Tag Archives: Teatro Real in Madrid

The Compañía Nacional de Danza pays homage to Enrique Granados

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The Compañía Nacional de Danza (CND) returns to the stage of Madrid’s Teatro Real to close a season that, with the support of the LOEWE FOUNDATION, has allowed this theatre to showcase some of today’s best ballet performances.

AnhelosTormentosCNDFrom 22nd to 25th July, the CND that José Carlos Martínez directs and whose official sponsor is the LOEWE FOUNDATION, will present 3 pieces that pay homage to composer Enrique Granados on the 100th anniversary of his death. The musical prism that ties the night together results in a heterogeneous ensemble of choreographers and styles of which only one piece, Raymonda Divertimento, has been presented previously in Madrid.

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In the Night, by Jerome Robbins, is set to a series of Chopin’s nocturnes to depict, through the performance of three different couples dancing under the stars, the varying shades of romantic love. CND pianist Carlos Faxas will play the nocturnes live.

Anhelos y Tormentos, especially choreographed by Dimo Kirilov for the CND, is the most contemporary of the evening’s pieces, putting the capacity of expression and restraint of the company’s dancers to the test. The Lab is in charge of the sound design and Rosa Torres-Pardo of playing, on stage, the hauntingly evocative Enrique Granados pieces to which this choreography is set.

Suite (trio), by choreographer Uwe Scholz is set to Serguéi Rajmáninov’s Suite number 2 for two pianos and gives us one of the most abstract and purest visions of what ballet was in the 20th century; two men and one woman take over the stage in a piece that is laden with emotion and simplicity.

The José Carlos Martínez version of Raymonda Divertimento, which recreates Marius Petipa’s original choreography and Nureyev’s later vision, is set to Glazunov’s score and fills the stage with classic dance steps and orientalist aromas. This ballet, already an emblematic piece for the CND, shines thanks to the work of the corps de ballet and the virtuosity of its soloists.

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CND, Homage to Enrique Granados. From 22nd to 25th July in Madrid’s Teatro Real.  More information at teatro-real.com.

Photographs: Anhelos y Tormentos & In the Night © Jesús Vallinas. Suite (trio) © José Jordan for the CND, 2016.

The Staatsballett Berlin opens the 2015-16 dance season at the Teatro Real in Madrid

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After several years away from Spain, Nacho Duato -former Director of the Compañía Nacional de Danza for more than two decades- returns to Madrid, this time leading the Staatsballett Berlin.

Sleeping_BeautyYanRevazoThe dance season of the Teatro Real -with the support of the LOEWE FOUNDATION- will raise the curtain up the 4th of September with the ballet The Sleeping Beauty. A new version created by Nacho Duato in 2011 for the Mikhailovsky Ballet -the company he directed for two years- will be performed in Madrid.

Duato created his ballet from the original score and script by Tchaikovsky and Vsevolozhsky. This new ballet is full of references to Marius Petipa, the first choreographer of the piece. The magnificent designs by Angelina Atjalić and the stage lighting by Brad Fields bring richness and historical evocation to this production. In these performances, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid will be conducted by Pedro Alcalde.

A very different program performed by the Statsballett Berlin gets to show the new course being taken by the company since the arrival of Duato. The ballet And the Sky on that Cloudy Old Day, with choreography by Marco Goecke and music by John Adams will be performed together with two pieces by Duato himself. With Static Time -his newest ballet- especially created for the Staatsballett Berlin, Duato offers a sign to farewells and memories. White Darkness, premiered by the CND in 2001, will be closing the evening.

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It seems a very promising opening for the dance season at the Teatro Real de Madrid. Sasha Walz, in March, and our Compañía Nacional de Danza, in July, will also be dancing on that same stage.

More information at + 34 915 060 660 (www.teatro-real.com)

Photographs: The Sleeping Beauty © Yan Revazo. Static Time © Fernando Marcos.

Sol León & NDT in Madrid

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SCHMETTERLING © Rahi Rezvani_online_6 @The last dance show of the 2014-15 Season at the Teatro Real in Madrid -sponsored by the LOEWE FOUNDATION- will be performed by the Nederlands Dans Theater. The company will present two ballets by Paul Lightfoot -Director of NDT- and Sol León, both house choreographers of the company since 2002.

Sol León has been working with Paul Lightfoot since 1989 and the couple is one of the leading names in European creation. The Spanish choreographer explains that Sehnsucht (2009) and Schmetterling (2010), the two pieces performed in Madrid, “complement each other.” With them, she says, “we created a continuous feeling between space and time; past, present and future build a continuous spiral”. These pieces were created a year apart but they have been performed together because, says León, “we really like to have this little trip: we create a bridge between these two parts”. Two works with music as different as Beethoven, in the first part, and Max Richter and The Magnetic Fields songs in the second part. But she warns: “The intermission also becomes part of the show.”

SolLeónEncuentrosLOEWEConLaDanzaLeón feels “very lucky to create.” After 25 years choreographing, she knows that “time is powerful. If you are not insecure and you feel free to express whatever you feel, it becomes a magical act that makes me feel inspired and creative. Dance can express through motion, as poetry does with words”. She looks at the present time and is excited with the fact of “showing this work in Spain because these ballets have been already touring around the world.” Shortly before coming to the Teatro Real, they will be shown at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.

Following the departure of choreographer Jiří Kylián from NDT “the company was needing the spirit of the artist”, says León. “Since the last visit of the company to Madrid, creativity is again palpable in the house with the arrival of Paul (Lightfoot) three years ago.”

In 2008, Sol León participated with the film-maker Carlos Saura in the LOEWE Dance Talks, integrating this discipline with cinema as two complementary and parallel activities. The choreographer remembers “with a smile, with real affection” the talk held at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid and moderated by Elna Matamoros, adviser of the LOEWE FOUNDATION. The reflections of Carlos Saura and Sol León, their own work and the stimulous given by the LOEWE Foundation to dance are compiled in the summary of that talk, which can be downloaded from the link at the end of this article [only in Spanish].

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More information at + 34 915 060 660 (www.teatro-real.com)

Photographs: Schmetterling and Sehnsucht by Nederlands Dans Theater © Rezvani. Sol León in the LOEWE Talk Dance-Cinema  © Residencia de Estudiantes, 2008.