MALANDAIN BALLET BIARRITZ AND THE ORQUESTA SINFÓNICA DE EUSKADI TO DÉBUT AT THE 31st CASTELL DE PERALADA FESTIVAL WITH BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
The evening of 28 July will see the Castle Park Auditorium host the fairy-tale ballet with live music by Tchaikovsky.
The Malandain Ballet Biarritz, under the artistic direction of Thierry Malandain, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi, will be performing for the first time in Catalonia the ballet Beauty and the Beast, with music by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, on the evening of 28 July.
The French choreographer, who has triumphed on many stages with his unique take on the story by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (1740), popularised by the shortened version by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1756), will be bringing to the Peralada Festival his own vision based on Tchaikovsky's symphony score, performed live in the orchestra pit by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi.
With its advance première at the Ópera Royal in Versailles at the end of 2015, this is the third collaboration between the Malandain Ballet Biarritz (MBB) and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi (OSE), after Cinderella and the Magifique show. With Beauty and the Beast, they will both be making their début at the Peralada Festival for a magical night of dance, with 22 dancers and some 80 musicians in a single show.
Malandain has captivated public and critics alike with this show, which brings together a staging of apparent simplicity but with a high degree of symbolism, costumes that combine classicism and avant-garde, virtuoso movements of great delicacy to showcase a powerful choreography, capable of transporting the viewer to the world of fairy stories, of fantasy, of imagination, where anything is possible and where love can grow between a beautiful young woman and an apparently ferocious and animal-like beast. A new feature is the choreographer introduces a new protagonist to the story: the artist. This character is their alter-ego on stage. The artist, divided in body and soul and performed by two dancers, will guide the story and the steps of the two protagonists until the happy outcome.