This September 15th marks ten years after the death of the prima ballerina Olga Ferri (1928-2012, the great figure of Argentine dance as closely linked to the Teatro Colón as dancer, ballet keeper and twice director.

Its path began very early and was prolonged for a long time: her brilliant theatrical career lasted to an unusual age for a ballet dancer, she was 46 and, close to eighty, was appointed director of the Ballet del Colón for the second time; In parallel, she continued to teach courses in the dance studio she had created in 1971 together with her husband Enrique Lommi.

Olga Ferri was a true star of the Teatro Colón Ballet from the late 1940s until her retirement; He has also worked in many companies abroad and for a longer period in the prestigious London Festival Ballet. from 1961. In 1977 he retired from the Teatro Colón, but even after that retirement he received countless tour contracts in the United States. He has always rejected them.

The beginnings

In an interview when she took over the direction of the Ballet for the second time, Olga Ferri says: “I entered the Instituto del Colón, which was not so called then, when I was twelve; At fifteen they already called me as a backup for the dance team. I remember They paid me two fifty pesos for rehearsal and five pesos for show. For me it was a lot of money …“.

“On the other hand, I have had many opportunities as a reinforcement. My memory is photographic and could learn the steps very quickly. As soon as it was necessary to fill the place of someone who was missing, they said: ‘we must call Ferri’; I was a little girl. At seventeen, I entered a competition and entered directly as a solo dancer.

Much is known about Olga Ferri’s career: her extraordinary artistic career inside and outside the country; her outstanding work as a dancer trainer; his successes in the great repertoire ballets, including his much admired performance in Gisella and it is unforgettable death of the swan.

Plus, of course, Rudolf Nureyev’s invitation to dance with him for the first time in 1971 at the Colón. Nutcracker first and then other works.

But apart from these more or less known data, there is a phenomenal source to discover virtually unknown stories and aspects of Olga Ferri; This is Juan Lavanga, her friend and close collaborator of her.

Lavanga could be described in principle as a ballet addict, but he does not entirely identify with this term, because in reality nothing about dance is foreign to him; is between the two sides in which the ballet addicts of the sixties divided themselves, that of Esmeralda Agoglia and that of Olga Ferrithe very young Lavanga reached out towards Agoglia.

However, due to these unpredictable circumstances in life, he soon formed a professional and friendly relationship with Ferri that lasted, with twists, nearly 50 years.

love for tango

Lavanga says: “Olga loved to dance the tango – even if I don’t know if she danced it – but not in those exaggerated forms that are seen in some shows, but the real hall tango. She also liked the look of tango girls’ legs with those very high heels, so she adopted 11cm heels for her.“.

And she continues: “On the other hand she grew up in a tango environment: her brother Osvaldo Ferri was a pianist in the Juan D’Arienzo orchestra and I think few people know that Julian Centeya wrote a beautiful poem about her.”

«Nor is too much known – Lavanga remembers – that Alicia Alonso sent a special invitation to Olga for the Havana Dance Festival. She would have danced a complete opera with the National Ballet of Cuba and the solo the death of the swan. And also another solo with tango music for what he chose The day you love me, with a choreography by Enrique Lommi and a very nice wardrobe. The violinist Antonio Agri used to rehearse with her in her studio “her”.

“But it was the beginning of the 1976 dictatorship – Lavanga continues – and it was very difficult to enter Cuba. We managed to reach a senior military officer who said to Olga: ´Madam, we can send her as cultural ambassador of Argentina; but Cuba is a country with which we have problems‘. And he added “think about it”. He has decided to cancel the tour; and that nice black dress was never worn because Olga finally i never danced the day you love me“.

modern dance

In 1958 Olga Ferri is in Berlin as a guest of the Berliner Ballet. At the same time there was also Pierre Lacotte (great French choreographer who came many times to stage his exquisite ones The Sylph), which in a more avant-garde setting presented a contemporary version of Summer night dream.

The dancer who played Puck was injured and Lacotte remembered that tiny Argentine dancer he had seen and admired a few days earlier at the Berliner Ballet. She proposed to make the replacement and this was the response of Olga, widely considered a pure classical interpreter: “I’ve never danced modern dance, but I like the idea“. And she did four shows.

Olga Ferri was very open to all kinds of dance events; She greatly admired the contemporary dancer Iris Scaccheri and she bought her tickets so that Juan Lavanga would not stop seeing her inside Carmina Burana on the Columbus stage. He had told her: “If you don’t see Scaccheri you will never know what art is”.

a silent retreat

Olga Ferri was already thinking about retirement for a year or two before doing so. For a dancer of the Teatro Colón, of almost any era, it is very difficult to maintain herself in all aspects, both physical and interpretative, if she does few performances during the year. And in this sense Olga said “I’m depriving myself of living and just to dance so little here”.

On the other hand, the death of nine dancers of the Colón in a terrible plane crash in 1971 had seriously affected her; especially that of his colleagues and friends who are so close José Neglia and Norma Fontenla. His alleged feud with Fontenla was a myth: they had been close friends since childhood and throughout their respective careers.

Juan Lavanga was surprised at the time how Olga Ferri had quietly planned her retirement.

“Nobody knew anything and after it happened I said, ‘Olga, you should have done a great farewell service.’ And she replied: ‘No, no, What horror, can you imagine it? me looking for things in my dressing room for the last time; the orchestra playing for me one last time; even the audience looks at me for the last time. Too much pressure Certainly when I got on stage I fell to the ground.

And Lavanga adds: “we had never used tuteado; but after that last show Olga left the theater, signed innumerable autographs and approached me, who was waiting for her: «now that I’m retiring, let’s put aside the ‘you’. ‘Will you take me home and come have something to eat with us?’ “

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