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I first saw Cristina Hamel when I was a petit rat and I would sneak a look at the soloists during rehearsals, crouching behind a pillar. I remember her rehearsing unrelentingly a diagonal of pirouettes that wouldn't turn out well, in Act II of Swan Lake. I was admiring

The new season of the National Opera opened this autumn with a ballet made up of four choreographic pieces united under the title of the most elaborate one, Daphnis and Chloe, a production staged by Gelu Barbu, a Romanian choreographer from the Diaspora. Gelu Barbu belongs

A talk with Gelu Barbu Each artist who fulfils his destiny up to the zenith of glory becomes the founder of an island nostalgic about the continent. The creator does not represent a boastful, empty oneness but a world within a world. His original formula is achieved thanks

The ballet dancer who made his debut on the stage of the Kirov Theatre in Sankt Petersburg, prime ballet dancer at the Opera in Bucharest, then, after 1961, prime ballet dancer at the Norwegian Royal Opera in Oslo, decorated by King Olaf with the Constitution medal, first

I was touched and amazed to discover this skinny little girl, thin and long legged, who was doing her exercises in the ballet room with the concentration of a mature artist. The way she led her body had lost any trace of effort and it was describing meanings known only to

A superstar of Romanian ballet in its golden era, when the light coming from the East would fashion great interpreters, Gabriel Popescu began the study of dance with the maestra Floria Capsali. He was hired by the Bucharest Opera in 1948, when he was 16, and in 1949 he was

I dedicate these lines to the one we, her friends and colleagues, as well as fans, used to call – and still do – Lully. That is, Ileana Iliescu. She belongs to that pleiad of prima ballerinas who built the fame of Romanian ballet, shining from the beginning of the 1960s:

Art critics acclaimed Magdalena Popa: She is one of the most dazzling stars of the century. She was regarded as a goddess of this art. Her small body expressed grace, a sort of ritual noblesse. Born in Bucharest, she graduated from the High School of Choreography and then

I owe much of my setting up as an artist to Boris Kneazev as well. There’s another aspect to consider. One can work enormously in ballet and never get proper parts. Or, there’s even a more dramatic situation, when one gets these parts and realizes that one doesn’t

Romanowsky was active in our country after the First World War, with several interruptions. These interruptions were caused by a series of frictions with some of the managers at the Romanian Opera House. Then, between the two world wars, the social context (the economical

You were one of Mrs. Capsali's students and on one occasion you confessed that you could talk about her excellence for days and days. This subject captivates me, it excites me, and at the same time it moves me because it's been 50 years since I met Floria Capsali.

There are chances in life. I have made mention of it before and will not hesitate to repeat it. To some of them we turn a blind eye; for others we may knowingly not have the just power of judgment and pondering. Or, that of turning something to good account. Floria Capsali