The Winger » Bidding Farewell

Bidding Farewell

June 25, 2007 at 3:12 am · Filed under backstage, dance, DAVID, american ballet theater, flowers, performance, david hallberg, romeo and juliet, r+j, american ballet theatre, alessandra ferri

| | Posted by David Hallberg

Hello Readers!

One of the most influential dancers of our century bid farewell to the stage on Saturday night.

Alessandra Ferri, international ballerina, ABT principle, and mother of two daughters gave her last performance with ABT in Romeo and Juliet dancing alongside Roberto Bolle. Juliet is one of Alessandra’s most revered roles and something the company and audience members in New York have gotten the chance to see more than once.

Her farewell was bittersweet and marked with many great moments from such a mature, honest artist such as her. As the show was sold out for months, everyone seemed to come out to see her last Juilet, one of the highlights being her most beloved partner, Juilo Bocca.

Here are some shots from backstage as she took her final bows, to an adoring audience.

The company watches..

The scores of bouquets she received from ABT members

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delirium tremens said,

June 25, 2007 @ 4:39 am

David,

thanks for the wonderful photos. It was such a beautiful performance. So sad that it is the last time I will get to see her!

Delirium
PS–I’d say this elsewhere but you are too busy to post much these days…You were simply wonderful on weds. As was Gillian Murphy. Thank you both!

Philip said,

June 25, 2007 @ 10:10 am

Thank you for the beautiful backstage images…

SanderO said,

June 25, 2007 @ 10:24 am

I attended her lecture a week ago Moday at the Met and in person, Alessandra is a truly lovely, humble and intelligent person not to mention a world class ballerina. What a career! She’s a real example. Great photos David… thanks for the special view from the wings.

tonya said,

June 25, 2007 @ 3:41 pm

Thanks for the backstage photos. You and Marcelo didn’t pick her up and carry her all over stage? I like how you were first out to give her a hug Great performance (it goes w/o saying), but sad, although I have to say, Roberto lessened the sadness for me (which I think was part of her intention… she knew her fans were going to be hysterical, so she’s like, let me give them something else to think about )

SanderO, I’m so jealous, I SO wanted to go to that, but I was giving a reading. How was it?

Laurel S. said,

June 25, 2007 @ 5:15 pm

Thank you for the wonderful photos- I can only imagine how powerful the emotions were up there! What a glorious dancer, her performances will always inspire me and I know many others.

M said,

June 25, 2007 @ 6:07 pm

We have some nearly identical ones. Oh yes, that’s my head popping up in the last one….would make sense

thewinger.com » Photos just don’t do her justice said,

June 25, 2007 @ 10:21 pm

[…] After seeing David’s beautiful photos of Alessandra Ferri’s farewell performance, I thought maybe I should post a few of our (NYC Ballet’s) “hometown” hero. I was busy videotaping the evening’s performance, so I’ve included a few screenshots from some of my footage. […]

Alex Wong said,

June 26, 2007 @ 12:03 am

Darn David, I wish I was there to see that, too bad I had to go back to work, lol. How many curtain calls did she get? I bet it was forever, haha

miki said,

June 26, 2007 @ 1:03 am

It was such a beautiful evening. Seems like all the dance world atttend that performance. I saw so many dance people in the audience. I can only see if from the audience point of view but your pictures captured what all of us wanted to see.
Thank you for sharing them.

PS: were you at the Cederlake performance on Friday night?

SanderO said,

June 26, 2007 @ 3:01 am

The Ferri talk was an interview by the editrix of Dance Magazine followed by audience questions. It was my first experience hearing dancer speak about her craft so I have little reference. However, Alessandra is a very sincere, warm, intelligent and engaging person, very Italian too, in her speech and mannerisms. She spoke about her Shakespeare roles and mentioned the dance she did with Sting (on YouTube) at her husband’s suggestion. I sat very close… no need for opera glasses to read her facial expressions… and she uses her hands to speak… much the way Italians and dancers do! She’s happy to be finishing this phase of her career and did not have any plans except to relax and raise her duaghters and see ballet and she will be in NYC to raise her girls.

Ferri is a treasure. We’ll see her again.

tonya said,

June 26, 2007 @ 4:19 pm

Thanks, SanderO! It’s good to know that she will be in NY at least part of the time (I was afraid she’s return to Italy and we’d never see her againl…) I’ve just seen her talk in that video ABT has out (forgot the name — Virtue and Viruosity or sometime like that) and yeah, she’s very Italian!

Alex, I didn’t count the curtain calls, but there were many! Someone told me it went on for 35 minutes … which I didn’t count either, so I’m glad someone did! When I left I saw the curtain opening again — I stayed for a long time and got lots and lots of pictures (many of them blurry because I was getting pushed and shoved about and I was hysterical so my camera hand wasn’t very still!) , but I had to get out of there before I got too upset. I’m really glad Roberto performed with her because I just kept telling myself as I left, “Roberto’s really great, I can’t wait to see him again, Roberto, Roberto, Roberto…” If she’d have danced with Jose or someone I’ve seen her dance with many times it would have just been an ending with no ‘new beginning’ and I would have been completely hysterical … still such a sad sad night…

Also they had the lobby walls of the Center Parterre lined with blown-up photos of her taken by her husband. It was so cool. I tried to get a picture but it didn’t come out so well since it was dark.

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