Photo: BolleArcimboldi2017; Credit Photo: Laura Ferrari
Starting with 26 June the Park of Villa Grimaldi, known as parks of Nervi (Genoa) hosts the International Music Ballet Festival. The program includes great performances of music, ballet and theater with world premieres, national premieres and big stars, in a unique location such as the parks of Nervi – a recreational and cultural space of 8 thousand square meters like a natural arena overlooking the sea, a unique setting to experience and share.
From Saturday 11 June until Monday 13 June, the “Nervi Music Ballet Festival 2022” will open in preview with “Il Sogno di Nervi”. Memorial of the International Ballet Festival, a three-day event dedicated to the memory of the founder of the International Ballet Festival of Nervi, Mario Porcile and his Stars
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A celebration of the dance with guests such as Roberto Bolle, Eleonora Abbagnato, Davide Dato or Béjart Ballet Lausanne starting on Sunday 26 June 2022, with a preview on 11, 12, 13 June
Nervi International Ballet Festival (Festival internazionale del balletto di Nervi) held during summer in Nervi (now a district of Genoa) from 1955 to 2004 was the first event entirely dedicated to dance in post-war Italy. Together with the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto it is considered the most significant event of the Italian dance scene.
Nervi International Ballet Festival (Festival internazionale del balletto di Nervi) is a celebration of the dance and musical creativity of our time, with guests – dancers, conductors, soloists and orchestras – of high artistic profile, coming from all around the world, in the spectacular naturalistic setting of the Nervi Parks in Genoa.
On Sunday 26 June 2022, with a preview on 11, 12, 13 June, the “Nervi Music Ballet Festival 2022”, dedicated to lovers of classical-romantic ballet and contemporary ballet, as well as the great symphonic repertoire. Sixteen appointments and a preview distributed over a month, with shows on the first and only Italian date, in a context that confirms its vocation as an elective meeting place for the general public with the performing arts.
The festival opens with the gala of the “Youth America Grand Prix Stars of Today meet the Stars of Tomorrow”, which returns to Nervi after the success of its first Italian edition in 2021. The event that crowns the “competition of competitions” of international ballet is an exclusive for Italy.
During the evening, opened by a grand défilé de ballet interpreted by the participants in the master classes in progress from 20 to 25 June at the Carlo Felice Theater in Genoa – on average 150 students every day, for a total of over 750 presences in the area – the the most talented promises of international ballet will share the stage with some of the solo dancers and principal dancers of the major ballet companies in the world: Jacopo Tissi (Corps de Ballet of the Teatro alla Scala), Luca Acri, Cesar Corrales and Meaghan Grace Hinkis (Royal Ballet), Benjamin Freemantle (San Francisco Ballet), Marcelo Gomes, Alejandro Martínez (Dresden Semperoper Ballett), Polina Semionova (Berlin State Ballet) Elisabeth Beyer and Yuma Matsuura (ABT Studio Company).
On Sunday 3 July, the masterpiece of the classical-romantic ballet “Giselle” will be performed by the Ukrainian National Ballet
On Sunday 3 July, the masterpiece of the classical-romantic ballet “Giselle” will be performed by the Ukrainian National Ballet, which was born from the meeting of the companies and soloists of the prestigious ballet corps of the Kiev Opera and Ballet Theaters, Kharkiv, Lviv and Odessa.
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The masterpiece of romantic ballet, a story of love and madness inspired by the Nordic legend of the Villi, arrives at the Nervi Music Ballet Festival in the interpretation of the soloists and the corps de ballet that is born from the meeting of the companies of the different opera houses and Ukrainian ballet: the Kiev Opera and Ballet Theater, the Kharkiv Academic Theater, the Lviv National Opera, the Odessa Opera House.
The story of Giselle was written by Théophile Gautier who conceived it inspired by Heinrich Heine’s De l’Allemagne and Victor Hugo’s Fantômes. Gautier, fascinated by the legend of the Villi, spirits of the Slavic tradition, girls who died before their wedding and destined to wander in the woods in search of revenge, began writing the ballet in 1941, inspired by the greatest ballerina of the Romantic era, Carlotta Grisi. The music was composed by Adolphe-Charles Adams, a prolific and brilliant composer.
The choreography was entrusted to Jean Coralli, but Grisi herself asked and obtained that while Coralli took care of the ensemble scenes, the choreography of the steps of the étoile were entrusted to her partner, Jules Perrot. The last original performance was at the Opéra National de Paris in 1868 and later Marius Petipa, brother of Lucien Petipa, the first interpreter of the ballet, revised the choreography giving spectacular effects in the choral scenes and virtuosity to the solo parts.
