Mara Galeazzi by her Royal Ballet friends and colleagues

July 30, 2013, 9:36 am

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Sarah Lamb, Marianela Nuñez, Gary Avis, Steven McRae, Thiago Soares and Edward Watson celebrate Mara Galeazzi

As Royal Ballet dancers arrived in Verona to share the stage with Mara Galeazzi for the last time, they talked about their Italian colleague who has danced with the Royal Ballet from more than 20 years.

Long-time partner Edward Watson, who joined the Royal Ballet two years after Mara, had just finished rehearsing a pas de deux with her:

Mara’s amazing, she’s the most positive person in the company and the most amazing person to work with because whatever mood I’m in she can kind of turn it around within seconds, usually by ignoring it… it’s always a total joy being with her.

We’ve known each other for probably 20 years and I’ve never known her strop, or be in a bad mood or anything like that, and I genuinely wouldn’t have done half the roles I’ve done, or had the success that I’ve had in them, without her… I totally mean that.… [continue reading]

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La Scala’s orthopaedist, Walter Albisetti, is killed by an electric saw at 56

July 31, 2013, 6:42 am

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Walter Albisetti, Milan’s most well-known and respected orthopaedist, has died at 56. He was a specialist in treating dancers and most of the ballet company at La Scala had passed through his consulting room over the last thirty years. He was the medical advisor at La Scala.

Albisetti was found dead at his house in Merate, near Lecco. His femoral artery had been severed by an electric saw that he was using to complete works in his country home. He was alone, and the alarm was raised by family members who had been unable to contact him. His body was found at 2 am this morning.

On a personal note, Walter was a force of nature, slightly eccentric, who threw himself into his work with passion.… [continue reading]

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Great emotion at ballet doctor’s funeral

August 3, 2013, 11:23 am

≫ Next: Bolshoi star ballerina Alexandrova will be off the stage for a year

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At 10am hundreds of friends, colleagues, and neighbours, including many dancers and doctors, gathered in the sweltering heat to say their goodbyes to Walter Albisetti, a much loved figure who died tragically three days ago.

Albisetti, who was only 56 years old, was for twenty years the medical advisor for the La Scala Ballet Company in Milan, a university professor, surgeon and orthopaedist. He was part of the commission who chose which children to accept into the ballet school at La Scala.

Everyone at La Scala knew Albisetti, most had been treated by him at some time, and he carried out hundreds of delicate operations that can mean the continuation or end of a dance career. He gave much of his time for projects in Africa, and a small African delegation attended his funeral.… [continue reading]

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Bolshoi star ballerina Alexandrova will be off the stage for a year

August 7, 2013, 12:34 am

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Bolshoi prima ballerina Maria Alexandrova, who injured her Achilles tendon on 2 August during a performance of La Bayadère in London, may not be back on stage for a year. Alexandrova received emergency medical treatment in London before being flown back to Moscow.

Svetlana Lunkina, in an interview with Izvestia, said that although healing is faster in women, it is an injury that requires a six month rehabilitation period, and full recovery takes about a year.

Bolshoi teacher Mikhail Lavrovsky, one of the company’s star dancers in the 60s and 70s, said that many dancers continued their career without major problems after an Achilles tendon injury.

Yuri Vladimirov tore his Achilles tendon, and fortunately it happened in Australia, where he was treated by experts who had him dancing again in six months, and he continued to dance brilliantly.

… [continue reading]

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160 photos of Royal Ballet dancers rehearsing now online

August 8, 2013, 8:34 am

≫ Next: Bolshoi soloist’s pretrial detention extended in acid attack case

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When I went to cover Mara Galeazzi’s farewell gala with Royal Ballet colleagues in Verona last month, I took my camera for a couple of backstage shots. Well I ended up taking hundreds of photos during the rehearsals, and 160 of these are now viewable on Flickr.

