If there is a ballet that belongs to La Scala, it’s Rudolf Nureyev’s production of The Sleeping Beauty, created for the ballet company in 1966 with Carla Fracci and Nureyev in the main roles. It was performed 152 times until 2007, when Tchaikovsky’s score fell silent for eight years until awoken by Alexei Ratmansky when he brought his reconstructed version to Milan in September … [Read more...] about In with the old – La Scala returns to Nureyev’s Sleeping Beauty
Walter Madau
Lescaut almost steals the show among excellent performances in Manon at La Scala
I wonder how many reviews of Manon start by appraising the portrayal of Lescaut. A very important character of course, but certainly he has less plot points or stage time than Des Grieux and the eponymous heroine. At La Scala, in the cast of 27 October, Lescaut was played, quite brilliantly, by Walter Madau. Madau is a member of the corps de ballet but is often favoured for … [Read more...] about Lescaut almost steals the show among excellent performances in Manon at La Scala
Heinz Spoerli’s Goldberg Variations are lovingly performed by La Scala’s excellent cast
Legend goes that Bach wrote his Goldberg Variations for the Russian ambassador to the electoral court of Saxony, Count Kaiserling. The Count suffered from insomnia and had Johann Gottlieb Goldberg on hand to play for him during his sleepless nights. Bach wrote these pieces for the nocturnal recitals of the young Goldberg, a German virtuoso harpsichordist. True or not, this … [Read more...] about Heinz Spoerli’s Goldberg Variations are lovingly performed by La Scala’s excellent cast
Photo album: first look at Heinz Spoerli’s Goldberg Variations at La Scala
"Every time I listen to Bach I feel my heart jumps a beat. His music is for me an inexhaustible source of inspiration and has been since my early twenties, which was even before, in Düsseldorf, when I choreographed a piece to the Goldberg Variations, which many critics considered, at the beginning of the nineties, one of the most important works of the period." Heinz Spoerli … [Read more...] about Photo album: first look at Heinz Spoerli’s Goldberg Variations at La Scala
La Scala’s fired ballerina, and eating-disorder author, Mary Garret on her first year back with the company
In 2016, Mary Garret walked through the artists’ entrance at La Scala, ready to take daily class again with the company that had fired her four years previously. The ballerina Mariafrancesca Garritano, who writes under the name of Garret, wrote a book where she reflected on the nature of stringent diets and the search for the perfect physical form. La verità, vi prego, sulla … [Read more...] about La Scala’s fired ballerina, and eating-disorder author, Mary Garret on her first year back with the company