It’s surprising how few choreographers have ventured a Peer Gynt ballet, given the source: the oft-staged Ibsen verse drama, featuring Grieg’s memorable music and a plot that embroils the rascal and lady’s man Peer Gynt in constant scandal. Eloping with one woman (on her wedding day), whom he quickly abandons; pledging his undying love to another; and knocking up a third (who happens to be a troll), Peer makes the regular rogues’ gallery of leading men in story ballets seem positively benign. But he does love his mother. In 2015, the Romanian choreographer Edward Clug, who has directed the Slovenian National Ballet, in Maribor, for two decades, created a mysterious, melancholy, and visually stunning production of Peer Gynt. It has since been performed by companies in Vienna, Zurich, Warsaw, and Leipzig. Now it’s La Scala’s turn. —Apollinaire Scherr