Press Office14/08/2015
MIDSUMMER GALA
The Firebird and the Rite of Spring
Teatro Romano di Verona
Friday 14th August - 9:00 p.m.
On Friday 14th August at 9:00 pm, Verona’s Teatro Romano once again hosts the not to be missed appointment with Fondazione Arena's dance performance,as part of the Estate Teatrale Veronese (Verona Summer Theatre Program), with a Midsummer Gala based entirely on music by Igor Stravinsky.
The choreography is by Renato Zanella, Director of the Arena’s Dance Company and an internationally acclaimed choreographer, who is also responsible for the coordination of this show’s sets, costumes and lighting.The program includes The Firebird and, on its Italian première, The Rite of Spring in a version created by Zanella for the Vienna Opera in 1996.
The key performers will be the principal dancers Alessia Gelmetti, Teresa Strisciulli, Evghenij Kurtsev and Antonio Russo, with Soloists and the Dance Company of the Arena di Verona.
In 2011, Fondazione Arena di Verona commissioned Renato Zanella with the neoclassical style choreography of The Firebird for an evening dedicated to Stravinsky, for the Teatro Filarmonico’s Opera and Ballet Season.Zanella frequently uses Stravinsky’s music, maintaining that “Stravinsky’s scores are written for ballet, and meet its requirements perfectly”.A virtual dialogue therefore takes place between the Russian composer and the Veronese choreographer, but also with Diaghilev, who, with his masterpieces, “time after time confirmed the enormously important role dance plays in culture”.Diaghilev was also responsible for the success of Stravinsky, whose most famous compositions for ballet are in fact L’Oiseau de feu (1910) and Le sacre du printemps (1913). With The Firebird, Zanella also intends to pay tribute to art of the early 1900s, reproducing on stage a famous watercolour painting by Léon Bakst, who designed the original costumes for the Princess and the Bird for the first performance of the ballet in 1910, alongside the story’s key symbols:the tree, the golden apple, the cage and the egg, which reflect the story’s fairy tale atmosphere.In fact, the dance performanceis based on a Russian fairy tale, and highlights the difference between good and evil, represented respectively by the immortal ogre Kastchei (Pietro Occhio), who turns all humans to stone, and the legendary Firebird (Alessia Gelmetti), the only creature able to break the spell, which forms the background to the adventurous love story between the Princess held prisoner by the ogre (Scilla Cattafesta) and the heroic Prince Ivan (Antonio Russo).
The Rite of Spring, has a completely different type of inspiration and is a more athletic expressive work, in which Zanella intends to cover the wider concept of the “ritual” in depth, although he does not follow the libretto, which sets the dance performancein ancient Russia.Zanella therefore changes the story as far as both period and location are concerned, transferring it to what was once Yugoslavia, during the war, the period in which he conceived the choreography for the Vienna Opera and was inspired “by the information heard at that time regarding the violence women were undergoing”.This led to the idea of war being a chronic illness, even able to become a macabre ritual, such as that described by Zanella’s choreography:a young couple (Teresa Strisciulli and Evghenij Kurtsev) dance light-heartedly, celebrating the arrival of Spring, until a group of Elders (Luca Panella, Annalisa Bardo, Manuel Barzon, Scilla Cattafesta, Luca Condello, Federica Cristofaro) begins to instil fear and insecurity in the youngsters, manipulating their emotions.The boy is then convinced to sacrifice his sweetheart for the good of the community; and, isolated in a whirl of violence, she has no way out other than death.
Info
Fondazione Arena di Verona Press Office – Via Roma 7/D, 37121 Verona
Tel.(+39) 045 805.1861-1905-1891-1939 - fax (+39) 045 803.1443
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Tickets
Stalls€ 29.00
Stalls (reduced rate)*€ 22.00
Seats on steps€ 18.00
Seats on steps (reduced rate)*€ 15.00
* Reduced rate tickets are available for under-30 and over-65 spectators, as well as CRAL and other affiliated association’s members
The ticket office at the Teatro Romano is open on the day of the show from 7:00 pm.
Ticket Office – Via Dietro Anfiteatro 6/B, 37121 Verona
Call center (+39) 045 8005151 - fax (+39) 045 8013287
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