Angel Corella

Angel Corella
Corella in a 2005 performance as Aminta, from Frederick Ashton's ballet Sylvia
Born	(1975-11-08) 8 November 1975 (age 36) Madrid, Spain
Occupation	ballet dancer
Years active	1995–present
Current group	American Ballet Theatre
Website
www.AngelCorella.org

Ángel Corella (born 8 November 1975) is a Spanish dancer, currently the Artistic Director and principal dancer of Barcelona Ballet (formerly Corella Ballet, Castilla Y León) as well as principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre. He has been honored with the prestigious Prix Benois de la Danse award for his performance of Jerome Robbins' Other Dances with ballerina Julie Kent and has also been bestowed the National Award of Spain.

Early career

Born and raised in Madrid, Corella trained with Karemia Moreno and Víctor Ullate and began winning dance awards at a young age, including the First Prize in the National Ballet Competition of Spain in 1991 and three years later, the Grand Prix and Gold Medal at the Concours International de Danse de Paris.

When the world-renowned, Russian ballerina Natalia Makarova, saw the young Corella in competition, she contacted the artistic director of American Ballet Theatre and recommended that he be auditioned for the company. He was accepted into ABT as a soloist in April 1995 and was promoted the following year (August 1996) to the rank of principal dancer.

Professional work

Ángel Corella has performed as a guest artist with such companies as The Royal Ballet in London, the La Scala Ballet in Milan, the New York City Ballet, the Australian Ballet, the Ballet of Tokyo, the Asami Maki Ballet, Ballet Contemporaneo de Caracas, and the National Ballet of Chile. In March 2008, Corella made his debut with the Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, dancing the role of Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake.

Corella has also performed in numerous festivals, galas, and special performances around the world, including The Kings of the Dance which premiered, in February 2006, at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, CA, immediately followed by an East Coast premiere at City Center. He performed alongside dancers Gudrun Bojesen of The Royal Danish Ballet; Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg of the Royal Ballet, London; Ethan Stiefel of ABT; and Nikolay Tsiskaridze of the Bolshoi Ballet. In 2007, Kings of the Dance toured to Russia with performances in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Perm, Russia. The next year, Angel Corella was the sole returning original cast member to perform it at the Mariinsky Festival. Prior to 2008, he toured Spain extensively with his own company Ángel Corella & Stars of the American Ballet. He is now Artistic Director of Barcelona Ballet.

In recent years, Corella has danced for Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the President of the United States. He has performed all of the classics (see extensive listing below), and has received critical acclaim for his technique, musicality, and for his sensitive, dramatic interpretations of roles in ballets by Sir Kenneth MacMillan, specifically Romeo and Juliet and more recently, Manon.

He has had the opportunity to partner many well-known ballerinas including Alessandra Ferri, Xiomara Reyes, Julie Kent, Gillian Murphy, Diana Vishneva, Alina Cojocaru, Nina Ananiashvili, Paloma Herrera, Irina Dvorovenko, Viktoria Tereshkina, Alina Somova, Evgenia Obraztsova, Alexandra Ansanelli, Michele Wiles, Stella Abrera and Letizia Giuliani, among others.

Roles

• Leading roles in other ballets include the following: Symphony in C, Other Dances, Push Comes to Shove, The Sleeping Beauty Act II, Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison, Variations on America, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Theme and Variations, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Bruch Violin Concerto, Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, Ballet Imperial, Sinfonietta, Gong, Who Cares?, Variations For Four, The Leaves Are Fading, Mozartiana, Without Words, A Brahms Symphony, Stepping Stones, Americans We, and Spring and Fall, Concerto no. 1 for Piano & Orchestra, Sinatra Suite, In the Upper Room, and Allegro Brillante, among others.

• Ballets created on Corella by today's choreographers: For 4 by Christopher Wheeldon, Non Troppo by Mark Morris, The Pied Piper by David Parsons, HereAfter by Natalie Weir & Stanton Welch, Meadow by Lar Lubovitch, Baroque Game by Robert Hill, Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra by Robert Hill, Known by Heart by Twyla Tharp, Getting Closer by John Neumeier, Sin and Tonic by James Kudelka, and both Clear and We Got it Good by choreographer Stanton Welch.

• Ballets in Opera Productions: Dance of the Hours in Ponchielli's La Gioconda choreographed by George Iancu in Barcelona 2005 as well as Christopher Wheeldon's new Dance of the Hours in Ponchielli's La Gioconda for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, 2006. (Debut performances).

