2019/20 New Productions

Orpheus Alive

November 15 – 21, 2019 6 Performances Total Attendance: 7,882

“I’m lucky to have spent so much time with the dancers of The National Ballet of Canada. They come into the studio as full collaborators and bring their experiences and their histories and their personalities to the movement and they bring the characters into focus for me. It’s a matter of creating an experience for both the audience and performers that is thrilling on a visceral and emotional level.”

– Choreographer Robert Binet

Angels’ Atlas

February 29 – March 7, 2020 8 performances Total attendance: 14,528

“Dancing in Angels’ Atlas was one of those extremely transformative moments. I fear that if I try to explain how incredibly personal that experience was for me, it would diminish just how grateful I feel to have been a part of such an original piece of art created by the choreographic genius that is Crystal Pite.”

– Second Soloist Hannah Galway

Swan Lake

To premiere: November 2021

Although the world premiere of Swan Lake has been postponed to the 2021/22 season, tremendous headway was achieved with the production during the 2019/20 season. In July and August of 2019, the full company participated in a three-week workshop to support the creation of Swan Lake. The dancers worked with Karen, Choreographic Associate Robert Binet and Associate Artistic Director Christopher Stowell to explore the multiple choreographic voices that are part of the history of Swan Lake and to align this history into a seamless aesthetic in order to realize Karen’s vision for a new production. The workshop format provided the dancers with the opportunity to contribute to the creation of the work in a fresh environment. This valuable period of development gave the artistic team the chance to work with the entire company and to use the specific artistic qualities and personalities of the dancers in the studio to create what will become a staple of the company’s repertoire and one of the National Ballet’s most important productions.

The process of bringing to life the visionary set, props and costumes of designer Gabriela Týlešová is well underway. Additional staff were hired in Production and Wardrobe at the beginning of 2019/20 to aid with the gargantuan task of creating more than 200 costumes as well as realizing the sets for several distinct scenes in the ballet set at Prince Siegfried’s palace grounds. The company is making use of additional production facilities at the Canadian Opera Company to support the creation of the inventive set designs as well as engaging a prop builder in Stratford to build the additional set decorations that this major production will require. All of the artists involved cannot wait to bring this new vision to the stage.