Ballet Director
Elisabetta Terabust
Ballet Director
After attending the Ballet School of the Opera di Roma under Attilia Radice, Elisabetta Terabust joined the Ballet of the Opera di Roma, where she was appointed principal in 1966 and étoile in 1972. She continued her studies with Zarko Prebil and with Erik Bruhn, who introduced her to the great repertoire. With him she performed the pas de deux in Romeo and Juliet and Giselle, followed by The Nutcracker and Cinderella, as well as creations by Aurel Milloss such as Estri, to music by Detrassi. In 1973 she moved to London where she started working on a regular basis with the London Festival Ballet. There she performed some of the main roles of the classical repertoire (Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, etc), as well as new creations by Glen Tetley, such as Greening and Sphinx, also performed in Italy. She frequently danced abroad, broadening her artistic horizons thanks to collaborations with prominent choreographers. Roland Petit created for her a version of The Nutcracker and successively important repertory roles in his company, amongst which Le loup, Notre-Dame de Paris and Coppélia.
After Erik Bruhn, she continued studying with Peter Schaufuss, and improved her knowledge of Bournonville's style of which she is one of the best-liked interpreters. For her the National Ballet of Canada put up Napoli, ossia il pescatore e la sua sposa, created by Schaufuss after Bournonville (and revived at the Teatro di San Carlo in 1988-1989), in which she performed the role of Teresina. It then mounted La Sylphide, subsequently performed at the Teatro Comunale in Florence with Bournonville/Schaufuss's choreography.
The Teatro alla Scala entrusted her the leading role in Giselle and the New York Metropolitan invited her for Romeo and Juliet choreographed by Nureyev.
A versatile dancer, sensitive to the innovations of contemporary choreographers (Tetley, Moreland, MacMillan), Elisabetta Terabust's repertoire also includes numerous ballets by Balanchine (Agon, Apollon Musagète, Allegro Brillante, Tchaikovski - Pas de deux, La sonnambula), some of which she created for the Aterballetto. She was a guest of the company directed by Amedeo Amodio, who created for her Psiche a Manhattan. He also gave her the leading role in Ricercare a nove movimenti, Après-midi d'un faune, Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker.
She has danced with the greatest dancers of our time, such as Rudolf Nureyev, Erik Bruhn, Paolo Bortoluzzi, Peter Schaufuss and Patrice Bart, as well as with the principals of the London Festival Ballet, such as Jay Jolley, and of the Opéra de Paris, such as Patrick Dupond (with whom she performed The Nutcracker in Poljakov's version at the Florence Teatro Comunale). Amongst her most recent interpretations are two creations by Petit: Charlot danse avec nous with the Ballet National de Marseille and La valse triste ou le retour des cygnes, performed for the first time at the Opera di Roma, Carmen and L'Arlésienne.
She was in charge of the Teatro alla Scala Ballet for four years, while keeping the Artistic Direction of the Ballet School of the Opera di Roma, where she came back as Director in 1997. Between 2000 and 2002 she was director of the MaggioDanza, the ballet company of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. At the end of 2002 she became Director of the Ballet of the Teatro di San Carlo. Since September 2007 she has been directing the La Scala Ballet again.
