Ballet in 2 parts and 11 scenes
Choreography: Ugo dell'Ara
Recorded May 2002, Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan, Italy
Staged by the Teatro alla Scala
La Luce - Marta Romagna
L'Oscurantismo - Riccardo Massimi
La Civilta - Isabel Seabra
Lo Schiavo - Roberto Bolle
La Folgore - Raffaella Benaglia
Mora Indiana - Elisabetta Armiato
In 1881 La Scala staged a magnificent ballet spectacle. The aim was to present by means of a ballet all the great discoveries and achievements which had illuminated the late 19th century. The result was "a choreographic, historic, allegoric, phantastic plot in two parts and eleven scenes", i.e. this was not a ballet in the classical sense. Excelsior is a kind of choreographic composition, which sings the praises of progress in science and accomplishments, in keeping with the era of supreme optimism. The steam engine, the Brooklyn Bridge, electricity, telegraph, the Suez Canal and the tunnel between Italy and France are all technical achievements, which are shown on stage. To ensure that this spectacle did not turn into a boring history lesson, there is an adversary, the Genius of Darkness, a "black Orpheus" dressed in the costume of a skeleton, who tries to prevent progress but is in the end defeated by enlightenment, by light. Excelsior reflects the optimism of the new classes who, with boundless confidence in progress of science and technology, saw in industry and the new discoveries the means that would lead mankind out of all its inherited troubles. |
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