© Yuko Miyazawa 'Mara in Motion’ more details on Mara’s gala in Brescia, Italy Mara Galeazzi Ballet Association interview Galeazzi in reviews RB Reviews www.maragaleazzi.com Royal Ballet website Mandy Kent reviews

Appropriately we started with how the Gala came about: “First of all I was asked by my friend Antonella Massolini to do something around Christmas time. A group called the Soroptimist International Club del Sebino [a bit like a female version of the Rotary club: Ed] wanted to organize it as a special event for me, and they asked if I wanted to do a two-hour performance. I said I don’t think I can do that - for two hours! Physically, I can’t do that by myself. If they want me to give a performance I have to have some people to come over and dance with me. They said that’s fine, you can take three or four people and you can arrange the programme yourself and organize the performance. Originally it was meant to be in a small local theatre, but for some reason it has ended up in the Teatro Grande, a 1400-seat theatre in the city of Brescia.”

Mara was born in Brescia, up in the north of Italy near Verona, but has rarely danced in her home country, instead joining the Royal Ballet in 1992 straight after graduating from the Ballet School at La Scala in Milan. She danced in a Gala organised by Alessandra Ferri in Cremona last summer and with Irek Mukhamedov at a Gala in Spoleto in 2003 and that’s it until now.

Her Gala ‘Mara in Motion’, takes place on Tuesday 8th February and has been timed to coincide with the Royal Ballet’s mid-season break, as Mara and her mini-company are all Royal Ballet dancers, and it was the best time for them to go. They are all donating their time for free as the Gala is a fundraising event. Mara explains “Originally we thought of doing the performance just for me, but then we had the option to do this for charity which is a great idea. The charity is for a local hospital in Brescia, they need a special machine to help cure people with leukaemia and it’s a very expensive machine, so we are raising money for that. All the profits from the Gala will go to the charity.”

 

Mara Galeazzi in the studio
© Yuko Miyazawa

In addition to the professional dancers the evening will include students from Antonella Massolini’s Ballet School. This is a wonderful opportunity for the students, some of whom will have the chance to perform in a real theatre for the first time. They will dance five pieces, giving more variety and texture to the evening and also giving Mara a chance to rest, change her pointe shoes, and do her hair and make-up between some pretty taxing roles.

So what exactly will Mara be dancing? “Four of my favourites…. I wanted to do Juliet because it’s one of my favourite roles and Voices of Spring because it is happy and it makes a good ending for a performance. Then I wanted to do two different things, Qualia pdd by Wayne McGregor because it’s modern, and the Black Swan pdd, but just the adage. Although I would love to dance the whole pdd I am already dancing four pdd that evening and I don’t have enough time to rest in between, so unfortunately I won’t be physically able to do it.”

The Qualia pdd is one which Mara has not danced before and she has enjoyed learning the role. “It feels very good; we went through it all today. With Edward (Watson); we’ve done so many things together like that, I feel so comfortable with him and he’s a great dancer, he’s done this piece so many times and today we’ve done it all and its fine”. Her choice of partners for the Gala stemmed directly from the works: “I’ve chosen the repertoire and then I thought carefully about who I want to dance with. I definitely wanted to choose Edward, he always gives 100% on stage, and because we’ve danced a lot we have a very strong relationship. I wanted to choose Rupert (Pennefather) because it will be a good start for him, he’s young but I think he has so much potential as a dancer and I think he needs to get confident on stage. This Gala is not like one where you go and everyone does a pdd and they all show off, it’s nothing like that, it’s for raising money and for enjoyment. The audience will be lots of family, lots of good friends from when I was a kid, people from Milan, from my ballet school who have never seen me dance yet, I have loads of support. And whatever happens, if one light goes wrong or if I don’t do one step right, I think the public is not going to be fussy, I think most people are going to be so happy to see me there dancing. And there will be a nice party afterwards because it is Carnival time in Italy! ”

Italy is also the setting for one of Mara’s favourite ballets, Romeo and Juliet. Juliet (the MacMillan version) is regarded by many as one of Mara’s finest roles - she is a wonderful dance-actress and her expressive features, eloquent eyes, slight girlish figure and strong technique make for riveting watching. And she is riveted with Juliet too: “It is one of the best roles for a ballerina, the first thing that you want to do and every time I do it I feel different. I play it better as I get older. When you are young you are fresh and it comes naturally. But when you are older you are still natural but you have more experience of the stage, you can really play around with everything, and it will become even more natural. It’s a good role to play because you never get that in real life. You know what love is, you know what it feels like when you are young, it’s crazy, you can almost kill yourself! ”