Dodging the mosquitoes that arrived with dusk, I managed to capture something of those emotional couple of days, as Mara got ready to hang up her pointe shoes for (almost?) the last time.

But never say never…

Sarah Lamb, Mari­anela Nuñez, Gary Avis, Steven McRae, Thi­ago Soares and Edward Wat­son with Mara Galeazzi on FLICKR.

 

Photo: Mara Galeazzi & Edward Watson rehearsing MacMillan’s Manon… [continue reading]

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Bolshoi soloist’s pretrial detention extended in acid attack case

August 9, 2013, 12:30 am

≫ Next: David Howard, much loved ballet teacher ‘to the stars’, dies at 76

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Pavel Dmitrichenko, the Bolshoi dancer imprisoned on suspicion of instigating the acid attack against artistic director Sergei Filin, said he denied planning the assault during an audience in Moscow yesterday.

He told the court that he’d told his ‘accomplice’ Yury Zarutsky, to hit Filin, but nothing more.

I did not imagine that this person [Zarutsky] was capable of such a cruel and inhuman crime.

the RAPSI legal news agency reported Dmitrichenko as saying.

I am happy that Filin is returning to work at the Bolshoi Theatre. The main thing is that he now recovers after the inconceivable crime committed by Zarutsky, with whom I am unfortunately acquainted.

During a court session in June, Zarutsky said,

I didn’t intend to damage his health.

… [continue reading]

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David Howard, much loved ballet teacher ‘to the stars’, dies at 76

August 13, 2013, 12:11 am

≫ Next: Sergei Filin returns to the Bolshoi

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Ballet master David Howard, affectionately known in the media as “Teacher of Stars”, has died at 76.

Howard trained at what is now the Arts Educational) School and the Royal Academy of Dance, eventually becoming a soloist with the Royal Ballet, then leaving after seven years to join the National Ballet of Canada. He also appeared in West End musicals, among them Bob Fosse’s Little Me. However it was as a teacher that he made his mark.

In the late seventies he started guest teaching for the Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and National Ballet of Canada. It was his work in America that was fundamental in his career, starting when Rebekah Harkness invited him to teach at her school in New York in 1966; eventually he became the school’s director.… [continue reading]

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Sergei Filin returns to the Bolshoi

August 14, 2013, 8:49 am

≫ Next: Carla Fracci frolicking in the sea at 77 and returning on stage

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Sergei Filin’s surprise appearance at the end of the Bolshoi’s performance of Jewels at the Royal Opera House in London was emotional for Bolshoi dancers and London audience alike.

The Bolshoi’s Onegin, which premièred in Moscow last month, came about after Filin’s long negotiations with Cranko’s heir, Dieter Graefe. And so it was with Jewels, with Filin convincing the Balanchine Trust to trust his company to perform one of Balanchine’s most exacting and definitive ballets. Filin succeeded, and in May of 2012, Jewels entered the company’s repertory. Fitting then that he chose to be present on the work’s opening night in London; fitting that he was sitting next to Balanchine’s muse, Merrill Ashley, who remounted Diamonds for the company.… [continue reading]

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Carla Fracci frolicking in the sea at 77 and returning on stage

August 17, 2013, 1:27 pm

≫ Next: Isadora on the beach, with Carla Fracci

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Carla Fracci will be 77 on Tuesday, but seemingly nothing can hold her back. A couple of days La Nazione newspaper photographed her frolicking in the sea with her two grandchildren. Paparazzi shots, without Photoshop or clever lighting, make-up or posing. Fracci was spending a couple of days with her son Francesco and his wife Dina, together with their two children, at one of Italy’s most glorious seaside resorts at Forte dei Marmi.

