Vision in white

Manon
Coliseum

Ballet goers don’t seem to mind the endless flow of new productions of 19th-century classic works. Every year works such as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle and the ubiquitous Nutcracker are presented to audiences worldwide with new designs, new sets, new dramaturgic readings and, in some instances, with new choreography. Yet such a lenient attitude changes drastically when it comes to the so-called modern classics, namely works created within a relatively recent past; the smallest alteration in costumes or designs triggers endless debate. It all depends on how we appropriate the history we live and witness, and how we like to set rigid, unquestionable and unbreakable rules for whatever belongs to current culture — no matter how elusive and ambiguous the notion of a current culture is.