 

Mara Galeazzi in the studio
© Yuko Miyazawa

It takes a talented dancer to get to grips with MacMillan’s choreography and a talented actor to bring out the emotion in the roles he created. Mara is full of admiration for Sir Kenneth. “I met Kenneth when I was 18, I only knew him for the first two months I was in the company. But I know that before he died he wanted me to learn Mary Vetsera in Mayerling. When it came to the tour, after he died, I was down to cover Mary, and Gillian Revie was off so I took over her performance in Istanbul, in 1993. Then I did more of Kenneth’s work, and I started to get to know him through his ballets. I feel very natural when I dance these roles. It’s very strange because when I do his work I always feel very close to him, as if he is there, he makes me understand what it is all about right away. Kenneth’s wife (Lady Deborah MacMillan) often comes in to see the performances or rehearsals, and she noticed how I am so involved with his work, I just love it!”

Such enthusiasm for MacMillan doesn’t stop her enjoying other works which all have their challenges. She is certainly happy in classical roles: “I have the right physique, I think classical ballet is for me but I don’t think that I’ve done enough. I’m 31 years old and this is the best time of my career, but I wish I would have done a little bit more classical work when I was younger, to have the confidence. When you are younger you don’t think so much, you just throw yourself into it, and when you are older you are more aware of who you are and what you can do, what your limits are. ”

As for modern choreographers, Mara particularly likes working with Ashley Page (now director of a revitalised Scottish Ballet) “I love Ashley and I have created roles for him; he is a fantastic person to work with, everyone adores him, he is a great choreographer! I did his classical ‘Nutcracker’ in December 2003 with Jose Perez, who I adored.” Perez is currently working in Italy for Italian TV and Mara is trying to contact him for future plans as they both agreed that they would love to dance together again. “I find him a fantastic partner and a nice person to work with. He really works for me in classical roles and I am very confident with him.”

Finding the right partner can make all the difference to performances and Mara has her preferences. She lists some of her favourites: “Irek Mukhamedov, Adam Cooper, Robert Tewsley and Jonny Cope, Viacheslav Samodurov, Jose Perez, Martin Harvey, Federico Bonelli, Johan Kobborg. It’s nice to have variety, it’s exciting but sometimes it would be nice to have a regular partner. I always liked dancing with Adam Cooper, he was my favourite partner when I was young. I’ve worked a lot with Irek which was wonderful. I did ask him to come to the Gala but he was away.” She would have liked to dance Winter Dreams with him, reprising their performance at the recent Winter Gala at the Royal Opera House.

 

Mara Galeazzi in the studio
© Yuko Miyazawa

After the Gala, Mara’s schedule looks just as hectic. In the spring she is performing the lead role of The Chosen Maiden in MacMillan’s Rite of Spring, which she will start learning soon, probably under the tutelage of Monica Mason who created the role. She will also appear in the first movement of Symphony in C, to Bizet’s glorious music, and is dancing with Viacheslav Samodurov in Les Biches. Samodurov is her partner for Voices of Spring in the Gala and they have danced it together a few times now, most recently this January at the ‘Dance for Life’ Gala in Brussels.

In the summer, Mara is looking forward to the Royal Ballet’s Far East tour. Casting is not confirmed so she does not know her roles yet. She has been to Japan and Korea before but it is her first visit to Singapore - not that there will be much time for sight-seeing on a Royal Ballet tour! Closer to home there is also a planned trip to York in July where Mara is performing in the Yorkshire Seminars organised by Marguerite Porter. And more immediately a new website about all things Mara is being launched shortly too. (www.maragaleazzi.com)

As for the future, Mara has several dreams which she hopes to realize one day. “I would love to dance the lead role in Manon, and Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, and Giselle. I think it’s one of the ballets I would love to do now. At the end-of-year interview with the artistic director you have a chance to say which roles you would like to dance. I have covered Manon, Swan Lake and Giselle many times, but you just have to be patient!” Hopefully she will not have to be patient too long – in the meantime there is that marvellous Gala in Brescia to look forward to.