Matteo Levaggi: «Petrouchka» und «Dido and Aeneas»

Matteo Levaggi, 30 year-old resident choreographer of Balletto Teatro di Torino, has premiered a new “Petrouchka” of his very own in Modena: with no need to play through the plot again, there is all the more need for pure dance. The characters of the original ballet can just about be discerned, thanks only to their familiarity.

First of all, Stravinsky’s score is perform-ed here by trio Diaghilev for piano and percussions, who create a kind of liquid energy to push the dancers in fluid, organic shapes of movement.

The main concern for Levaggi in creating his “Petrouchka,” he says, was the rhythm, phrasing, dynamics; the poetry inside the music.  If you can see the two girls dancing in unison at the beginning as Fokine’s street dancers, you can make out the seduction of a kind of ballerina – but nothing like a puppet – performed by the exquisite Manuela Maugeri.

She charms Takashi Setoguchi’s Petrouchka, an angelic boy in white with perfect grace, as well as Mattia Furlan, who dances with a sort of strictly muscular strength. And perhaps the strong Luca Martini could be interpreted as the showman and ringleader, but the small cast of eight performers is neutral, look-ing like traces ...