ANTONIO GADES BALLET COMPANY

Gades crated a Foundation looking after his artistic heritage and helping to disseminate his work, prompting a greater knowledge of
Spanish dance all over the world. The most important project carried out by the Foundation is the creation of a dance company, to stage
Antonio’s five great works. CARMEN BALLET, January 8th & 9th Main Hall, Cairo Opera House & Jan. 10th, Alexandria
Opera House Bizet chose Carmen for his opera in the year
1874. The libretto was then changed by the librettists of the opera, Halevy and Meilhac. These were popular librettists, and it was rumored that they did not approve of Bizet’s choice at the
time. Bizet himself resisted some of the changes they were making because he felt they made the libretto less powerful. In his opinion, the opera was to startle and impress. In the original text,
there is no male figure that Carmen is distinctly attracted to. In the libretto, however, this figure takes the form of Escamillo, a spanish rogue. A blond woman named Michaela was added to
balance Jose’s character, and offer a foil against which Carmen is cast. Choruses and dancers are added, in addition to army men and officers. Carmen’s strength is that it does not impart a
moral message, rather, it lets the characters move within their own spheres. SUITE FLAMENCA &
BLOOD WEDDING January 6th & 7th, Cairo Opera, and
Jan. 11th, Alexandria Opera Suite Flamenca: The dance with which Gades began his solo career in around 1963, were gradually shaped into the numbers that become the Suite Flamenca, five years later, eight pieces of traditional flamenco dance presented from
Gades’ own angle. Blood Wedding: In 1974, Antonio Gades would
take a huge step forward for Spanish dance with the creation of his ballet, Blood Wedding, based on the play by Federico Garcia Lorca, who in turn was inspired by the news of an incident that took place in Nijar in 1928. Antonio referred to one of the most exciting scenes in the ballet, the fight at the end between Leornardo and the
Groom, which in a way sums up his attitude to creativity and performance in his art.