Then there’s work. At the beginning of November La Fracci will be on stage at Naples’ Teatro San Carlo for Das Marienleben (The Life of Maria), Paul Hindemith’s cycle set to Rainer Maria Rilke’s verses. The ballet is one of her many collaborations with husband Beppe Menegatti, the Italian director, and she will be joined on stage by Alessandro Macario from the theatre’s ballet company, and Vito Mazzeo, the San Francisco Ballet principal who has just joined The Dutch National Ballet.… [continue reading]

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Isadora on the beach, with Carla Fracci

August 20, 2013, 2:57 am

≫ Next: Roberto Bolle: dancers need a perfect body, a great face, and passion

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Happy birthday to Carla Fracci who is 77 today.

A couple of days ago one of the Italian paparazzi caught her with her two grandchildren on the beach at Forte dei Marmi where she is spending a few days with her son and his wife. 

To reward the photographer’s persistence she posed for a couple of minutes, standing on the lifeguard’s boat, like a latter day Isadora Duncan, a character she has played many times in her career.

Buon compleanno Signora Fracci!

For further pictures visit Oggi… [continue reading]

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Roberto Bolle: dancers need a perfect body, a great face, and passion

August 26, 2013, 5:37 am

≫ Next: Roberto Bolle and Friend… relaxing in Capri

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For the autumn/fall issue of Fashionisto, Roberto Bolle has been photographed by Brent Chua for a fashion shoot wearing Prada, Armani, and Dolce & Gabbana.

Bolle is a Principal with the American Ballet Theatre and an Étoile at La Scala. While slipping out of his Prada jacket and pulling on his Armani trousers, he talked about the differences:

In America, it’s different because there are dancers who come here from all over the world, Cuba, Russia, and from Italy… it’s really an international company with the best dancers in the world. In Italy, it’s very different. Dancers go to school in Milan and they want to join the company where most of the dancers are Italian. It’s a good company but it’s not comparable.

… [continue reading]

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Roberto Bolle and Friend… relaxing in Capri

August 29, 2013, 5:31 am

≫ Next: Royal Ballet’s Steven McRae flirts with three new partners: Salenko, Obraztsova and Takada

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The ballet gala Roberto Bolle and Friends comes to the New York City Center on 17 September 2013.

Before getting back into the swing of rehearsals at La Scala, and preparations for the New York event, Roberto Bolle found a few days to relax on the island of Capri, an exclusive holiday destination on the south end of the Gulf of Naples.

Paparazzi were there to greet him as he was relaxing with his friend, ex-model and restaurateur Massimiliano Neri, at the Il Riccio Beach Club. Massmiliano Neri is the owner of Kukai Nibu, a well-known Japanese restaurant on Capri, and also in nearby Naples.

The Il Riccio complex boasts a 5-star luxury hotel, spa, and both a one-star and two-star Michelin restuarant.… [continue reading]

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Royal Ballet’s Steven McRae flirts with three new partners: Salenko, Obraztsova and Takada

September 2, 2013, 8:30 am

≫ Next: The music of Italy’s n°1 rocker returns to La Scala

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After the planned retirement of Mara Galeazzi and Leanne Benjamin, and Alina Cojocaru surprising everyone after she downed pointe shoes in Tokyo and left, there were obviously some holes in the casting for the current season that new girl Natalia Osipova can’t fill alone. Steven McRae is the Prince Siegfried of this story, dancing with three different girls in the season’s first act.

Iana Salenko, a principal dancer with the Staatsoper Ballet Berlin will dance Kitri, with McRae as Basilio, in Carlos Acosta’s new Don Quixote, on Saturday 5 and Tuesday 8 October. The Bolshoi’s Evgenia Obraztsova, will be McRae’s Juliet in Romeo and Juliet on Tuesday 22 October and Thursday 14 November, and Royal Ballet soloist Akane Takada will make her debut as Kitri alongside our philandering prince on Friday 18 October.… [continue reading]

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The music of Italy’s n°1 rocker returns to La Scala

September 3, 2013, 6:51 am

≫ Next: The new Muscovite: David Hallberg dresses up for Vogue

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Vasco Rossi is one of the most famous Italian rockers. The singer-songwriter has hit sixty, but continues to sell out stadiums. His most famous song, Vita spericolata (Daredevil Life) sums up his own approach to life, and in true rock style he’s regularly finished up in clinics to detox.

