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Giselle

Ballet in two acts

Version by Kader Belarbi
from Jules Perrot and Jean Coralli (1841)
Creation by the Ballet du Capitole on 20th december 2015 

 

Music Adolphe Adam
Choréography and staging Kader Belarbi

Sets Thierry Bosquet
Costumes Olivier Bériot 
Architect-jeweler Marc Deloche
Light Sylvain Chevallot  

Eternally dissatis ed characters, heroes pursuing chimeras, love stronger than death, plethora of fantastic creatures, contrast between dream and reality, scene of madness: all themes that make Giselle the undisputed masterpiece of romantic ballet.

As director of the Ballet du Capitole, Kader Belarbi wanted to give his company with a production of Giselle, which would state what has been transmitted to him by the French school tradition: «I created this version of Giselle respecting the letter and spirit, but with my own words, my own language.

In the rst act, I have transformed the farmers into wine growers and made the vein of popular dances more rooted and rural. In opposition, the lords of the hunting with hounds are more dancing. In the second act, I have given special care to the Wilis, vaporous «Filles de l’air» to quote Gautier, in order to emphasize the duality between earthly and immaterial world.

I like the idea of a musical companion and for Giselle, I have called Philippe Béran, Swiss conductor, to return to the sources of what Adolphe Adam composed. Together we have resituated the original score and re-arranged it when it was necessary, in correspondence with my new vision. » 

The Dead Queen

La Reine morte

Ballet in two acts 

freely inspired by Henry de Montherlant’s La Reine morte (1942) 

and by Luis Vélez de Guevara’s Reinar después de morir (1652).

 

Creation by the Ballet du Capitole on 26 October 2011

 

Music   Piotr Ilyitch Tchaïkovski

Adaptation choreography and staging   Kader Belarbi

Sets   Bruno de Lavenère

Costumes   Olivier Bériot

Lighting   Sylvain Chevallot

 

Maeterlinck considers that the writing alone in this play by Montherlant “is sufficient to justify living”. This monument of the dramatic arts tells the improbable, yet true, story of Dom Pedro of Portugal and his illegitimate wife, Inès de Castro, who strangely becomes queen after her death.

Using this troubling story to create a ballet, the choreographer Kader Belarbi addresses the theme of mad love thwarted by reasons of state, “persuaded that tragedy is one of the keys to deciphering the enigma of human actions and relationships”.

In a choreography that places great emphasis on neoclassical language, he reveals to us all the beauty and engravings of this “dagger with a handle inlaid with black and gold”.

 

 

A nos Amours

To our loves

Creation by the Ballet du Capitole on 12 February 2010

 

Music   Gabriel Fauré, Reynaldo Hahn, Zoltán Kodály and Arvo Pärt 

Choreography   Kader Belarbi

Stage design   Kader Belarbi and Michaëla Buerger

Costumes   Michaëla Buerger

Lighting   Sylvain Chevallot

 

A love story through the three stages of life - youth, adulthood and old age - symbolised by three couples who meet, intertwine, pull apart and return to one another. A sentimental journey through a pas de deux to the music of Arvo Pärt, Gabriel Fauré, Zoltán Kodály and Reynaldo Hahn.

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