On Monday 28 April 2025 at 8 p.m. the traditional appointment with the performance of the Ballet School of the Accademia Teatro alla Scala directed by Frédéric Olivieri returns to the stage of the Piermarini, the annual engagement involving the young recruits who attend one of the greatest choreographic institutions at international level.
Accompanying them is the Accademia Orchestra, conducted by Pietro Mianiti, with the participation of the Soloists from the Accademia di perfezionamento per cantanti lirici. The performance will offer a dynamic glimpse into the technical and artistic growth path being taken by the future protagonists of tomorrow's stage, thanks to a programme that challenges them in the interpretation of the classical-academic tradition as well as in contemporary choreography.
The programme opens, as always, with the Presentation conceived on Carl Czerny's Études by Frédéric Olivieri, who has also recently returned to lead the La Scala corps de ballet, a veritable visual compendium of the eight years of study, a snapshot of the progression that leads the young talents from the first fundamentals to the most sophisticated virtuosities, showing the evolution of technique as the various courses are staged.
With New Sleep (Duet), the School's students are once again confronted with the swirling dynamism of William Forsythe's creations. After The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude and In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, they perform an electrifying duet by the great American choreographer, an excerpt with variations from the original piece created in 1987 for the San Francisco Ballet. The version chosen for the Academy students was staged in 2011 for a Gala, whose performers were Katherina Markowskaja of the Bayerische Staatsballett in Munich and Noah Gelber. A piece in which Forsythe's deconstructionist style emerges with full force thanks to the off-balance movements that challenge the balance of the body and the pounding rhythms of Thom Willems' music, steeped in insistent urban sounds. Kathryn Bennetts, called by the choreographer to the Frankfurt Ballet in 1989 and already his partner in the days when they danced for the Stuttgart Ballet, on this occasion too, after last year's experience, accompanied the students in the preparation of the piece.
Abstract creation, free of any dramaturgical cage, not a story but pictures of parallel lives: images, postcards, dramatic icons and funny situations. This is Rossini cards by Mauro Bigonzetti, revived for the occasion by Roberto Zamorano with the final supervision by the choreographer himself.
The energetic freshness of the young performers is well suited to the pages of which the work is composed. They open with a tightrope walk in which the dancers, seated, play in a lively theory of head and arm movements to the notes of the sextet ‘Questo è un nodo avviluppato’ from La Cenerentola, performed by the Soloists of the Academy of Lyric Opera. This is followed by solos, duets and trios that are now sinuous and bewitching, now exalting the purity of the lines, now full of insidious holds, now expressions of magnetic understanding. Grand finale with the piece designed on the Overture from La gazza ladra where Rossini's crescendo finds a rich correspondence of rhythmic and playful suggestions in the steps of the dancers, all dressed in jacket, trousers and black beret, without distinction of gender. An expression of Gioachino Rossini's music, of its pressing rhythm that is at the same time exact and geometric, and at bottom of a Dionysian vitalism, Rossini cards was created in 2004 for Aterballetto and over time has enjoyed considerable success, with interpretations entrusted to companies of absolute authority.
In 2023 Rossini cards became the starting point for Rossini & Rossini, a ballet that Bigonzetti created for the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome where he had worked as a dancer for over ten years.
The evening is closed by the poetic suite from the ballet La strada by Mario Pistoni, with music by Nino Rota. In the programme that accompanied the first performance at the Piermarini in 1966, the choreographer clearly described the great fascination that the possibility of translating the subject of Fellini's film into choreographic movements had exercised on him.
After last year's touching rehearsal, Laura Farina, now a graduate, returns to take on the role of the fragile and innocent female protagonist, while Mick Zeni, formerly a ballet dancer at the Teatro alla Scala, plays the role of Zampanò. The Fool will be Francesco Della Valle from the 8th class. Guido Pistoni, nephew of the Roman Maestro, who after his uncle's death oversaw the revival of the ballet on several occasions, guided the students in their preparation.
Other important engagements await the dancers before the summer break:
from 15 to 18 May they will be at the Teatro Strehler in Milan and on 28 June they will inaugurate the Nervi International Ballet Festival at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, directed for the first time by Jacopo Bellussi. They will perform in La fille mal gardée, an 18th-century ballet brought to success at La Scala in 2023 in the choreographic version by Frédéric Olivieri.
On 7 June, the final exam will be held with the awarding of the diploma for the final year students, for whom the doors of the most prestigious theatres and ballet companies will soon open.