A strange choice for ballet music? Well, of course, Roland Petit has already used Pink Floyd’s songs, and Maurice Béjart those of Queen, but the commission for Milan’s Teatro alla Scala was slightly different. Here the composer chose some of his most famous songs about women and re-orchestrated them for the occasion, and under that rocker’s torn t-shirt is revealed a tender heart, with melodic songs which are by turns touching and exciting.… [continue reading]

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The new Muscovite: David Hallberg dresses up for Vogue

September 3, 2013, 10:58 pm

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David Hallberg returned to the Bolshoi for Onegin, and while there found time for a photoshoot for Vogue Russia. He talked to Anna Fedina for an article entitled “New Muscovite”.

On returning to the Bolshoi after the acid attack on ballet director Sergei Filin:

It was Sergei Filin invited me here in the first place. Of course, I had serious doubts about returning. I was afraid for myself, and did not know how the company or the audience would react to me. On the other hand, thinking about all these stories, I realized that you only have one life, and strength and youth don’t last forever — sometimes you just need to push ahead and go for it. Now I feel that Moscow is even better than before.

… [continue reading]

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Roberto Bolle becomes a King of Dance for London début (with surprise Queen)

September 11, 2013, 3:34 am

≫ Next: The Kings of Dance have a Queen: Svetlana Lunkina

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The Kings of the Dance gets its first Re Italiano, as Roberto Bolle joins the roster of some of ballet’s most exciting male dancers, for the latest edition of the roadshow.

The new tour will bring together American Ballet Theatre’s Marcelo Gomes and Ivan Vasiliev, the Mariinsky’s Denis Matvienko, and the Mikhailovsky’s Leonid Sarafanov, all who have been seen in previous editions. La Scala and ABT’s Roberto Bolle will forget about playing princes for a while, and join them.

The self-proclaimed kings will dance eight works by Frederick Ashton, Roland Petit, Edward Clug, Patrick De Bana, Nacho Duato, Jorma Elo, and Marcelo Gomes. Gomes, apart from performing, will choreograph a new piece with music by Canadian Ballet’s Guillaume Côté, who won’t participate in this tour as a dancer, but will be still appear in the programme wearing his other hat.… [continue reading]

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The Kings of Dance have a Queen: Svetlana Lunkina

September 11, 2013, 5:34 am

≫ Next: Teaser post: tomorrow we publish Vadim Muntagirov’s questionnaire. In the meantime…

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Kings of Dance will come to London with their newly crowned queen, Svetlana Lunkina.

Roberto Bolle and Ivan Vasiliev will perform Roland Petit’s Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, with ex-Bolshoi star Svetlana Lunkina joining them as a ‘Special Guest Artist’.

The full programme for the four London dates is as follows:

 

ACT ONE

LE JEUNE HOMME ET LA MORT
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach (Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582)
Libretto: Jean Cocteau
Choreography: Roland Petit
Staging: Luigi Bonino
Lighting: Jean-Michel Desire
Set: Georges Wakhevitch
Costumes: Karinska
Set courtesy of English National Ballet
First performance: 1946, Les Ballets des Champs-Elysees, Paris

Performed by: Ivan Vasiliev (19^th & 21^st March), Roberto Bolle (20^th & 22^nd March) - Svetlana Lunkina (19^th – 22^nd March)

 

ACT TWO

REMANSO
Music: Enrique Granados
Choreography: Nacho Duato
Set and Costumes: Nacho Duato
Lighting Design: Brad Fields
Staging: Tony Fabre
Organization & Production: Carlos Iturrioz – Media Producciones SL (Spain)
First performance: 1997, American Ballet Theater, New York

Performed by: Leonid Sarafanov, Denis Matvienko, Marcelo Gomes

 

