A Short Evening of Petit

December was an eventful month musically with much going on operatically, orchestrally and on the dance scene. Couple that with holiday happenings and schedule conflicts meant some things had to be missed. But some fancy footwork and manipulating of TrenItalia schedules did allow me to see a Riccardo Muti conducted Moïse et Pharon at the Teatro dell'Opera on my birthday and then make a run to La Scala for the new Die Walküre the next night. Observations on both those performances should follow shortly. I had been looking forward to the mid-month Academia Santa Cecilia Christmas concert - note not Holiday Concert but Christmas Concert - and the opportunity to hear both Arthur Honegger's Une cantate de Noël and the much talked about young baritone Jacques Imbrailo but other commitments made it impossible.

However I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to see Eleonora Abbagnato, the Sicilian born premiere danseuse, of the Paris Opéra Ballet in Roland Petit's L'Arlésienne at the Teatro dell'Opera. And the fact that it was being paired with Petit's ground-breaking Carmen starring Polina Semionova, one of my favourite dancers, made the evening a must-see. So on the second last night of the year our friends Simonetta, Brigitte, Lorraine, Simon and Laurent and I ensconced ourselves in a palco at the Teatro dell'Opera for una Serata Roland Petit.

Abbagnato is as much known here in Italy for her commercials and magazine appearances (including a few of the gossip rags) as she is for her dance work but that all falls in the shadows when she steps on stage. This is a dancer who has "star" in every step she takes and even her stillness has impact. Though the role of Vivette doesn't have the showy opportunities that Petit gives to his male dancer in this tale of obsessive love it is technically and theatrically one of nuance and Abbagnato makes every moment on stage electric.

As often happens at the Teatro dell'Opera the originally announced cast list qualified as a work of fiction - Benjamin Pech, Abbagnato's frequent partner in Paris, was scheduled to dance Frederi but was replaced by Alessandro Riga, a dancer who received his major training here in Roma. It was an impressive substitution. Petit's choreography for the village boy driven mad by his love for an unfaithful girl from Arlés requires virtuosity as both a dancer and an actor: after a slightly tentative beginning Riga delivered both. That final desperate descent into madness was electric and the suicidal leap breathtaking. He is listed as a "guest artist" for several productions in the coming months - it will be interesting to see him in other types of roles.

I had seen L'Arlésienne many years ago when Petit's Ballet de Marseilles brought it to Ottawa along with the Carmen that he had revived for Karen Kain. I don't recall it having the same impact as it did in this performance. Even with the less than stellar company of the Teatro dell'Opera the power of this piece of dance-making, with the central drama set within the framework of the folk-inspired movements of the Corps de Ballet, came through.

Here is Eleonora Abbagnato with her frequent partner (on and off stage) Jérémie Bélingard in the final scene of L'Arlésienne. Unfortunately it is split in two clips and the dark setting does obscure some of the complex leg work that Petit demands of the male dancer - but Bélingard is incredible in this performance as is Abbagnato in a quieter way.

My friend Simonetta and I turned to each other almost simultaneously at the end of the Carmen and muttered "dated". This is arguably Petit's most famous work and one of his earliest - it was created in 1949 for his Ballet de Paris and more particularly for his wife the great French ballerina-performer Zizi Jeanmarie. Looking at it now it is very much dance theatre of its time - even the once striking decor and costumes by Antoni Calvé have a musty feel to them. On the way home Laurent remarked that he kept thinking "Gene Kelly" and there was a certain truth to that - the choreography has a quality to it that marks it as a piece of dance from the 50s. Perhaps with a Carmen of more sensuality than Semionova - she's just too nice - and a José of more passion than Robert Tewsley it would have had more impact. I recall seeing Semionova and Roberto Bolle dancing the pas de deux at a Gala two years ago and feeling at that time that there was something missing. In both instances the technique was there but not the sexuality.

The company put a good deal of energy into the performance and notable amongst the gypsies, cigarette girls and riff-raff of Seville was Alessandra Amato as the chief bandit. She is a dancer who has demonstrated rare skill over the past few years and it has been interesting watching her develop. Hopefully the Company's new director, Micha van Hoeck, will give us more opportunity to see her in other roles.

Though there have been great dancers who have assumed the roles of Carmen and José there have never been any to challenge the sensuality and sexuality that Zizi and Petit brought to those first performances. Fortunately it was caught on film in Black Tights, a 1960 dance film that featured four dance pieces choreographed by Petit for Zizi, Moira Shearer and Cyd Charisse.

