On 27 July 2025, as part of the Mario Porcile Gala, the audience will have the opportunity to embark on a unique artistic journey through the history of dance. This exclusive event will include two iconic choreographies from different historical periods: Pas de Quatre and Song of a Wayfarer. Both works are set in a special context compared to the great periods of the Festival and represent masterpieces of the art of dance.
Pas de Quatre by Jules Perrot in 1845, will be presented in Anton Dolin’s 1941 staging. This legendary version of Perrot’s piece, originally created for four of the most famous dancers of his time (Marie Taglioni, Fanny Cerrito, Carlotta Grisi and Lucile Grahn), was already a highlight of the Nervi Festival in 1957 and then, as now, it helped to keep the tradition of romantic ballet alive while enhancing the individual virtuosity of each dancer. In 1957, among others, Margot Fonteyn shone in this ballet. In the gala of 27 July 2025, the Pas de Quatre will be interpreted by four prominent dancers of today: Ida Praetorius, Cassandra Trenary, Aliya Tanikpaeva and Jessica Xuan. These extraordinary artists will bring technique and grace to the stage in this masterful creation to keep the legacy of the Pas de Quatre alive.
Song of a Wayfarer, Maurice Béjart’s 1971 choreography to the song cycle by Gustav Mahler is another exceptional work of the evening that has a special link with the history of the Festival. The choreography was created for the legendary dancer Rudolf Nureyev and the famous Genoese dancer Paolo Bortoluzzi, a pupil of the school of Mario Porcile. In 1973 it was presented to the public at the Nervi Festival. This moving and dramatic representation of the pain of the wandering soul will be interpreted by Matthew Ball and Jacopo Bellussi at the closing gala of this year’s Festival, and will take spectators deep into Béjart’s emotional vision.
In addition to these masterpieces, guests will be treated to a series of extracts from ballets from the great repertoire, including the so-called Black Pas de Deux from La signora delle camelie by John Neumeier and the acclaimed Balcony Pas de Deux from Romeo e Giulietta by Kenneth MacMillan.
The gala brings together dancers from world-renowned companies such as the Royal Ballet, the Hamburg Ballett, the Staatsballett Berlin, the Dutch National Ballet, the American Ballet Theatre and many others, and revives the glorious tradition of international ballet festivals.
CAST
MATTHEW BALL (Principal Dancer Royal Ballet), JACOPO BELLUSSI (Principal Dancer Hamburg Ballett and Étoile Ballet du Capitol Toulouse), JAKOB FEYFERLIK (Principal Dancer Bayerisches Staatsballett), KSENIA OVSYANICK (Principal Dancer Staatsballett Berlin), IDA PRAETORIUS (Principal dancer Hamburg Ballett and Royal Danish Ballet), ALIYA TANIKPAEVA (Principal dancer Hungarian National Ballet), DMITRY TIMOFEV (Principal dancer Hungarian National Ballet), CASSANDRA TRENARY (Principal dancer American Ballet Theatre), JESSICA XUAN (Principal dancer Dutch National Ballet).
MAINA GIELGUD
Jacopo Bellussi’s Artistic Advisor for the 2025 edition of the Nervi International Ballet Festival and Principal Coach of the Mario Porcile Gala
Trained with some of the most famous Russian dancers of the time, including Tamara Karsavina and Lubov Egorova, and later with Rosella Hightower, Maina Gielgud had a very long career, creating works with Maurice Béjart’s XXth Century Ballet, dancing as prima ballerina with the London Festival Ballet and the Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet, as international guest artist, and having Rudolf Nureyev and Jorge Donn as partners.
She was Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet (1983-1997), of the Royal Danish Ballet (1997-1999) and Principal Coach of the English National Ballet (2007-2012). In 2003 and 2008 she returned to the stage as a dancer and actress in L’Heure Equise by Maurice Béjart.
Freelance since 1999, Maina Gielgud is a guest teacher and coach for important companies and the most important schools in the world, and is regularly invited to judge the most prestigious ballet competitions.
His stagings of complete classical productions for important companies such as l’Australian Ballet, the Boston Ballet, the Ballet du Rhin, the Balletto dell’Opera di Roma, the Hungarian National Ballet, the Polish National Ballet, theHouston Ballet, the Jo’burg Ballet, the Cape Town City Ballet and the Junior Classical Ballet di Leiria, received rave reviews and public acclaim. Among these: Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, La Sylphide, Don Chisciotte and Coppelia. His one-act ballets include Les Sylphides, Spectre de la Rose, Variations for 4 and Pas de Quatre by Anton Dolin, Song of a Wayfarer by Maurice Bejart, Webern opus V, Serait-ce la Mort, Bhakti. He has also choreographed and staged his own version of Cinderella.
Some of his most recent projects include the revival of L’Heure Exquise for Alessandra Ferri, which has been performed in Italy, at the Royal Opera House in London and continues to tour internationally, as well as performances of Song of a Wayfarer at the Joyce Theater in New York with David Hallberg and Joseph Gordon, and at the City Center with Germain Louvet and Hugo Marchand in 2023: the latter were also the first of seven casts to perform the same work for the Paris Opera Ballet. The 2023 productions of Giselle for the Polish National Ballet and Don Quixote for Cape Town City Ballet received outstanding reviews and featured artists such as Vadim Muntagirov, Fumi Kaneko, Ksenia Ovsyanik and Antonio Casalinho. In autumn 2024, Maina returned to Cuba to prepare Swan Lake for the biennial Festival and began work on Giselle for Debbie Turner’s new Cape Ballet Africa. Her first production of The Nutcracker opened with the Ballet de Santiago in Chile for Christmas, thus completing the list of traditional ballets that she stages, prepares and choreographs. In 2025, upcoming projects include a staging of Maina Gielgud’s full Giselle for Cape Ballet Africa in Cape Town (November 2025), and his own production of The Nutcracker for the same company, which will debut in Johannesburg in December.
Maina Gielgud has been collaborating with Jacopo Bellussi as Artistic Advisor for some time now, and also for the 2025 Nervi International Festival they have worked together on the choice of invited companies and repertoire. For the Festival’s closing Gala, she is teaching and will stage Anton Dolin’s Pas de Quatre and Maurice Béjart’s Song of a Wayfarer.
