Soirée Russe – homage to Sergei Diaghilev’s “Ballets Russes”

The spirit of so many great protagonists of the most golden season of ballet lives again in SOIRÉE RUSSE – homage to SERGEI DIAGHILEV’S RUSSIAN BALLETS curated by Daniele Cipriani, a ballet and live music show that will be staged at Villa Campolieto in Ercolano (NAPOLI – Italy), as part of the Festival delle Ville Vesuviane, on 24 and 25 September 2021 at 9 p.m. It also celebrates Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) on the 50th anniversary of his death.

The spectator will follow a journey through the history of 20th century music and ballet where, however, the vigour of contemporaneity reclaims the past and moves into the future. In fact, the ballets from Diaghilevi’s repertoire are all given a modern twist by some of today’s most interesting choreographers: Marco Goecke (Uccello di fuoco), Amedeo Amodio (L’après-midi d’un faune), Uwe Scholz (Sagra della primavera) and the duo RiVA & REPELE (Suite italienne, from Pulcinella).

Co-starring in SOIRÉE RUSSE are the musicians Marcos Madrigal and Alessandro Stella (piano) who will tackle the extremely difficult transpositions of Stravinsky’s scores for four-hand piano; Lissy Abreu (violin) will join her Cuban compatriot Madrigal to evoke 18th century atmospheres, as Stravinsky did with his score inspired by Pergolesi; and finally Massimo Mercelli (flute) whose silvery notes will transport us, as if by magic, to an arcane Greece (as imagined by Mallarmé and Debussy).

In close symbiosis with these musical virtuosos, Sasha Riva and Simone Repele, Mattia Tortora and Susanna Elviretti will dance. The costume of Pulcinella (worn by Riva in the ballet of the same name) has been recreated from the original design by Pablo Picasso.

Daniele Cipriani says: “I wanted to pay tribute to Serghei Diaghilev, whose enthusiasm, creativity, love of the arts and courage to dare and take risks have always been my main sources of inspiration. Above all, I wanted to pay tribute to his conception of ballet as total stage art. So, with SOIRÉE RUSSE, I bring music, dance and theatre to the stage: to give artists from various disciplines the chance to perform after so many months of being forced to stop, but also to give the audience the chance to make up for their long abstinence from live theatre in a single performance”.

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