The Ballet del Colón’s 2023 season will open on April 11 with the revival of Swan Lake in a version by the ballet director himselfMario Galizzi, who has been reviewing the work since 1995 with perspectives more in line with the public of these times.
This first title of the 2023 season belongs to the tradition of academic ballet -the one born during the reign of Louis XIV-, although already with other elements added or transformed by Marius Petipa in the second half of the 19th century.
It was an extremely fruitful stage: we know that many of the works created by the Franco-Russian choreographer remain very current to this day and It’s practically impossible to think of an international company’s annual programming that doesn’t include a Don chisciottea Swan Lakea Nutcracker or many other creations by Marius Petipa.
What is Neoclassical Ballet?
The other titles -except the last one- that complete the 2023 season are part of another current: that of neoclassical ballet, born in the early 20th century. This brings us back to Marius Petipa, believe it or not; because it was thanks to a radical reaction to his choreographic principles, already considered very outdated at the beginning of the 20th century, that a new way of conceiving stage dance emerged.
Mijail Fokin, who had been his student and danced to his works, started this new trend practically alone. In 1914, after several creations in this line, he published it in the London newspaper Times a semi-decalogue in which he exposes what should be a new form of ballet.
And although without naming the old teacher -Petipa had died four years earlier-, Fokin questions himself there the useless extension of his worksthe emphasis on pure virtuosity, the almost exclusive tutus for the dancers (whether it was a Hungarian princess, a Spanish village girl or a fairy tale character) as well as the narrative deviations and fantastic ingredients.
Many things change from then on: the sources that the choreographers choose for their creations (as we will see later in the titles of this season), the duration of the works, the relationship between the protagonists and the corps de ballet, the musical choices, the coherence between the costumes and the character of the work.
Prominent names of this current are Mikhail Fokin himself, Bronislava Nijinska -sister of Vaslav Nijinski- and George Balanchine.
Other names were added during the twentieth century and the repertoire they created coexists with that of contemporary dance, heir to modern dance and which obviously represents another way of thinking about dance.
Swan Lake
Mario Gallizzi it did not set out to modernize this arch-classical work but, among other things, by introducing something fundamental: bringing the original length of four acts to a narrower and more reasonable length of two parts with a single interval.
The guest performer for the dual role of Odile-Odette will be the incredible Argentinian dancer Marianela Nunez (by the Royal Ballet of London), but there is still no confirmed name on who will play the role of Prince Siegfried.
Swan Lake It premiered in 1895 in St. Petersburg and its choreography was conceived by Marius Petipa, the omnipotent figure of the Imperial Russian Ballets, with the decisive collaboration of a brilliant artist who was very much in the shadow of his boss: Lev Ivanov. Ivanov is responsible for the most poetic moments of The needle…
The score previously existed: PI Tchaikovsky had composed it almost twenty years earlier for the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, but the choreography by one Wenzel Reinsiger was a big failure, the music was considered loud and the dancers called it “undanceable”.
Tchaikovsky died in 1893 and two years later Petipa and Ivanov took up that score and created this beautiful work which completes, with Nutcracker Y Sleeping Beautythe ballet triad signed by Petipa-Tchaikovsky.
caravaggio
In May and June it will be presented caravaggiofrom Italian Mauro Bigonzettia choreographer who navigates right between the neoclassical – like this one caravaggio debuted in 2008- and contemporary dance of which the precious Cantata which he staged this year for the San Martín Contemporary Ballet.
Bigonzetti was inspired by a real character: the revolutionary painter Michelangelo Merisi, known as El Caravaggio, born in Milan in 1571; he was an extraordinary artist, with a life as tumultuous as surrounded by legends and half-truths.
However, it is not a biographical account, but an investigation of Bigonzatti in his pictorial style, born of a tormented personality.
The music is by Bruno Moretti, in turn based on a selection of pieces by Claudio Monteverdi. The performer will be a dancer much admired on the international scene: the Italian Roberto Bolli.
double program
For the month of August there is a double program consisting of White suites. created by Serge Lifar for the Paris Opera in 1943; and from windgames by Patrick de Bana, a German dancer with a long career who started choreographing in 2016.
suite in whiteto music by Édouard Lalo, is a totally abstract piece which exhibits the purity of the lines of the academic tradition rewritten with elements of the new ballet currents. Abstraction in dance is also a contribution of neoclassicism; plotless works are unthinkable in the 19th century.
For his part, windgames (2021), to music by Tchaikovsky, was created in three stages for three different companies and although there is little information about it, one can see in the style of other works by Patrick de Bana, the influence of the neoclassical Maurice Béjart, whose the company of Lausanne belonged, but also that of the contemporary Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato, with whom De Bana danced for ten years.
The boundaries between the different currents are not always precise.
the taming of the shrew
In October he will go on stage the taming of the shrewby John Cranko, one of the great neoclassical choreographers from whom Columbus gets his extraordinary ballet Onegin. Cranko based himself to create this work on the famous play by William Shakespeare whose plot content today may sound a bit politically incorrect: a husband who “tames” his wayward wife.
As it was, that’s a ballet worth the wait with a good expectation for John Cranko’s great talent for creating stories, conflicts and characters that are communicated exclusively through dance.
The music is by Domenico Scarlatti, with arrangements and orchestration by Kurt-Heinz Stolze. Marcia Haydée, who was the great muse of the choreographer, will come to Buenos Aires to supervise the production. Two principal dancers from the Stuttgart Ballet will be guests, whose names have not yet been confirmed.
the bayadere
The season will close in December with the bayadere in Rudolf Nureyev’s versiona mythical dancer who was not limited to his status as an interpreter: he was a great director of the Paris Opera Ballet and also created his own works, mainly revivals.
In this sense he dedicated himself to recreating, while maintaining academic traits, numerous works by (again!) Marius Petipa, an artist who fascinated him.
To this section of his production belongs the bayaderewith music by Ludwig Minkus, which incorporates the original plot of an Indian prince who falls in love with a temple dancer with tragic outcomes; and gives it, also as in the original, a very sumptuous frame. It had been released in 1992, shortly before Nureyev’s death.
Two extraordinary artists are responsible for the main roles: Natalya Osipovaof the Royal Ballet, e Daniel Camargofrom the American Ballet Theatre.
In short, it is an interesting and captivating programming with a not so happy downside: the scarce forty-one functions throughout the year.
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Source: Clarin
