After a challenging performance season, Ballet Manila stages its finale with a double bill showcase.
“We wanted to close our 24th season with a bang,” said the dance company’s chief executive officer and artistic director, Lisa Macuja-Elizalde.
As a fitting end to the season, Ballet Manila on March 7-8 stages the world premiere of Carmina Burana and La Traviata. Hosting the dance company for its season finale performance—after it lost its home in October 2019 to a fire—is the Samsung Hall at SM Aura Premier in Bonifacio Global City. Its previous show, Sleeping Beauty, was held at the Newport Performing Arts Theater in Resorts World Manila. Meanwhile, Gisele was staged at the CCP Main Theater.
Carmina Burana and La Traviata are presented as a double bill but Macuja-Elizalde said the ballets were not interconnected with each other.
Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata based on a series of 13th-century songs, while La Traviata is an Italian opera that tells the ill-fated story of a beautiful young courtesan wasting away from tuberculosis and her relationship with a young bourgeois from a provincial family.
“I think, at first, the public will be wary to attend, maybe even fearful knowing that opera and ballet are just about as ‘elitist’ as you can get among the performing arts,” she said, adding, “But I think that they should try. The storytelling is very clear. They are going to get it, and leave the theater thoroughly moved, maybe even in tears.”
Even though both shows are not normally staged as ballet productions, Rudy de Dios, a former Ballet Manila principal dancer, painstakingly conceptualized and choreographed the ballet version of Carmina Burana, while Macuja-Elizalde and her co-artistic director, Osias Barroso worked on La Traviata.
“Working on this show was not easy. I think the most difficult part happens inside my head—creating the story, casting, choosing the music, writing the libretto. But I find myself working with the most inspiring dancers who make the creative process pure joy, and that makes it easier,” said Macuja-Elizalde.
With La Traviata being one of her favorite operas of all time, the prima ballerina worked hard to give her audience a profound impression of the show; the same way it touched her when she first saw it in Russia.
“I listened to the complete opera many times and the hardest part was selecting the arias I incorporated to tell the story in a concise and clear version. My La Traviata is 42 minutes long, but I think the storytelling is complete,” she said.
De Dios, on the other hand, delved into the lyrical content of Carmina Burana to fully grasp the emotions and message of the cantata. Since it does not have a direct storyline to follow, De Dios interpreted the songs of the cantata to tell a story about spiritual warfare.
“Basically, my version of Carmina Burana is a battle between good and evil. This is a relevant piece because, we may not be aware of it, but there is an invisible battle between good and evil in our lives everyday,” he said.