ACT THREE

PROTOTYPE
Music by: Piero Salvatori produced by Fausto Dase
Concept & Choreography: Massimiliano Volpini
Costumes by: Roberto Guidi di Bagno made by Sartoria Farani
Co-directed by: Avantgarde Numerique and XCHanges Vfx Design
Visual effects by: XCHanges VFx

Performed by: Roberto Bolle

MOREL ET SAINT-LOUP from ballet PROUST
Music: Gabriel Fauré
Choreography: Roland Petit
Staging: Luigi Bonino
First performance: 1974, National Ballet of Marseille

Performed by: Denis Matvienko & Marcelo Gomes

TUE
Music by: Barbara (Songs: Drout, Sid’ amour a mort)
Choreography: Marco Goecke
Assistant to Choreographer: Rolando D’Alesio

Performed by: Leonid Sarafanov

LABYRINTH OF SOLITUDE
Music by: Tomaso Antonio Vitali (Ciaconne in G Minor for Violin and Piano)
Choreography: Patrick De Bana

Performed by: Ivan Vasiliev

KO’d
Music by: Guillaume Côté (Piano Sonata no.… [continue reading]

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Teaser post: tomorrow we publish Vadim Muntagirov’s questionnaire. In the meantime…

September 12, 2013, 5:46 am

≫ Next: Bolshoi Ballet director Sergei Filin to return to Moscow tomorrow

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Ever since the unknown Vadim Muntagirov and established English National Ballet star Daria Klimentova were unexpectedly thrust together at the last minute to dance a Swan Lake in the Royal Albert Hall, they have become a ballet ‘item’. The encounter between the two dancers was even more unusual as the backstage drama of the pairing was recorded by a BBC tv crew who were following the ENB for the fly-on-the-wall documentary Agony & Ecstasy: A Year with English National Ballet.

Since then, the pair have been around the world together… literally, as Daria’s photomontage below illustrates. Her biography (which came out earlier this year) was even entitled Agony and Ecstasy: My Life In Dance, and the now very well known Vadim went on to win this year’s ballet Oscar, the Benois De La Dance, nominated as best male dancer for his ENB appearances in Sleeping Beauty.… [continue reading]

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Bolshoi Ballet director Sergei Filin to return to Moscow tomorrow

September 13, 2013, 11:53 am

≫ Next: Zach’s Diary part one: Growing up dancing in Canada

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The Bolshoi Ballet director Sergei Filin will return to Moscow tomorrow after six-months of treatment to save his eyesight in a German hospital.

A spokesman for the Aachen University Hospital said earlier today,

Doctors have decided to discharge Filin from the hospital. We believe that he will be able to return to Moscow tomorrow.

While in the hospital he has undergone more than 20 procedures to correct damage caused after the vicious acid attack in January outside his home.

RAI Novosti quoted Bolshoi spokeswoman Katerina Novikova as saying that she hoped Filin would be able to visit the company next week. He saw his company for the first time after the incident in July when he made a trip to London to see the Bolshoi perform at the Royal Opera House.… [continue reading]

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Zach’s Diary part one: Growing up dancing in Canada

September 19, 2013, 12:16 am

≫ Next: Sergei Filin appears in court & Dmitrichenko says he’s sorry

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Zach Rogers is an eighteen-year-old Canadian ballet dancer who got through to the finals at the Prix de Lausanne earlier this year, and has been accepted at the John Cranko Schule in Stuttgart for two years. He’s passionate about dancing, and passionate about dance.

Dancers have different backgrounds, and tell different stories: this is Zach’s, told through a series of diary entries which he will write during his first months in Stuttgart. Let him introduce himself…

 

ZACH’S DIARY part one:

My name is Zachary Rogers (Zach for short!), and I’ve been accepted to attend the John Cranko Schule in Stuttgart, Germany. It has been a dream of mine for years to be accepted to this school, and I can hardly believe it’s actually happening!… [continue reading]

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