A Partner to Remember

New York Sun
By MARY STAUB June 8, 2007

If professional demand is any measure of expertise, then Roberto Bolle is unquestionably of the highest caliber. Last month, Mr. Bolle, a Ballet Étoile at La Scala in Milan, partnered Darcey Bussell, a beloved principal dancer at London's Royal Ballet, for her farewell performance at Sadler's Wells. This month, the 32-year-old is in New York to partner Alessandra Ferri, a celebrated principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, in the final performances of her 22-year career with ABT.

While Mr. Bolle has worked as principal guest artist throughout Europe — at the Royal Opera Ballet, Paris Opéra Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, and more — for the past 11 years, his career in America is only just beginning. His performance in ABT's "Manon" on June 11 will mark his first principal role in this country.

"It's a great moment in my career, but it is also a very sad one because Alessandra is leaving and Darcey is leaving," Mr. Bolle said modestly in lyrical, Italian-accented English during a break in his tight New York schedule. Sprinkled throughout rehearsals, he had a photo-shoot with Italian Vanity Fair one day, a discussion of his New York debut at the Italian Cultural Institute the next.

Although the Ferri-Bolle pairing is new to American audiences, it is by no means new to the dancers themselves, who danced together for the first time in 2002 at the Bolshoi and who have worked together more than 40 times since. Mr. Bolle credits Ms. Ferri with teaching him what it truly meant to be an artist onstage when the two danced together in "Romeo and Juliet."

"The first time, I have to say I was scared to perform opposite Alessandra because it is very different dancing with her," Mr. Bolle said. "She is so natural, she doesn't care about the steps and technique in this kind of dramatic ballet so much, but really wants to tell stories; she wants you to have real reactions, like a real person. So sometimes she changes reactions or steps because in that moment she feels different."

Any anxieties Mr. Bolle had at the time have clearly vanished. At a recent rehearsal of "Manon" at the Metropolitan Opera House — a rehearsal that included the tragic final scene in which Manon lies dying in her lover des Grieux's arms — Ms. Ferri and Mr. Bolle resembled young children playing at love and death with each other. Each time their steps, turns, or lifts didn't quite match up, they broke into laughter and exchanged animated advice, in Italian on how to adapt to each other's style, steps, and bodies.

"You don't have to put me down, I can just slide off and find the floor. Especially with your shoulders, it's like lying on a bed," Ms. Ferri said, half jokingly, after a descent from atop Mr. Bolle's broad shoulders ended with a clunk.

After another segment, in which Mr. Bolle tossed her seemingly two body-lengths above his head, Ms. Ferri commented, "I know you're high already, but I also know you can go even higher."

Ms. Ferri's coach, Wilhelm Burmann, sat discreetly at the side, offering occasional individual directions — "Make sure the attitude piqué is en face," or "Make sure your foot is stretched" — but left the two dancers to work out most of the details on their own.

Mr. Bolle and Ms. Ferri's ease with each other stems partly from their shared Italian roots — Ms. Ferri is from Milan, Mr. Bolle from Casale Monferrato, a small town in northwestern Italy. In part, though, their ease stems from a palpable shared enjoyment of continuously reinterpreting a story as it take its course.

"It is especially important in these dramatic ballets that you really use the steps to communicate, not just to move," Mr. Bolle said of works such as "Manon" and "Romeo and Juliet." "Just today after rehearsal, Alessandra told me, ‘Be careful because if I feel to do different, I will do it different, and if you feel to do different, you do it and I will react; if you have another feeling — a bit more sad, a bit more angry, you want to be nasty or more jealous — you do it.'"

With his New York debut just around the corner and an overflow of offers to dance with the most popular ballerinas of our time — he reluctantly declined a second request from Darcey Bussell due to scheduling conflicts — there are few things that Mr. Bolle truly longs for in his career. He'd like to dance "Eugene Onegin," and would love the chance to work with more living choreographers. But these are just minor wishes. His only real qualms are over those who are leaving; Ms. Ferri in New York and Ms. Bussell in London.

"I've danced with Darcey for eight years, Alessandra for five," Mr. Bolle said. "And there are no other dancers like that, with that experience, that maturity, that artistry."

June 11, 14, and 23 (Lincoln Center, 212-721-6500).