PRESS INFORMATION, 5 MAY 2022: LAURENT HILAIRE NEW BALLET DIRECTOR / SEASON 2022-23

Laurent Hilaire takes over in May 2022 from Igor Zelensky as Director of the Bayerisches Staatsballett. Hilaire presented the season’s ballet programme during the annual Bayerische Staatsoper and Bayerisches Staatsballett press conference. The programme includes premieres by choreographers such as Alexei Ratmansky and Paul Lightfoot.

NEW BALLET DIRECTOR

Laurent Hilaire is the new Director of the Bayerisches Staatsballett. Along with the season’s programme, the new management was presented on Thursday, 5 May 2002, during the annual Bayerische Staatsoper press conference. Alongside General Manager Serge Dorny, Bavarian State Minister of Science and the Arts, Markus Blume, presented the Frenchman Laurent Hilaire as the Munich ensemble's new director. Hilaire takes office on Monday, 9 May 2022 and therewith succeeds Igor Zelensky, who, after seven years, announced at the beginning of April 2022 that he was leaving the position for personal reasons.

Laurent Hilaire became a member of the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris after completing his training at the Paris Opera Ballet School in 1979. In 1985 he was appointed as an Etoile by Rudolf Nureyev and remained as such at the Paris Opera Ballet for 22 years. Together with Élisabeth Platel, Sylvie Guillem, Isabelle Guérin, Élisabeth Maurin and Manuel Legris, Laurent Hilaire belongs to the so-called "Nureyev generation".
 
He was a guest soloist with the Royal Ballet in London, Milan's La Scala, American Ballet Theater, the Australian Ballet and the Staatsballett Berlin. In 2011 he was appointed as “Maître de ballet associé à la direction de la danse”. Then, he worked closely with Brigitte Lefèvre, artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet. Since 2017, Laurent Hilaire was artistic director of the Stanislavsky Ballet. He stepped down from this position in February 2022.

PREMIERES 2022-23

Laurent Hilaire presented the 2022-23 season’s programme at the Bayerische Staatsoper’s annual press conference together with General Manager Serge Dorny and General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski. With the mixed bill productions by Alexei Ratmansky and the choreographer duo, Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, the 2022-23 programme (planned by Igor Zelensky while still in office) at the Bayerisches Staatsballett now features two ballet performances by internationally renowned dance creators.
 
In December 2022, the curtain rises in the Nationaltheater for Alexei Ratmansky’s choreographic examination of various overtures by Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky. Against the backdrop of Jean-Marc Puissant’s set, creating special stage spaces with veils and other space-dividing elements, in his new creation Ratmansky plays the Tchaikovsky Overtures (working title) with the traditional movement patterns of classical ballet and the constant body expression of the dancers.
 
The 2023 Ballet Festival Week opens at the end of March with the Schmetterling double bill by the Dutch choreographer duo, Sol León and Paul Lightfoot. The performance includes the pieces Silent Screen (2005) and Schmetterling (2010), which both celebrated world premieres at the Nederlands Dans Theater. Choreographer Sol León and her artistic partner Paul Lightfoot are consequently making their house debuts at the Bayerisches Staatsballett.
The start of the Munich Opera Festival brings with it another edition of Heute ist morgen (Today is tomorrow) in the Prinzregententheater as the season’s third premiere.

Premiere dates:

23 December 2022: Tchaikovsky Overtures (Alexei Ratmansky)
31 March 2023: Schmetterling (Sol León/Paul Lightfoot)
23 June 2023: Heute ist Morgen – contemporary choreographies

2022-2023 REVIVALS AND REPERTOIRE

The coming season welcomes the return of the two classics, Romeo and Juliet by John Cranko, and La Bayadère by Patrice Bart. The works are back on the stage of the Nationaltheater with new casts following breaks of four and five years.
 
The Bayerisches Staatsballett celebrates the season opening with the UniCredit September Festival 2022 with a contemporary repertoire and the ballet evening, Herzkammern, which includes Sharon Eyal’s Bedroom Folk, among other performances. As the season begins in September, the Staatsballett presents a dance theatre production for children from the age of four with The Fish Who Found the Sea.
 
Along with the triple bill, Passages, the programme also features Christopher Wheeldon’s family opus Cinderella and George Balanchine’s neo-classical Jewels. The narrative ballets, A Midsummer Night's Dream by John Neumeier and Coppélia by Roland Petit, complement the coming season’s programme.

PRESS RELEASE FOR DOWNLOAD

 You will find detailed press material with information on the 2022-23 season’s premieres and repertoire as well as a photo and the biography of Laurent Hilaire to download here.
The programme for the 2022-23 season will be available online at staatsballett. de from today, 5 May 2022, 6.00 pm.

THE BAYERISCHE STAATSOPER THANKS ITS PARTNERS

A great thank you goes to the Global Partner BMW. The Bayerische Staatsoper looks forward to joint events such as Opera for All and to the realisation of new, innovative projects for the preservation of art and music in society. The Bayerische Staatsoper would also like to thank HypoVereinsbank - Member of UniCredit for making the UniCredit Septemberfest possible at the start of the season and for supporting the Opera for All concert in Rosenheim as a co-partner. Furthermore, thanks are due to Siemens AG as the main partner of the Hermann Levi Academy, the Excellence Partner, the RH Group of Companies, the Ambassador of the Bayerische Staatsorchester Julia Frohwitter, the couple Prof. Dr. h. c. Roland and Karin Berger as Avantgarde Partners of the Bayerische Staatsoper as well as Van Cleef & Arpels, project partner for the Bayerische Staatsballett and all other sponsors.