![]() In 1969 she gave birth to a son, Francesco, now an architect. In 1964, Fracci married Beppe Menegatti, the theatre and opera director, librettist and producer, whom she had first met at La Scala when she was 17 and he was Luchino Visconti’s assistant. He was blond and restrained, she dark-haired and sprightly, but for a decade – following their first joint appearance in 1962 when he invited her to dance an extract of La Sylphide with him on the US TV show The Bell Telephone Hour – they had a perfect rapport. It was a combination of opposites, described as “a meeting of ice and fire”. Aurora’s iconic dance with four suitors is a challenge in stamina, a test in technique and definitely a. Here she tackles one of the hardest dances in the classical canon: the Rose Adagio. At 51 years old, Fracci isn’t doing an easy skip of a variation. She introduced Mikhail Baryshnikov to Italy at the Spoleto festival in 1975 in John Butler's Medea a duet that meditated on rather than retold the legend.īut it was with the Danish danseur noble Erik Bruhn that Fracci formed one of the great dance partnerships of the 20th century. This clip, from a 1987 television series called the The Ballerinas, proves it. ![]() Her partners included Rudolf Nureyev, with whom she danced The Sleeping Beauty, La Sylphide (recorded in the 1972 documentary I Am a Dancer) and Juliet in his Romeo and Juliet, also filmed. Male superstarsĭuring her long career, Fracci danced with most of the male superstars of the ballet. ![]() Noting the rising star’s resemblance to Fanny Cerrito, who had danced in the original, Dolin asked the young Fracci to join the established ballerinas in his production. The same year, Anton Dolin was reworking his Pas de Quatre, originally a divertissement for a quartet of ballerinas of the 1840s, for the Nervi festival in Genoa. Her breakthrough came in 1957 when she substituted for Violette Verdy in the title role of Cinderella and the following year was promoted to ballerina. In 1954, Fracci graduated into the ballet company at La Scala. That's when I really began to work very, very hard in my ballet classes." Margot Fonteyn danced Aurora and was a revelation to the 12-year-old Carla: "It was then I really knew I wanted to become a ballerina. It was Fracci's first stage appearance and the first time she had seen ballet independent of opera. In 2004, she was named a Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Association, a United Nations agency dedicated to fighting hunger around the world.It was in May 1949 that Fracci took the opportunity to appear as a mandolin-playing page in the Sadler's Wells Ballet production of The Sleeping Beauty on tour to Italy. With rock-solid strength and softness rivaling that plush pink tutu, she finishes with an ebullient smile.īest known for her Giselle portrayal, Fracci has (we think) retired from the stage and taken on humanitarian work later in life. When this sequence repeats at the end, the music crescendoing as high as the expectations, Fracci is unflappable. Aurora’s iconic dance with four suitors is a challenge in stamina, a test in technique and definitely a trial in composure, particularly during the promenade balance section. ![]() This clip, from a 1987 television series called the “The Ballerinas,” proves it. Carla Fracci, a former prima ballerina at La Scala Ballet and international guest artist, who started her career in the 1950s, didn’t stop when convention might have told her to. Alessandra Ferri may be defying all preconceived notions about the length of ballet careers, but she isn’t the first Italian to do so.
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