Los Angeles with Romeo and Juliet which is boomeranging her around the world’s opera houses for the last few years. The first four years of her professional career have been highly successful, and the LA Times recounts how she was…
In 1983, Rudolf Nureyev‘s version of Romeo and Juliet was filmed in Milan, and broadcast in Italy and in Britain on Boxing day of the same year. It stars Carla Fracci as his Juliet and the extraordinary participation of Margot Fonteyn as Lady Capulet. This cameo is rather like another wonderful homage by Nureyev when in his…
The Australian Ballet‘s Lana Jones and Adam Bull were wonderful as the star-crossed lovers, said Carol Middleton in The Australian Stage, but wow… the production: Graeme Murphy‘s new production of Romeo & Juliet is a visual delight. We gasped in awe as the curtain rose on the opening tableau – the lovers entwined within a conch shell, reminiscent of…
Bolshoi Ballet’s Ivan Vasiliev will dance Roland Petit‘s Le Jeune Homme et la Mort with English National Ballet tomorrow evening, July 22. He is partnered with English National Ballet First Artist Jia Zhang. Vasiliev wanted to offer the performance as his personal tribute to Roland Petit. Following Roland Petit’s death on 9 July, Vasiliev contacted Zizi Jeanmaire, Petit’s…
Frederick Ashton’s choreography so-so, the dancers brilliant, says The Times: How clever of the former ballerina Dame Beryl Grey, in a pre-show speech at Tuesday’s gala performance, to gently lower our expectations. “This is not a great masterpiece like MacMillan’s,” she cautioned, adding that Ashton’s take on the material favoured intimacy. She’s right. Ashton fashioned a typically…
Tucked away in a rehearsal room in London‘s Waterloo are two of the ballet world’s most exciting stars, Ivan Vasiliev and Natalia Osipova. They are rehearsing for their début in the Frederick Ashton version of Romeo and Juliet which will run for a week at the London Coliseum from July 11. They will dance at…
Peter Schaufuss is rehearsing his company’s Romeo & Juliet for London. It marks the 40th anniversary of Schaufuss’s first appearance with London Festival Ballet, now English National Ballet. More than a decade later, in 1984, he took over as the company’s artistic director. He has been running the Peter Schaufuss Ballet for the last 15 years, which…
The National Ballet of Canada‘s 2011-12 season, which celebrates the company’s 60th anniversary, is full of surprises. Not only are the production choices unusual, but the time-honoured format of one full-length ballet and one mixed concert per fall, winter and summer season has also been overturned. To kick off the anniversary year, artistic director Karen…
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