Viaggio nel repertorio del balletto (A journey through the ballet repertoire). Teatro dell’Opera di Roma

Viaggio nel repertorio del balletto (A journey through the ballet repertoire), curated and presented by Francesca Pedroni, dance journalist and critic, with the dancers of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.

 

Nutcracker: between reality and magic, the timeless Christmas ballet

Curated by Francesca Pedroni

With Étoile Alessio Rezza, Primi Ballerini Marianna Suriano and Claudio Cocino, and Soloist Flavia Stocchi, Ballet Company of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma

Guest: Paul Chalmer, international choreographer

 

In the world of classical-academic ballet, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without The Nutcracker. Alongside The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, it completes the triad of masterpieces composed in late 19th-century Russia by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1892, with a libretto by the first maître of the Imperial Theatres, Marius Petipa, and choreography by Lev Ivanov. A Christmas Eve filled with wonders — from the battle between toy soldiers and mice to the Waltz of the Snowflakes, the Sugar Plum Fairy’s variation with its crystalline celesta sound, and the transformation of the Nutcracker toy into a Prince who leads the young heroine on magical adventures.

The Ballet Company of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, directed by Eleonora Abbagnato, will bring it to the stage this December at the Teatro Costanzi in the version by Paul Chalmer — the focus of the November edition of Viaggio nel repertorio del balletto (A journey through the ballet repertoire), curated by Francesca Pedroni for the Centro Coreografico Nazionale / Aterballetto.

A performance-conversation blending readings, stories, and video clips, featuring the invaluable participation of Étoile Alessio Rezza, Primi Ballerini Marianna Suriano and Claudio Cocino, and Soloist Flavia Stocchi from the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, who will dance some of the ballet’s most iconic excerpts — along with Paul Chalmer himself.

Born in Modugno (Bari), Alessio Rezza graduated from the La Scala Ballet School in 2008. After performing with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, and the Paris Opéra Ballet, he joined the Ballet Company of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma in 2010. Under the direction of Eleonora Abbagnato, he was promoted to Soloist, later named Principal Dancer (The Nutcracker), and in May 2022, appointed Étoile (Le Corsaire).

Throughout his career, he has danced leading roles from both the classical and contemporary repertoire, including Basilio in Don Quixote, Albrecht in Giselle, Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty, James in La Sylphide, The Prince in The Nutcracker, Solor and the Golden Idol in La Bayadère, Frédéri in L’Arlésienne, Colas in La Fille mal gardée, Franz in Coppélia, and Lensky in Onegin.

He has also performed in works by William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Rudolf Nureyev, Angelin Preljocaj, Roland Petit, Jerome Robbins, Frederick Ashton, Mauro Bigonzetti, Uwe Scholz, Johan Inger, Maurice Béjart, José Limón, Benjamin Millepied, Christopher Wheeldon, David Dawson, Paul Chalmer, and Jiří Bubeníček, working with world-renowned ballet masters such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Julio Bocca, Patricia Ruanne, Laurent Hilaire, José Martinez, and Sylvie Guillem.

In 2023, he was invited to dance at the Dubai Opera in A Thousand Tales by Francesco Ventriglia, and also performed in the “Les Étoiles” galas (2023 and 2024) and “Il cigno nero”, produced by Daniele Cipriani Entertainment. In 2024, he portrayed Prince Siegfried in the Rai5 televised recording of Swan Lake, choreographed by Benjamin Pech.

Among the many awards he has received are the Premio Positano, Danza&Danza, Roma in Danza, Anita Bucchi, Roma è Arte, and Europa in Danza.

Born in Rome, Flavia Stocchi trained at the Opera di Roma Ballet School, performing in productions directed by Carla Fracci, including La Gitana (Chalmer), The Nutcracker with Fracci, and Michelangelo with Mario Marozzi. She has won several international competitions and awards such as Aurel Millos, Anita Bucchi, and Guido Lauri (Best Emerging Performer), as well as a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in London (2010).

After graduating with top honors, she performed alongside Alessio Carbone and Giuseppe Picone in Daniele Cipriani’s galas, and in 2013 she joined the Ballet Company of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, then directed by Van Hoecke. She has also danced with MaggioDanza (La Sylphide by Bournonville; The Four Temperaments by Balanchine) and at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (The Nutcracker and Carmen by Amodio, for which she received the Premio Capri for Best Emerging Talent 2014).

