Discover on screen the lyrical and choreographic masterpieces of the Paris National Opera. Operas from Paris National Opera 2014-2015 season will be screened in the brand new theatre of the Alliance Française Toronto.

Featured program:

- Défilé du Ballet

- Etudes

- The Nutcracker (highlights)

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Défilé du Ballet

Performed only at galas or special events, the Défilé of the Paris Opera Ballet, is a unique parade in the world of dance, designed to present the entire company under full stage conditions. The dancers arrive slowly from the depths of the dance Foyer (situated behind the set) approaching the forefront of the stage to greet the public, a procession that stretches back to a depth of 46 meters.This Défilé gathers together the one hundred and fifty four dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet: the Etoiles, the Premiers Danseurs, the Sujets, the Coryphées, the Quadrilles and one hundred or so pupils from the Ballet School, all united in a heritage of more than three hundred years of tradition.

Etudes

Etudes transposes a dance class to the stage. Conceived by Harald Lander who was a choreographer, ballet master and director of the Opera’s Ballet School, this ballet can be seen as a manifesto of classical technique, of its purity, rigour and exactingness.

The Nutcracker (highlights)

When Tchaikovsky goes back to the realm of childhood, his music becomes suffused with enchantment and nostalgia as well as with nightmarish terrors. The fruit of one such voyage into the land of the imagination was music of incomparable lyricism and originality, evoking a dreamlike and sometimes disturbing world of whirling snowflakes, myriad flowers and dancing sugar plum fairies, and one of his most fabulous masterpieces.