Gala Fracci at La Scala has reached its third edition. It was La Scala Ballet's director, Manuel Legris, who had the idea to stage an annual gala dedicated to the great Italian ballerina who died in 2021.
The first Gala Fracci celebrated Carla Fracci's career and repertoire. Now, while Fracci remains centre stage with giant projections of her seen between pieces, the repertoire is certainly mixed, with La Sylphide, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty, yes, but also Árbakkinn and In Your Black Eyes. But then Fracci, together with her husband Beppe Menegatti, was always keen on exploring and often travelled far from the classical titles, creating new works with music by Luciano Berio, dancing on tour with Italian pop star Renato Zero, interpreting evocations of Isadora Duncan by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, and dancing in the many works created on her such as Mauro Bigonzetti's Le Streghe di Venezia, Maurice Béjart's L'Heure Exquise, Roland Petit's Chéri… It was a long and varied career.
A gala can be an opportunity to give dancers a chance to dip their toes into new repertoire, and there were some pleasant surprises. One of these was a scene from Roland Petit's 1979 ballet La Chauve-Souris (Die Fledermaus) that was acclaimed when remounted in Milan in 2003 with Alessandra Ferri as Bella and Massimo Murru as her fickle husband. Murru is now on the coaching staff at La Scala. Christian Fagetti played the role created by Luigi Bonino (who was in Milan to stage the scene) and was witty and adorable as Bella's conniving friend. Virna Toppi as Bella – the moping wife who transforms into a femme fatale – gave a well-judged performance, with Luana Saullo, in her last appearance before retirement, hilarious as the servant grappling with the extremely long telephone cord.
Another eye-opener was recently nominated étoile Nicoletta Manni in La Luna, a solo taken from Maurice Béjart's ballet Héliogabale. The piece was created on Luciano Savignano in 1976 (videos of Savignano and that of an 18-year-old Sylvie Guillem can be seen on YouTube), so Manni had a hard act to follow, especially as she has very different physical qualities, without the seemingly disarticulated points of those other dancers. She was coached in the role by the 80-year-old Savignano (who strode on stage at the end to share the applause) and gave a winning, seductive performance.
Manni returned to more familiar territory at the end of the gala with the closing scene from Alexei Ratmansky's new production of Coppélia, created for the company last year. Timofej Andrijashenko's loveable Franz joined her Swanhilda for the final pas de deux, which on second viewing seems over fussy at times, though the pair brought out the heavy guns with Manni's 16 fouettés immediately followed by à la seconde turns! Andrijashenko, not to be outdone, whipped off his sequence of turns at impressive speed with an impertinent grin. His anti danseur noble swagger and boyish cantering around the stage, together with Manni's no-nonsense hands-on-hips manner, shows the power of detail in Ratmansky's storytelling.
Intense and moving was Roberto Bolle's tribute to Ezio Bosso, the composer who suffered for many years from a neurodegenerative condition and died in 2020.
The solo – already seen during Bolle's television special last year and in his Bolle & Friends galas – was created by Patrick de Bana to Bosso's song Rain, in Your Black Eyes, and represents a body's struggle with illness. The simple staging, with mainly static lighting and some swirling smoke, provided almost 12 minutes of passionate and challenging dancing.
The two guest couples were regal and refined. Olga Smirnova and Jacopo Tissi performed the pas de deux from Georges Balanchine's Diamonds with cool restraint and showed off the most beautiful lines. Her port de bras is the maximum of expressivity, with soft wrists constantly undulating, and Tissi was a consummate partner.
Marianela Nuñez and Vadim Muntagirov were serene and assured in the gran pas from The Sleeping Beauty, entering to warm applause. Nuñez glowed, crowned by a tiara with the brightest sparkles I've ever seen; Muntagirov showed why he is one of the foremost dancers of his generation, with a dazzling solo; and both unfailingly found every musical accent to underline their prowess.
A section of Andrea Crescenzi's Luce (performed with great feeling by Linda Giubelli, Navrin Turnbull, and Domenico Di Cristo) was maybe too long in the context of a gala, or maybe it was just not gripping enough to pull me into its world, though with Philip Glass' music I am usually easily swayed. Simone Valastro's Árbakkinn to music by Ólafur Arnalds was much more compelling, with Antonella Albano and Massimo Garon.
Vittoria Valerio and Claudio Coviello were suitably vivacious in the pas de deux from La Sylphide. Interestingly, both worked with Carla Fracci during a public masterclass on Giselle – one of the very few she ever gave. They were due to repeat the experience with this pas de deux from La Sylphide in 2020, but COVID struck, the event was cancelled, and a year later Fracci died.
In the adagio and coda from the Paquita divertissement the excellent corps and soloists were led by Martina Arduino and Marco Agostino, both in sparkling form – she secure and radiant. Less interesting was part of the second act of Swan Lake, containing the white swan pas de deux, with a well-drilled corps de ballet, a noble Timofej Andrijashenko, and a serviceable but not magical Maria Celeste Losa. There was enchanting coordination from the four cygnets, though – their retiré and embôité heights were identical, and so on, but they were also perfectly in sync for those oh-so-difficult eyelines and head angles.
The Donizetti Pas de deux is delightful and demanding. It was choreographed by Manuel Legris when he was director of the Vienna Opera Ballet. Alice Mariani and Nicola Del Freo were breathtaking in their joyful execution, shrugging off its difficulties and rising to its many challenges. The height of Del Freo's jumps for his entrechats was astounding, and Mariani blazed through the gamut of ballet sequences, often with Legris' tricky little extras thrown in to complicate things further. It was a triumphant moment and showed how La Scala's company is currently in spectacular form.
During the curtain call, the entire company, guest dancers and conductor turned their backs to the audience and applauded, bowed, and curtsied before a stage-high projection of Carla Fracci pictured in front of La Scala's famous tabs after one of her many celebrated performances in the theatre she thought of as home.
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.