ACT 1 takes place in a village in the Rhineland. Albrecht, the prince of Silesia, sees the graceful young Giselle and disguised as a populace deceives her by convincing her to accept his court. However, the deception is revealed during a hunting trip in which Bathilde, betrothed to Prince Albrecht, is also unmasked by Hilarion, a gamekeeper jealous of Giselle. Discovered the betrayal, the girl goes mad and dies.
IN THE SECOND ACT Hilarion, in the woods with a group of hunters, wanders in remorse at the tomb of Giselle, but they are all put away from supernatural presences: the Villi. These icy and unhappy creatures pursue Hilarion forcing him to dance to death. The Villi queen, Myrtha, would also like to force Albrecht to the same end, but Giselle intervenes in his defense, dancing with him and protecting him all night, until in the morning, when Albrecht is at the end of his strength, the Villi vanish. The prince is then saved by the love of Giselle, whose spirit finally finds peace.
On Friday 8 July, the Compañía Antonio Gades revives the myth of “Carmen” on stage in the iconic show by Antonio Gades and Carlos Saura
On Friday 8 July, the Compañía Antonio Gades revives the myth of “Carmen” on stage in the iconic show by Antonio Gades and Carlos Saura, which is inspired by the work of Prosper Merimée, to music taken from the opera by George Bizet and the leading authors of the flamenco tradition. The program is presented in Nervi on a single Italian date.
Nervi Music Ballet Festival, De Tierra y Aire; Photo Credit: Felix Miranda
The show is on a single Italian date at the Nervi Music Ballet Festival 2022. After Don Juan and Bodas de Sangre, Carmen is the third narrative ballet created by Antonio Gades, and the first significant example of his close collaboration with director Carlos Saura. The creators found their primary source of inspiration from the novel by Prosper Merimée (Paris 1803 – Cannes 1870) whose characters and story, for both, perfectly capture the essence of the Andalusian spirit. And they chose to use it together with the extraordinary music of Georges Bizet, creating for the first time on stage a contrast between it and live flamenco music. Gades, a profound admirer of Spanish popular culture, stated «I want to include in this creation the music that inspired Bizet in the first instance; original popular music, and demonstrate that a guitarist and a flamenco singer can be as powerful as, and in certain moments, perhaps more than an orchestra with hundreds of instruments “.
In response to the worldwide success of the theater in 1984, Gades stated that if Merimée took Carmen to France, “we brought her back to Spain”. For Gades, the character of Carmen symbolizes the female struggle for liberation from the yoke imposed by the dominant male conventions. A work completely misunderstood at the time of its writing, in 1837, when it was scandalous to even imagine a hypothetical female emancipation. “I decided to stage my own interpretation of Carmen, because I never liked the erroneous stereotypical image she earned just for being a woman totally devoted to the affairs of the heart, and for not forgetting the humility of his origins, while attending high society “.
It is no coincidence that the protagonist of this ballet exemplarily presents two of the central characteristics of the choreographer’s personality: her class consciousness and her love of freedom. As in the other Gades shows, the historical clarity of the unfolding of the events is another unmistakable mark. Even more, the transition between scenes is a distinctive feature of its cinematic partner: it allows you to move from one emotion to another in a natural way while still taking your breath away. The events follow one another without the viewer being fully aware of having taken part in “a trial” or in an authentic tragedy.
After the death of Gades, Carmen was the first ballet staged by this new company. The absence of his figure so engaging, on stage and in life, has posed some problems for the newborn team, but the show continues to receive warm welcome from audiences from all over the world. Even today, in contrast to our quintessential male myth, Don Juan, Gades’ first stage tale, Carmen, manages to represent the Spanish woman in the world, and this interpretation of Gades and Saura is still one of his most significant returns of always.
Cuba sings, dances, lives! The company Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba reveals the “spirit of Cuba” in an unprecedented synthesis of dance and ballet traditions of the island
For the first time in Italy and on a single date in Nervi, Thursday 14 July 2022, Cuba Vibra ! the overwhelming show of the company Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba reveals the “spirit of Cuba” in an unprecedented synthesis of dance and ballet traditions that make up the rich dance and musical culture of the island. Cuba sings, dances, lives. The first ever in Italy, and the only Italian date at the Nervi Music Ballet Festival 2022, the Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba company presents Cuba Vibra! an evocative, colorful and dynamic setting, a journey through Cuba, its roots, its dances and its music of which the genres of bulerías, Seguidilla, chachachá, mambo, rumba, conga are the protagonists, with precise movements and ineffable cadences, bolero, feeling, and all the rhythms that, making the heart vibrate, fill the soul with joy.
