Ballet Nacional de España presents La Bella Otero in Logroño

La Bella Otero arrives at La Rioja’s Palacio de Congresos y Auditorio after a highly successful season. This time it is for a one-off performance on February 3^rd, with the Ballet Nacional de España accompanied by Patricia Guerrero and with the special collaboration of Maribel Gallardo, both of whom take on the title role.

La Bella Otero is an "operatic ballet" in the broadest sense of the word. It is a large-scale show, in terms of the number of dancers, the range of costumes that recreate the world of the Parisian Belle Époque and also in the way the story arc is dramatised.

Rubén Olmo has used dance to tell the story, creating a fusion of styles – from folklore to flamenco to stylised dance – to tell the story of a woman who invented herself after a tragic childhood event and triumphed as an artist and courtesan, only to be ruined by gambling.

“Many years ago, before I'd even begun my career as a choreographer, I found some postcards of Bella Otero in a secondhand shop. When I discovered that one of the most famous women of her time was from a village in Pontevedra, I knew I had to create a ballet about her life. But I knew I needed the backing of a great company to be able to realise it as I imagined, as a large-scale show. Directing the Ballet Nacional de España has allowed me to make it a reality,” explains Rubén Olmo about the origin of his choreography.

The plot, dramatised by Gregor Acuña-Pohl, takes some of the most notable moments in the character's biography that could be expressed through dance – without trying to tell the story comprehensively. “I tried to stick to the historical figure and make it a ballet that would move the audience, without judging her. The most important thing for me was to show a person with great magnetism, charisma and strength.”

Dancer Patricia Guerrero is very excited to return to this role since her last performance. “I am very aware of where I am and the great responsibility my character entails. Taking on this challenge is bringing out one hundred percent of me. There are no recorded images of her movement or her artistic expression, so Otero's dance in this project will be my dance.”

Currently a leading figure in avant-garde flamenco, she received the Premio Nacional de Danza de Interpretación in 2021 and, at the end of 2023, will be appointed the new director of the Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía. For Patricia Guerrero, “La Bella Otero is a work that is challenging at its core, but it is dynamic, fun, fresh – and with a colour and energy that will bring us all enjoyment, both on and off stage.”

To embody the protagonist in her later years, Rubén Olmo enlisted the special collaboration of Maribel Gallardo, a maestra repetiteur with the Ballet Nacional de España. “Reprising the role of Madame Otero, in addition to stepping into the shoes of such a fascinating woman – despite her tragic life – also means I have to relive the emotion of feeling the stage and the warmth of the audience. Unfortunately, the artistic life of a dancer is very short, and life rarely grants you an opportunity like the one I am fortunately experiencing, for which I am intensely grateful,” says the Cádiz-born dancer.

The music for this operatic ballet was created by composer and director Manuel Busto, who coordinated the musicians of different styles that feature in this ballet, integrating them into the symphonic score he created.

The rest of the compositions in the work are by Alejandro Cruz Benavides, Agustín Diassera, the group Rarefolk and flamenco guitarists Diego Losada, Víctor Márquez, Enrique Bermúdez and Pau Vallet.

Along with creating such a complex and varied score, another challenge for this dramatic ballet was designing nearly 200 costumes to dress the dancers in periods and settings as diverse as a Galician village, Belle Époque Paris, and a café cantante. Canarian designer Yaiza Pinillos is especially proud of her personal reworking of the Byzantine-inspired beaded costume worn by Bella Otero in one of her most iconic portraits. On top of the difficulty of designing a costume that reflects a period yet allows for easy dancing and changing between scenes there was also the use of wigs, beards, moustaches and hats.

For set designer Eduardo Moreno, the challenge was to design a single architectural element that would help identify each scene temporally and geographically with a few simple additions. The lighting, designed by Juan Gómez-Cornejo, surrounds the dancers, adding an emotional element to each setting.

Since its premiere at Madrid's Teatro de la Zarzuela in 2021, La Bella Otero has also toured to Seville, Albacete, Málaga, Lorca, Bogotá, Granada, Oviedo, and this past December, it was performed at the Teatro del Canal in Madrid.

La Bella Otero

BALLET NACIONAL DE ESPAÑA

Programme:

LA BELLA OTERO

Palacio de Congresos y Auditorio

La Rioja

Saturday 3^rd February, 2024 at 20:00.

Tickets:

https://riojaforum.com/evento/ballet-nacional-de-espaa/21871e75-49aa-e478-0f50-4d509605c5ef