Bolle doubles up with Dorian Gray, Caravaggio

(by Francesca Pierleoni) (ANSA) - Rome, July 18 - The 2018 edition of the annual dance extravaganza Roberto Bolle and Friends premiered in Rome on Tuesday night with a gala event hosted by the Foundation of the Rome Opera Theater at the Terme di Caracalla.
    The second and last performance in the capital is scheduled on Wednesday night before dates in more locations across Italy.
    This year the cast includes international stars Taras Domitro and Maria Eichwald (principal guest artists; lead dancers from La Scala in Milan, Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko; Maria Kochetkova and Angelo Greco (San Francisco Ballet), Misa Kuranaga (Boston Ballet), Osiel Gouneo (Bayerisches Staatsballett in Munich), international guest artist Sebastian Kloborg and Tatiana Melnik (Hungarian National Ballet in Budapest). The event marks a successful season for Bolle.
    A principal dancer at La Scala in Milan since 2004 and at the American Ballet Theatre in New York since 2009, the 43-year-old dancer will also star in a prime-time event broadcast by RAI1 on January 1, after the success registered by Danza con me (Dance with me).
    The televised performance competed for the Rose d'Or award as one of the four best shows in Europe.
    The event in Rome opens with Thais, pas de deux by Roland Petit on a music by Massenet, which Bolle performs with Maria Eichwald.
    The duo also star in 'Mono Lisa', created in 2010 by Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili to music inspired by the sound of a typewriter.
    The event includes 'Dorian Gray' with internationally renowned violinist and composer Alessandro Quarta with a choreography by Massimiliano Volpini.
    Bolle also performs with one of his favorite partners over the past few years, Nicoletta Manni, a principal dancer at La Scala, in Step addition, by choreographer and dancer Sebastian Galter and in the closing pas de deux, the poetic Caravaggio, choreographed by Mauro Bigonzetti in which the two dancers embody the light and truth of the bodies painted by the great artist.
    Principal dancer Timofej Andrijashenko stars in a pas de trois 'Il Corsaro' with Misa Kuranaga and Taras Domitro in the cult pas de deux with Bolle, Proust, ou les Intermittences du coeur, by Petit with music by Gabriel Fauré.
    Italian up-and-coming dancer Angelo Greco performs in 'Le fiamme di Parigi' with fellow dancer in San Francisco Maria Kochetkova and in The Nutcracker with Misa Kuranaga. The tour Roberto Bolle & Friends will continue in Florence (July 20), Ravenna (July 22) and Verona (July 25).