Television appearances

• 1996 Kennedy Center Honors
• 1998 Sesame Street
• 2001 Charlie Rose
• 2000 PBS presentation of documentary film Born To Be Wild - The Leading Men Of American Ballet Theatre
• 2005 (Emmy Award-winning) PBS presentation of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, with Gillian Murphy and Marcelo Gomes (Staging by Kevin McKenzie)

Corella's DVD recordings

Angel Corella backstage at the Metropolitan Opera House in 2007 - Photo by Hermine Weiss

• Swan Lake with Gillian Murphy (American Ballet Theatre - 2005)
• Romeo and Juliet with Alessandra Ferri (La Scala Ballet - 2000)
• Le Corsaire with Julie Kent/Ethan Stiefel (American Ballet Theatre - 1998 VHS, 2001 DVD)
• Born To Be Wild - The Leading Men Of American Ballet Theatre (Biographical Documentary- 1999) with Vladimir Malakhov, Jose Manuel Carreño, and Ethan Stiefel.
• Don Quixote Pas de Deux with Paloma Herrera (American Ballet Theatre) on a mixed bill DVD titled American Ballet Theatre Now - Variety and Virtuosity (1996)

Awards

• National Ballet Competition of Spain - First prize, May 1991
• Concours International de Danse de Paris - Grand Prix / Gold Medal, December 1994
• Prix Benois de la Danse, 2000
• National Award of Spain, 2003
• Dance Europe Magazine DANCER OF THE YEAR Award, 2007
• Leonid Massine Award, 2008
• International Medal of Arts, Madrid, Spain, 2009

Foundation

• La Fundación Ángel Corella

"The Angel Corella Foundation was formed in 2001 to promote classical dance in Spain and to offer the opportunity for the finest professional training to all dancers, regardless of their economic or social condition".

At this stage of his career, Corella has created this ambitious educational, artistic and cultural project consisting of a Residence School for Dancers and a Ballet Company - Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon, both sited in the Palace of Santa Cecilia at the Royal Location of La Granja de San Ildefonso in Segovia, Spain.

The repertoire of the Ballet Academy and Corella Ballet will include classical, neoclassic and contemporary works.

This high-profile project in Spain is already attracting a great deal of international interest.

Barcelona Ballet

In April 2008, Corella established the first classical ballet company in Spain in 20 years, the Corella Ballet, Castilla y Leon; in February 2012, it moved to Barcelona and became the Barcelona Ballet.

The company had its world premiere in La Granja, Segovia, Spain on 11 July 2008 performing a mixed program of Clark Tippet's Bruch Violin Concerto, Stanton Welch's Clear and Twyla Tharp's In the Upper Room. Its first full-length ballet was La Bayadère (staging by Natalia Makarova) on 4 September 2008 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain.

Barcelona Ballet has since gone on to expand its repertoire and gain a great following across both Spain and the rest of the world. They are a touring company performing in many theatres across Spain, including Teatro Real, Madrid and the Liceu, Barcelona. They have performed internationally at the New York City Center in March 2010 as well as at the Los Angeles Music Center and Santa Barbara, California. They have toured cities such as New Orleans, Seattle, Charleston, the Spoleto Festival and the Gudalajara book festival, Mexico in November 2010.

Their repertoire includes Swan Lake, suites from Le Corsaire and The Sleeping Beauty, George Balanchine's Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux and Apollo pas de deux, Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain pas de deux, María Pagés' SOLEÁ pas de deux, and the pas de deuxs from Diana and Actaeon, Don Quixote and Satanella; Balanchine's Who Cares?, Jerome Robbins's Fancy Free, Wheeldon's DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse and VIII, Welch's We got it good, Russell Ducker's Epimitheus, Vasiliov and Kasatkina's Sunny Duet, Leonid Lavrovsky's Walpurgisnacht, Corella, Ducker & Radev's Suspended in Time and Corella's String Sextet.

The company currently consists of 25 dancers; principals and guest artists include Alina Cojucaru, Angel Corella, Carmen Corella, Paloma Herrera, Momoko Hirata, Nehemiah Kish, Sarah Lane, Gillian Murphy, Aaron Robison,and Dayron Vera.

Barcelona Ballet will return to New York City Center again in April 2012 as well as visiting Purchase, NY, Detroit, Houston and China.

References

• Bio Page at ABT's Website
• Article from Dance Magazine (Cover Story, 1995)
• Article from Ballet Alert Online (1999)
• Interview from Ballet Magazine (2001)
• Interview from Travel Classics Magazine (2006)

External links

• Official website Angel Corella
• Official website Barcelona Ballet
• Link to Forum Angel Corella

Reviews

• NY Times review of La Bayadere (May 1999)
• Review of The Pied Piper (May 2001)
• NY Times review of The Pied Piper (May 2001)
• Online review of Don Quixote (July 2004)
• NY Times Review of Don Quixote (May 2005)
• Online review of Raymonda (July 2005)
• Online review of Kings of the Dance (Feb. 2006)
• Online review of Corella in the Met's opera La Gioconda -Dance of the Hours (Sep. 2006)
• Review of Corella in La Bayadere from Ballet Magazine (June 2007)

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