It was an enjoyable evening but as I made note in the title a rather short one. Perhaps budgetary constraints stopped van Hoecke from programming a third Petit work to fill out the evening. It would have been interesting to see another of his works - Le Loup, Le jeune homme et la mort or even the Company's lead male dancer Mario Marozzi in Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune which he danced here several years ago. However given the current financial situation - the Company is only presenting 4 programmes this season - I should just thank the gods he was able to give us an evening of dance at all.

04 gennaio - Beata Angela da Foligno

Mercoledi Musicale Plus

Last evening was a great evening and also a sobering one for ballet fans here in Rome. Because of budget cuts we were denied a revival of a piece of Soviet dance history but given the opportunity to see a current Russian dance legend. And the presence of that legend make us acutely aware of the weakness of our resident company.

When she was forced to delay the revival of The Red Poppy until next February, company director Carla Fracci pulled several rabbits out of her toe shoes. Yes we were going to see added performances of the already scheduled umpteenth revival of Swan Lake but several were to star Svetlana Zakharova the reigning Queen of Russian ballet. And for the two of the performances she snagged the Feijoo sisters Lorena and Lorna , who are stars in their own right, to alternate the roles of Good Swan/Bad Swan.

I attended Zakharova's final performance last night and was blown out of my palco by the incredible technique and charismatic stage presence that have made her the idol of balletomanes around the world. Not since Maya Plisetskaya - in my first Swan Lake back in 1959 - have I seen a dancer who made me so so aware that Odette is a woman trapped in a swan's body or that Odile is a cold reflection of that sad woman. The movements for each though similar had a subtle difference - the White Swan's soft and lyrical, almost liquid when danced by the Black Swan were sharper, more brittle with the cold brillance of a diamond.

Here she is partnered by a talent the equal of her's, Roberto Bolle, in the Pas D'Action from Act 2.



In this performance from Rome in 2003 she is partnered in the "Black Swan" pas de deux by Eugene Ivanchenko.



Many of the commentors on various ballet blogs seem to find her performance of the 32 fouettes lacking but certainly last evening she whipped them off with aplomb and finesse. Again here she is in 2003 and we even get a bit of Carla Fracci grandstanding it as the Queen Mother.



Unfortunately last evening she was not partnered with the same elegance or presence that certainly Bolle and to a certain extent Ivanchenko brought to the role of the Prince. The Rome Opera Ballet uses Galina Samsova's choreography which turns the Prince into pretty much a human barre for the prima ballerina and gives all the spectacular stuff to his friend Benno. Andrei Uvarov seemed to be sleep walking through much of the performance and had little of the prince about him. Although he is a product of the Russian school he is more in the stolid old-fashioned Bolshoi style as opposed to Zakharova's more lyric Kirov style. Fortunately Vito Mazzeo was dancing the Benno and brought some of the air of a Premier Danseur to the stage. Also of note was the Foreign Princess variation of Alessandra Amato. Both these young dancers had performed the lead roles earlier in run.

I am almost tempted to attend tonight's performance to see the twins however the problem of bringing in stars of the caliber of the Feijoos and Zakharova is that it throws the limitation of our home company into stark relief. This was the first time my companion for the evening, an alumni of the National Ballet School of Canada, had seen the Rome Opera Ballet. She commented that there seemed to be little common style and that many of the dancers behaved if though they were still in the rehearsal studio rather than on stage in what is purportedly a major Italian theatre. And I have to agree with her - with the exception of Amato and Mazzeo the general level of performance by the company is not what should be expected of a major dance company.

And though I adored her in her days as Prima Ballerina Assoluta and admire much of what she has done as Director of the Company it really is time that Carla Fracci unstrung the slippers and stopped trying to hog centre stage. The ballet is called Swan Lake not The Queen Mother Gives a Ball. One questions why, when she does not appear in Act 4, she needs to take a curtain call at the end of the performance when everyone else had taken theirs at the end of Act 3. And why does she have to take a call at the end of every performance I have seen in the past two years whither she is dancing or not? I am as nostalgic as the next theatre/dance/opera/concert nut but there does come a point when it is necessary to say: Basta! Enough!

And there was one ungracious gesture during the final calls that was totally unwarranted and almost insulting to the guest artist. An unnecessary and unworthy action!

02 decembre - Santa Bibiena