Spring is here, and the 154 dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet are ready to swing into action. They are performing in their two Parisian venues in soaring programs. At the Palais Garnier, Appartement, created in 2000 for 12 performers of the Parisian institution by the Swedish master Mats Ek, is back for the third time – and what an emotional ride. Running until April 18, it shares the venue with the ballet Vers la mort ("Toward Death") for nine dancers, by Israeli choreographer Sharon Eyal, who has revamped her show OCD Love (2015). As fascinating as it is, her mannerist parade is somewhat overshadowed by the biting power of Ek's domestic saga, which, on Tuesday, April 1, left nothing in its wake except elated spectators.
On Wednesday, April 2, the Opéra Bastille's equally enthusiastic public manifested their enjoyment of Rudolf Nureyev's Sleeping Beauty (La Belle au bois dormant). Set to Tchaikovsky's music, this powdered wig monument, created in 1989 based on Marius Petipa's (1818–1910) choreography, revived in a new production in 1997, seems to have not aged a day, as it unfolds without a wrinkle. Whether in Eyal's Louis XIV-style grand razzle-dazzle of this eternal Perrault tale or in Ek's raw contemporary, the casts in both venues are so star-studded–with a young generation not yet crowned with a tiara but shining so brightly – that one leaves in awe. Proof that the company is at its peak form.
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