La Scala Theatre Ballet Company
Conductor Manuel Legris
REVEAL
Choreography Garrett Smith
Music Philip Glass
Costumes Monica Guerra
Lighting Michael Mazzola
Dancers Martina Arduino, Alice Mariani, Virna Toppi, Agnese Di Clemente,
Marco Agostino, Claudio Coviello, Gabriele Corrado, Domenico Di Cristo,
Mattia Semperboni, Andrea Crescenzi, Matteo Gavazzi, Rinaldo Venuti
SKEW-WHIFF
Choreography, sets and costumes Sol León e Paul Lightfoot
Music Gioachino Rossini
Lighting Tom Bevoort
Production ATT Danstheater, The Hague, 1996
Dancers Maria Celeste Losa, Navrin Turnbull, Darius Gramada, Gabriele Fornaciari
Interval
IL PIPISTRELLO
Act I – Frame III
Ballet of Roland Petit
Music Johann Strauss (son)
Choreographic supervision Luigi Bonino
Costumes Luisa Spinatelli
Dancers Virna Toppi, Christian Fagetti, Denise Gazzo
CANTATA
Passo a due
Choreography Mauro Bigonzetti
Music Amerigo Ciervo (Serenata)
Ed. Amerigo e Marcello Ciervo (iMusicalia), voices Cristina Vetrone and Lorella Monti
Dancers Antonella Albano, Gioacchino Starace
DONIZETTI PAS DE DEUX
Choreography Manuel Legris
Music Gaetano Donizetti
Dancers Alice Mariani, Nicola Del Freo
BLAKE WORKS (Excerpts)
Choreography, sets and costumes William Forsythe
Music James Blake
Lighting Tanja Rühl on original designs by Brandon Stirling Baker
Dancers Martina Arduino, Camilla Cerulli, Linda Giubelli, Maria Celeste Losa,
Marco Agostino, Domenico Di Cristo, Frank Aduca, Francesco Mascia, Rinaldo Venuti
Music on recorded base
Twenty years after its previous trip, the La Scala Ballet Company returns to Genoa to present some of its most recent titles, in a programme that embraces 20th century sensibility and contemporary creativity, with the signatures of Roland Petit, William Forsythe, Garrett Smith, Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, Mauro Bigonzetti and the Director of the Ballet himself Manuel Legris. Presented by the La Scala Ballet in February this year and now for the first time on the road, Reveal and Skew-Whiff will showcase the innovative power of American choreographer Garrett Smith and the famous artistic duo Sol León and Paul Lightfoot: Reveal, created by Garrett Smith for Houston Ballet in 2015, focuses on duality in its many forms, male/female, classical/contemporary, light/shadow, developing on two compositions by Philip Glass. Skew-Whiff (out of balance), on the Overture from Rossini’s Gazza ladra, is a special combination of contemporary choreography and classical music, among the most iconic works of Sol León and Paul Lightfoot. Among the great masters of the 20th century, Roland Petit is paid homage with an excerpt from The Bat, a successful transposition of an operetta into ballet, which has toured the world since ’79. It will then be the strong colours, typical of the south, that will involve in the pas de deux from Cantata, a famous choreography by Mauro Bigonzetti that with passionate and visceral gestures evokes a wild Mediterranean beauty to stage seduction, passion, skirmishes, jealousy. A true tribute to the danse d’école, Donizetti pas de deux is a fresh and lively creation by Manuel Legris from 2011, and will be presented at La Scala for the first time as part of the third edition of Gala Fracci and then on tour in Genoa. In closing, the choreographic architectures of William Forsythe in Blake Works (Excerpts),an excerpt from the production for the La Scala dancers in May 2023, the premiere of a project to explore the musical fabric of James Blake begun seven years earlier.
Today’s Teatro alla Scala Ballet boasts a glorious past whose roots go back centuries to the eighteenth-century inauguration, in 1778, of the world’s most famous musical theatre, which is still its home today. In the course of the 19th century, with the contribution of great choreographers, teachers and theorists, stars such as Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Cerrito, Sofia Fuoco, Lucile Grahn, Augusta Maywood and many others made a name for themselves in Europe and America. At the beginning of the 20th century, the dancer, choreographer and teacher Enrico Cecchetti, former guide of dancers such as Anna Pavlova, Michail Fokin, Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky and Djagilev’s collaborator with the Ballets Russes, became Director of the Ballet School at La Scala. From the Mitteleuropa of free and expressionist dance came new names, such as Aurel Milloss. Between the 1950s and 1960s, La Scala became a stage open to the stars of the choreographic scene, among the choreographers Roland Petit made his debut there in 1963, Maurice Béjart in 1971, among the étoiles Carla Fracci, Liliana Cosi, Luciana Savignano, Paolo Bortoluzzi with many other stars: from Margot Fonteyn to Yvette Chauviré, from Vladimir Vassiliev to the never forgotten Rudolf Nureyev. The La Scala Ballet has increased its visibility at the Paris Opéra, in the United States, at the Bol’šoj Theatre in Moscow and the Mariinsky-Kirov in St. Petersburg, in Germany, Turkey, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, China and Australia. Since 2020, Manuel Legris has been director of the La Scala Ballet Company. Trained at the Ecole de l’Opéra and appointed étoile in 1986 by Rudolf Nureyev, Legris was a world-renowned virtuoso. The guidelines of its direction keep the pivot of tradition and open up to the new.
Photo credit: Marco Brescia and Rudy Amisano
Partner of the Teatro alla Scala tours
