Paquita - Matinée "Rêve d'enfants"

Paquita

Paquita - Pierre Lacotte

• Conductor

  Mikhail Agrest

• Choreography

  Pierre Lacotte

• Music

  Édouard Delvedez
  (1817-1897)

• Music

  Ludwig Minkus
  (1826-1917)

• Libretto

  Paul Foucher

• Libretto

  Joseph Mazilier

• Set design and Costume design

  Luisa Spinatelli

• Lighting design

  Philippe Albaric

For thirty-nine years, a family event has been organised to coincide with a performance of the great classical ballet at Christmas!

The Opéra is decorated for the children, and a brunch* is available on reservation before the performance.

Proceeds from the matinee will be used to invite six hundred children from social centres and care homes to the event, as well as supporting the Orchestra Apprenticeship programme (ADO) run by the Académie de l'Opéra national de Paris.

This edition will pay tribute to the choreographer Pierre Lacotte, who died in 2023.

*Buffet reception, but some seating available.

About the ballet

“When I recreate a ballet, I search for the fragrance of the period”, said dancer and choreographer Pierre Lacotte, who died in 2023. In Paquita, that perfume is the heady scent of Spain, mixed with elegant French fragrances.

In the Valley of the Bulls, near Saragossa occupied by Napoleon’s armies, Paquita, a young gypsy girl, refuses the advances of an aristocrat, Lucien d’Hervilly, because of her modest condition. But when she saves him from a plot hatched by the Spanish governor, she discovers that her origins are far nobler than she thought…

Pierre Lacotte, a lover of the Romantic repertoire, reconstructed Joseph Mazilier’s ballet in 2001. The work had enchanted Théophile Gautier when it premiered at the Paris Opera in 1846 but gradually fell into oblivion despite Marius Petipa’s new version in 1882. With its sumptuous sets and costumes, his Paquita portrays a picturesque Spain combining mime and characterful dances with dazzingly vivacious virtuoso technique.

With the Paris Opera Étoiles, Premières Danseuses, Premiers Danseurs and Corps de Ballet
With the participation of students from the Paris Opera Ballet School
The Paris Opera Orchestra

Paquita

Paquita - Pierre Lacotte