Kitri and Basilio in Don Quixote, Krasnoyarsk, 1997: “Kitri is an audacious young girl with spirit and energy. The whole ballet is about how she and her lover outwit her father and marry each other against his wishes. The highlight is the pas de deux in the finale where the ballerina and her partner get to show off with real bravura dancing.”
In Philippine ballet, no partnership has been as enduring as that of Osias Barroso and Lisa Macuja-Elizalde. They danced together for sixteen years, performing in over 250 shows in five continents – 60 of which were full-length ballets.
Sometime during that period, the duo led ten other dancers in forming Ballet Manila. Now, as co-artistic directors, they continue to work together in fulfilling the mission that the company set for itself twenty-one years ago – to bring ballet to the people and people to the ballet.
This Valentine month, we celebrate the long-lasting collaboration between Barroso and Macuja-Elizalde with a lookback at the romantic unions they have performed onstage with such great feeling.
Giselle and Albrecht in Giselle, Ulan Ude, 1994: “It’s a story of love so strong that it causes a girl’s madness and death. It also causes her to rise from the grave and save the man who wronged her. It demands the utmost energy and acting ability, because even when Giselle is dancing strenuously difficult parts, the ballerina must make it look like she’s a spirit floating lightly on air.”
“I think it is our shared passion for ballet that shines through and rubs off on the audience. When we go onstage, we’re celebrating our common love for dance and the effervescence comes naturally,” Macuja-Elizalde says of their chemistry.
The prima ballerina’s notes about each of the featured ballets – which she counts among her favorites – are excerpted from her book, Ballerina of the People.
Princess Odette and Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, with Philippine Ballet Theater, 1994: “Odette is turned into a swan by the magician Rothbart, but returns to human form for a few hours after midnight. On one such occasion she meets Prince Siegfried who falls in love with her but is deceived by Rothbart into getting engaged to his own daughter Odile. In some versions, the ill-fated lovers die together; in others, they break the spell and live happily ever after.”Romeo and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, with Ballet Manila, 1996: “Many companies have their own versions of this Shakespearean tale. I think that’s because the story lends itself so well to different interpretations and choreographies. For me the biggest challenge in dancing Juliet is showing her age from a shy, young teenager to a knowing woman to a human being so desperately in love that she kills herself.”Carmen and Don Jose in Carmen, with Ballet Manila, 2003: “Although there are older versions of this ballet, the one choreographed by Eric V. Cruz stands out for me primarily because it is passionate and risqué in its staging, and the music from the opera is simply mesmerizing.”
Partners in dance breathe life to ballet’s most passionate pairs
