Choreographer

Director

Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote returns to the stage, a flagship production of the La Scala Ballet Company since 1980, when the famous ballet entered the repertoire with Nureyev himself in the lead alongside Carla Fracci. With its lively energy and the warm colours of the production by Raffaele Del Savio and Anna Anni, it will transport the audience with freshness, joy, virtuosity, and rich choreography to a captivating Spain, featuring gypsy dances, fandangos, matadors, windmills, and the suspended candour of the Garden of the Dryads. Set to Minkus’ immediate music, the adventures of Don Quixote and his loyal squire Sancho Panza intertwine, or rather serve as the backdrop for a love story and an evening of sparkling, temperamental dance, with amusing secondary roles and virtuosic leading parts. Through escapades, deceptions, and disguises, Don Quixote will dance with his Dulcinea, while the young Kitri and the barber Basilio will realise their dream.

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Don Quixote

Teatro alla Scala

The tribute from La Scala and its artists to Carla Fracci continues, as she remains a pivotal figure in the history of dance, a source of inspiration for generations of young people, not just in the world of ballet. Ballet director Frédéric Olivieri continues the tradition established in 2022 by Manuel Legris, celebrating dance and ballet in the name of this extraordinary star. Following the sell-out success of previous editions, there will be two performances in 2026, the year that marks both the fifth anniversary of Carla Fracci’s passing and the 90th anniversary of her birth. The vast and rich repertoire of her signature roles and the ballets she performed will be revived with international guests, the full La Scala Ballet Company – étoile, principal dancers, soloists, and artists of the Corps de Ballet – along with students from the School, the present and future of La Scala’s dance tradition.

The most sumptuous and dreamlike ballet, almost the “ballet par excellence”: The Sleeping Beauty, when it was first performed in St Petersburg in 1890, saw the development of an exemplary collaboration between choreographer (Petipa), composer (Tchaikovsky), and the director of the Imperial Theatres, Vsevoložskij, who also created the costumes, to present to the Petersburg nobility the fabulous grandeur of the court of King Louis XIV. It was at La Scala that Nureyev entrusted the debut of his Sleeping Beauty in 1966, performing on stage alongside Carla Fracci in a role considered a key ballet in his artistic life. From the original choreography, Nureyev managed to preserve its purity while infusing it with a new theatrical breath, with a complex choreography that revealed the characters’ psychology, the Prince among them. Six years after the previous performances, the production returns in the setting created by Oscar-winning designer Franca Squarciapino for La Scala in 1993, splendid in its exquisite décor and costumes evoking the court of Versailles.

The Sleeping Beauty

The Sleeping Beauty - UNDER30 Preview

Irresistible attraction, all-consuming passion, tragic consequences: Shakespeare’s heartbreaking tale is reimagined in a ballet that is “as vital, as alive and as stirring as can be” (The Telegraph ★★★★★).

Choreographer, Director

Rudolf Nureyev

Events

Upcoming events

14 - 24 Jan, 2027

Romeo & Juliet · London Coliseum

Past events

2 - 16 Jul, 2026

Don Quixote · Teatro alla Scala

Jan 31 - Feb 3, 2026

Teatro alla Scala · Teatro alla Scala

About

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