Balletto di Venezia
We are a company created as an incubator of vision and talent, with the aim of giving voice to the new generation of classical and neoclassical dance.
Under the artistic direction of Alessio Carbone, former Principal Dancer at the Paris Opéra, we stand as a meeting point between excellence in training and artistic vision, offering a professional context to under-21 dancers from the world’s most prestigious academies.
Alessio Carbone
Direttore artistico
Alessio Carbone is Artistic Director and co-founder of the Balletto di Venezia company. Born into an artistic family, he trained in Venice with his parents and furthered his studies at the Teatro alla Scala Ballet School in Milan, graduating in 1996. After a first year with the La Scala company, he joined the Paris Opéra, where he was promoted to Premier Danseur in 2002 and danced throughout his career, also appearing as a guest with leading international companies.
Over the years, alongside his artistic career, he developed a growing interest in the production and organisation of performances, founding Les Italiens de l’Opéra de Paris in 2016 and collaborating with theatres and festivals of international renown. Today, he is dedicated to creating projects that bring together dance, research and social commitment, while also promoting charitable initiatives and international collaborations.
Gerardine Connolly
Executive Director
Gerardine Connolly è Direttrice Esecutiva e Cofondatrice de Il Balletto di Venezia. Originaria dell’Irlanda, vive tra Dublino e Venezia ed è King’s Counsel presso l’Inner Bar di Dublino, oltre che affermata arbitra e mediatrice con competenze nella governance aziendale e nella gestione societaria.
Parallelamente alla carriera giuridica, coltiva da sempre una profonda passione per la danza e le arti: musicista classica di formazione, è stata Direttrice e Presidente del Consiglio di Amministrazione di Ballet Ireland e sostiene attivamente importanti istituzioni culturali, tra cui Irish National Opera e Royal Irish Academy of Music. Collabora inoltre a progetti internazionali, tra cui la serie documentaria “Temples of Opera”, dedicata alle grandi realtà del balletto europeo.
The Story
Once a world capital of ballet, Venice shone in the eighteenth century with more dance theatres than any other city. Yet in the 1980s, when the resident company at Teatro La Fenice closed due to a lack of funding, this great tradition began to fade. Giuseppe Carbone, then director of the company and father of Alessio Carbone, decided to found Balletto di Venezia, with the extraordinary figure of his wife Iride Sauri, Prima Ballerina of La Fenice, at its heart.
The new company brought dance back to Venetian theatres and to the city’s most iconic locations, from Piazza San Marco to the Grand Canal, transforming Venice into an open-air stage. But in the early 1990s, this chapter too came to an end, when Giuseppe Carbone moved to Milan to lead the ballet company of Teatro alla Scala. Since then, the great tradition of classical ballet in Venice has remained silent, leaving a void that distanced local audiences from this art form. Until now.
Alessio Carbone ha ripreso la tradizione di famiglia e fatto rinascere la compagnia del Balletto di Venezia. Al suo fianco, Gerardine Connolly, già Chairwoman dell’Irish Ballet.
Con il progetto Stelle di Domani, la compagnia riporta sul palco i capolavori che hanno fatto la storia della danza, dando vita anche a nuove creazioni, affidate a coreografi contemporanei capaci di parlare il linguaggio della danza classica. Opere inedite che intrecciano il passato glorioso della Serenissima con il futuro del balletto, restituendo a Venezia il ruolo che le spetta: quello di culla viva e pulsante dell’arte coreutica.
