San Francisco Ballet is in Paris for an unprecedented 17-day engagement at the Théâtre du Châtelet, beginning on July 10, and featured in the Les Etés de la Danse Festival.
The company program is varied and extensive, compressing virtually the entire home season into festival days. The entire company — principals, soloists, corps de ballet — is participating. A notable homecoming is that of Mathilde Froustey, on extended leave from the Paris Opera Ballet; she will stay with the S.F. Ballet at least through 2015. (Her citizenship may be revoked after she said French cuisine in San Francisco "is more French than it is in France.")
Opening night is an exceptionally generous gala. The program: Renato Zanella's Alles Walzer (Pascal Molat, Taras Domitro), Val Caniparoli's No Other (Lorena Feijoo, Vitor Luiz), the pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan's Concerto (Sarah Van Patten, Tiit Helimets), Helgi Tomasson's Chaconne for Piano and Two Dancers (Frances Chung, Davit Karapetyan), Yuri Possokhov's Classical Symphony (Maria Kochetkova, Hansuke Yamamoto, Sasha De Sola, Carlos Quenedit) ... and then intermission.
The second half consists of the pas de deux from George Balanchine's Agon (Sofiane Sylve, Luke Ingham), Johann Kobborg's Les Lutins (Dores Andre, Gennadi Nedvigin, Esteban Hernandez), Frederick_Ashton’s /Voices of Spring/(Kochetkova, Karapetyan); the second movement pas de deux from Balanchine's /Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet /(Froustey, Carlos Quenedit); Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain (Yuan Yuan Tan, Damian Smith), the fourth movement and finale from Balanchine's Symphony in C.
From the opening until the July 26 closing concert, S.F. Ballet presents some three dozen works. No wonder the announcement says "following this engagement, the dancers will be on hiatus until Aug. 25." Before rehearsals begin for the 2015 season, they need rest, perhaps more than a month.
(I may not be the only one for whom this century-plus old story is news, so here it is: Théâtre du Châtelet was originally used for drama performances. Beginning in April 1876, the stage version of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, adapted by Verne and Adolphe d'Ennery, began a run spanning 64 years and 2,195 performances (not continuously), until the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940 that closed this production permanently. And you thought Cats had a long run!)