With over 40 tours in 5 continents, over 20 countries, over 200 cities, from Canada to New Zealand, from China to Peru, Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba (LADC) has become one of the most prestigious companies in the world of international dance. The founder, Lizt Alfonso is renowned for her tenacity, sobriety and her style characterized by the contamination and fusion of different languages. The Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba company is an expression of the genuine spirit of Cuba, an original combination of the genres of Flamenco, classical and contemporary ballet with Spanish and Afro-Cuban rhythms. This particular specialization, which critics have recognized as “unique and different”, manifests itself musically in the performance of a Cuban group of 8 elements as well as an ensemble of 17 dancers, who blend ballet and Latin dances together with mystery, passion , to the rhythm and music of Cuba.
The LADC was the first Cuban group to perform on Broadway at the renowned New Victory Theater and has since performed in the United States, Canada, Spain, France, Germany, New Zealand, Egypt, Qatar, South Africa, Bahrain, China, Holland , Belgium, Mexico, Colombia. The company was awarded the Distinction for National Culture of Cuba; Dora First Prize of the Canadian performing arts in the Best Choreography category, in 2008; with the First Prize for Choreography from the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC / 2006 and 2008) and the Cuban Artists of New York Foundation Award, 2001.
Tuesday 19 July, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne pays tribute to the art and figures of the company’s founder and artistic director, with a diptych signed respectively by Maurice Béjart
On Tuesday 19 July, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne pays tribute to the art and figures of the company’s founder and artistic director, with a diptych signed respectively by Maurice Béjart, with “Béjart fête Maurice” and with the legendary “Boléro”, and by Gil Roman, with “t ‘M et variations …”. The program is presented exclusively in Italy in Nervi. “With t ‘M et variations …, created ten years after the death of Maurice Béjart and for the 30th anniversary of the BBL, Gil Roman signs a ballet where the steps are just as many words addressed to the founder of the company. Page after page, in the form of an intimate diary, t ‘M et variations … is a suite of variations on the theme of love and the inner necessity of dance. A radically fascinating choreography, chronicle of a day of celebration full of colors and Arabesques. A show of pure, masterful and engaging sensations ». (Patrick Ferla, Swiss author and journalist).
Photo: BBL_t ‘M et variations, Photo Credit Francette Levieux
My Boléro, said Ravel, should have in the epigraph: “Put it well in your head.” More seriously, he explained: «In 1928, at the request of Mme Rubinstein (Ida Rubinstein, famous Russian actress and dancer), I composed a bolero for orchestra. It is a dance with a very moderate and uniform pace, both for the melody and for the harmony and rhythm, the latter marked relentlessly by the drum. The only element of diversity is brought about by the orchestral crescendo ». Maurice Béjart specifies his conception of Ravel’s work in these terms: “A music that is too well known and yet always new, thanks to its simplicity. A melody – of oriental and non-Spanish origin – that wraps itself up without getting tired, and increases in volume and intensity, devouring the sound space and ending up swallowing the melodic line itself “. Without wishing to describe this ballet in itself evident with greater precision, it can be noted that Maurice Béjart, in a very different style, reunites with the spirit of the Sacre du Printemps, in the sense that – contrary to those that have choreographically illustrated Boléro before him – rejects all the facilities of the picturesque facade to express, but with what force, the essential. Maurice Béjart confides the central role – the Melody – sometimes to a dancer, sometimes to a dancer. The rhythm is performed by a group of dancers.
Saturday 23 July Eleonora Abbagnato is the main protagonist of the “Giulietta” suite, a show dedicated to the little great woman immortalized by William Shakespeare
Saturday 23 July Eleonora Abbagnato is the main protagonist of the “Giulietta” suite, an unpublished choreographic portrait of the Shakespearean character who most of all made generations of dancers and women dream all over the world, based on choreography by Sasha Riva and Simone Repele , Uwe Scholz (taken from Giovanni di Palma). This show is dedicated to the little great woman immortalized by William Shakespeare, and after him by countless artists, in which music and dance come together to paint in colors – now delicate, now very vivid – a new and unusual portrait of the most famous Veronese of all times.