At the Opera di Roma, she has performed in Carmina Burana (Van Hoecke), The River (Ailey), and The Nutcracker (Amodio). Under Eleonora Abbagnato’s direction, she has appeared in Pink Floyd Ballet (Petit), Giselle (Ruanne), the pas de trois in Swan Lake (Pech), Amorino and Kitri in Don Quixote (Hilaire), Suite en blanc (Lifar), and as Bluebird and Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty (Bart), a performance that earned her the Danza&Danza Award for Best Emerging Performer 2018.

In 2016, she was chosen by Iancu to perform Swan Lake (Odette/Odile) in Bucharest. She took part in the Italians in the World Gala at the Coliseo Theatre in Buenos Aires alongside Eleonora Abbagnato and Giuseppe Picone.

Her recent performances at the Opera di Roma include The Nutcracker by Peparini (as Clara) and by Chalmer (as Young Clara), Nuit romaine by Preljocaj, Giselle by Fracci (Peasant Pas de deux), Il rosso e il nero by Scholz (Mathilde de La Mole), Onegin by Cranko (Olga), Within the Golden Hour by Wheeldon at Caracalla, and Creature, a new creation by Francesco Annarumma at La Nuvola.

Born in Ottawa in 1962, Paul Chalmer studied with Oliphant, Seillier, and Bruhn at the National Ballet School before joining the National Ballet of Canada. In 1980, he became a member of John Cranko’s Stuttgart Ballet, where he was later promoted to Principal Dancer. In 1985, he joined Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in the same rank and went on to perform with companies such as the English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet, London City Ballet, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, and La Scala in Milan.

Throughout his career, he has performed major roles from the classical repertoire as well as works by Balanchine, Tetley, MacMillan, Kylián, Forsythe, and Scholz. He has partnered some of the greatest étoiles, including Thesmar, Fracci, Seymour, Makarova, Evdokimova, Jaffe, Marcia Haydée, Dessutter, Keil, Savignano, and Terabust.

He was appointed Ballet Master at the Semperoper Ballett Dresden in 1999, and the following year at the Leipziger Ballett at the invitation of Uwe Scholz, whose successor he became as Artistic Director of the company from 2005 to 2010.

As a choreographer, he has created La Fille du Danube for the Arena di Verona Ballet (1996), La Gitana (1996), and Il Talismano (awarded the Premio Massine in 1997). In 2009, he presented Piaf à Deux at the Madrid en Danza Festival and Romeo and Juliet at the St. Prex Festival in Switzerland. He served on the Prix de Lausanne jury in 2011, the same year he created Swan Lake – The Tchaikovsky Enigma for MaggioDanza.

In 2013, he choreographed Romeo and Juliet for the Junior Ballet of the Conservatoire National de Paris and Cinderella for the Teatr Wielki in Poznań, later revived in 2014 at the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre Ballet in the Czech Republic, where he also created The Three Musketeers (music by Jan Kučera, 2017) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (music by Aniello Mallardo, 2022). For Opera Nova Bydgoszcz in Poland, he created The Nutcracker (2015) and Romeo and Juliet (2018).

A new production of The Three Musketeers premiered at the Latvian National Ballet in Riga in October 2018, followed by A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples in 2019.

For the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Chalmer has choreographed Lungo Viaggio (2000), The Sleeping Beauty (2002), La Gitana (2005), La Vestale (2006), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2008), Chopin racconta Chopin (2010), La Sylphide (2019), and The Nutcracker (2023).

Dance critic for the daily newspaper Il manifesto and the magazine Danza&Danza. For Classica HD (formerly Sky Classica, Channel 124), she worked as author and director of the series Danza in Scena, producing over 70 documentaries dedicated to artists such as William Forsythe, Pina Bausch, and Alessandra Ferri.

For cinema, she wrote and directed the documentary film Roberto Bolle. L’arte della Danza, produced by Classica and Artedanza srl. She curated the DVD collection I capolavori della danza, published by Classica HD and Corriere della Sera.

Since 2000, she has been teaching Dance History at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, and she also leads ballet talks for the Teatro alla Scala’s Under30/35 audience program.

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