A paradox. A “run-through,” this technical rehearsal that can be interrupted at any time and where improvements to the show can be identified, is generally thought not to generate enthusiasm. The backstage is not of interest to the audience, who generally turn away from it. They are wrong. It’s an undeniably enriching experience to attend the preparations of a ballet under the direction of Monique Loudières.
This Star of the Paris Opera Ballet and Artistic Director of the Cannes Rosella Hightower Superior Dance School, Choreographer of “Giselle,” premiering next Friday at the Nice Opera in a new production, is centered on “sharing”. A word she will repeat continuously during the debriefing where she steps onto the stage to offer technical advice and warm recommendations to the forty dancers: almost thirty from the Cannes Ballet School (21 girls and 8 boys) and about twenty from the Nice Opera. Providing a professional stage for the young talents of this School is at the heart of this production in collaboration with the Opera Theatre of Avignon. Monique Loudières’ words seem to echo the memory of the “brilliant genius” of Maurice Béjart, recently passed: “we speak with our body, our eyes, our hands…our toes,” says the Star Dancer to the troupe. He explained that ballets sometimes give the impression of boredom because they retreat into pure aesthetics, cutting off from language, from communication with the audience. Sharing, for Monique Loudières, likely has a double meaning: one that comes from herself because she feels a “need to transmit all that she has learned, experienced, deepened in her personal research”. Promising prospects for those who can absorb the experience of someone who was, alongside Rudolf Nureyev, the faithful partner for the greatest titles of the repertoire including “Giselle,” which she performed in both classical and contemporary versions and which probably constitutes one of her peaks. But also a “sharing with the audience.” During the rehearsal, she indeed calls on her young dancers to create “a movement that breathes,” to give the torsos “all the generosity” they deserve, to “take volume in the space that separates them from the audience”. In a way, putting flesh on words and emotion in movement.
Because these moving bodies tell a genuine story: that of a dramatic love story thwarted between Albrecht, the noble fiancé of a princess, and Giselle, a young peasant girl: she dies upon learning that he must marry another. The queen of the Willis, spirits of young girls who died virgins, decides that Albrecht must die. He is condemned to dance to death, but Giselle’s spirit, by dancing with him, will manage to save him. All the themes of romanticism are thus declined in this ballet composed by Adolphe Adam on a libretto by Théophile Gautier. For this production, one can note the “in-house” sets of the Nice Opera created by Caroline Constantin.
Ranked among the six dance schools in France recognized by the State, the “Cannes Rosella Hightower,” named after the one who was the French Director of Dance and who named her a “Danseuse Etoile” in 1982, has the vocation, explains Monique Loudières, its Artistic and Educational Director since 2003, to “train dancers as professionals” and above all, to offer a “scenic apprenticeship aimed at making dancers capable of adapting to each company”. Always the notion of sharing. But also that of “conviction” for the one who welcomes the allocation – albeit controversial – of the National Theater of Chaillot to dance. “There is an audience for dance” provided, she specifies, that one “offers the audience a wider range” of choreographic works and “raises awareness” among them, notably through the media, of all – and especially the pleasure – they can derive from it. Before concluding: “Individuality is rich but often ignorant of its richness.”
“Giselle,” a Fantasy Ballet in two acts by Adolphe Adam
Ballet of the Nice Opera and
Young Cannes Ballet of the Rosella Hightower School (www.cannesdance.com)
Nice Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David T. Heusel and
Choreography by Monique Loudières
Guest stars from the Paris Opera for the roles of Giselle, Albrecht, and Mirtha.
Friday, November 30, 2007, at 8:00 PM, Saturday, December 1, 2007, at 2:30 PM and 8:00 PM, Sunday, December 2, 2007, at 2:30 PM.
Nice Opera: 4 & 6 Saint-François-de-Paule Street, 06000 Nice
Reservations: 04 92 17 40 79