To embody her, Eleonora Abbagnato, former étoile of the Paris Opera and director of the Ballet Company of the Rome Opera House, will be at the same time an ethereal and sensual woman, impalpable and strong-willed, with a timeless charm.
For the occasion, the creator of the show Daniele Cipriani did not want to choose neither the famous notes of the ballet Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev, nor dialogues taken from the Shakespearean tragedy, building the show around other music inspired by it, by composers Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij (Romeo and Juliet, Ouverture-fantasia, transcription for two pianos by Karl Klindworth), Hector Louis Berlioz (Scène d’amour from Roméo et Juliette, Symphonie dramatique, transcription for two pianos by Otto Singer), and Leonard Bernstein (Symphonic dances from West Side Story, transcription for two pianos by John Musto), on whose notes original choreographies have been composed. The rather unusual transcriptions of these music will be performed for two pianos by the virtuoso pianists, Marcos Madrigal and Alessandro Stella.
The show opens, as a world premiere, a creation by Sasha Riva and Simone Repele, to the notes of Tchaikovsky, in which a blonde girl absorbed in romantic daydreams, a little Juliet of our days, sees reflected in her youthful image woman with her Romeo beside her. The young woman is Eleonora Abbagnato, the girl is Julia Balzaretti (aged 10, daughter of the étoile); the present and the future merge and merge, together with the past, since in the end it will be the sixteenth-century lovers who will seal their love with death, while a strange guardian angel will mark the time with bicycle rides, taking away, in the end, little Julia / Juliet. The central piece of the evening sees a very romantic Eleonora Abbagnato, together with Michele Satriano, in a two step that the brilliant choreographer Uwe Scholz composed in 1988 for his ballet masterpiece Il Rosso e il nero, to the music of Roméo and Juliette di Berlioz, reassembled by Giovanni Di Palma exceptionally for this occasion. At the end of the evening, among the protagonists, Eleonora Abbagnato, Davide Dato and Vsevolod Maievskyi will dance to the notes of the symphonic dances composed by Leonard Bernstein.
On Wednesday 27 July, the “Roberto Bolle and Friends” For the first time at the Nervi Music Ballet Festival, produced by Artedanza srl – with which the Étoile has traveled all over the world
On Wednesday 27 July, the “Roberto Bolle and Friends” gala lands for the first time in Nervi in a special edition created by Artedanza srl in collaboration with the Carlo Felice Theater. For the first time Roberto Bolle’s dance arrives at the Nervi Music Ballet Festival, a place of ancient and prestigious dance tradition, with its Gala Roberto Bolle and Friends – produced by Artedanza srl – with which the Étoile has traveled all over the world. A show specially designed by Roberto Bolle to offer an engaging and exciting dance evening, with always new songs and highly talented national and international performers. Also this time the program will wisely mix the contemporary with the classic, the virtuosity with the great emotion. An ever new and innovative show that remains one of a kind. The Gala is one of the tools through which the Étoile has managed to bring dance back to the attention of the general public, outside the niche of theaters – which it continues to fill – directly to people’s hearts. An instrument that over the years has joined enormously successful creations such as the television program Danza con Me which, every year, opens the program of the flagship of Italian television, Rai1. But also OnDance, a dance party that has become a real hotbed of events and initiatives related to the dissemination and knowledge of dance through meetings, shows, open classes, live and digital dance venues. Overall, the “Bolle system” has established itself as an authoritative and catalyzing presence that has brought lymph to the whole world of dance, even at an institutional level.
Starting from Saturday 11 June until Monday 13 June, the “Nervi Music Ballet Festival 2022” will open in preview with “Il Sogno di Nervi”
Memorial of the International Ballet Festival, a three-day event dedicated to the memory of the founder of the International Ballet Festival of Nervi, Mario Porcile and his Stars. Among the planned initiatives, in the spaces of the Palestrina to the west of Villa Grimaldi Fassio, the meetings and master classes held by some of the historical étoiles, Vittorio Biagi, Liliana Cosi, Amedeo Amodio, Loredana Furno, dedicated to the young generations of dancers. The rich program open to the public includes the projection of unpublished films from the “Fondo Mario Porcile”, meetings and debates with dancers, open master class sessions and end-of-course performances. The memorial is produced by the D’Angel Association, with the artistic direction of Simona Griggio in collaboration with the “Fondo Mario Porcile” and the “Nervi Music Ballet Festival”.
For information: info@nervimusicballetfestival.it
Official site: nervimusicballetfestival.it
