For the New Year in Music and Vision 31 December

For the New Year

Unusual ballet productions in Italy,
seen by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

A family evening at the ballet is almost a tradition for the holiday period between Christmas and Epiphany in Italy as well as in many other European countries. As seen previously (A Variety of Events, 31 December 2011) Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker is a standard feature because it revolves around a children's story which can be given many interpretations. In this review, I focus only on two musical and ballet shows because they are quite peculiar as compared with traditional holiday ballet: the new Nutcracker production at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, and the Svetlana Zakharova Italian tour.
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma has a new ballet director: Eleonora Abbagnato, Italian-born but a long time resident of Paris where she is étoile of the Opéra. The Nutcracker (premiered on 20 December 2015 and on stage until 8 January 2016) is her debut as ballet producer in Italy. Normally, The Nutcracker is shown as a rather sweet story. Few reviewers recall that the original Casse-Noisette et le Roi des souris by E T A Hoffmann, the 1816 tale that Tchaikovsky's ballet is drawn from, is quite a crude Buildungsroman, a growing-up-to-maturity story. The ballet was composed by Tchaikovsky when he was working on his Symphony No 6, a very tormented period of his life, just a few months before his suicide. As a matter of fact, The Nutcracker score is morbid and sensual (like that of Symphony No 6) rather than joyful as presented in the original Petipa 1892 choreography. The coup de théâtre in this new production is the choreography by Giuliano Peparini and the orchestra direction by David Coleman, along with a selection of three young casts, alternating in various performances. I saw and heard the production's 20 December 2015 debut.

A scene from Tchaikovsky's 'The Nutcracker' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Photo © 2015 Yasuko Kageyama. Click on the image for higher resolution

Peparini is one of the international scene's most eclectic and innovative dancers and stage directors. He began his dancing career with the American Ballet School but pursued it in France, Russia and China. His show The House of Dancing Water is a permanent tourist attraction in Macao, and his choreography and stage direction of the modern opera-ballet Romeo e Giulietta — Ama e Cambia il Mondo by David Zard has been a major hit since its 2011 Verona Arena debut. In this Nutcracker, the setting is moved to a high finance milieu sometime in the mid-twentieth century. While dreaming she is travelling with a handsome young man, the protagonist (henceforth protected by her family and nannies) discovers a world of inequality: workers, seamstresses, washerwomen as well of different countries and races. The sets remind one of TV serials like Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey. Coleman emphasized the connections with Symphony No 6. The young dancers are fresh and marvelous: at the end of the opening performance, Teatro dell'Opera's Superintendent and Eleonora Abbagnato came onto the stage and promoted the protagonist, Rebecca Bianchi, to the rank of prima ballerina on the spot. Thus, a tremendous success.

Rebecca Bianchi and Michele Satriano in Tchaikovsky's 'The Nutcracker' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Photo © 2015 Yasuko Kageyama. Click on the image for higher resolution

The Zakharova ballet I saw in the Via della Conciliazione Auditorium on 22 December was also a triumph. The tour is entitled Pas de Deux for Toes and Fingers and features a Trio of Aces: Svetlana Zakharova herself, her long time partner, violinist Vadim Repin, and the Luigi Cherubini Orchestra, a group of young people hand-picked by their 'founding father' and principal conductor Riccardo Muti. The program alternated movements from concertos for violin and orchestra with very pure and elegant dancing.

Distant Cries - Svetlana Zakharova Italian tour. Photo © Pierluigi Abbondanza. Click on the image for higher resolution

Svetlana Zakharova was joined by four dancers: three Russian (Vajčeslav Lopatin, Mikhail Lobukhin and Vladimir Varnava) and one Danish (Johan Kobborg), and all was in the most classic and classy style.

Copyright © 31 December 2015 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy