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The Arts Intel Report

Napoli

Mar 27 – May 31, 2020
Kongens Nytorv 9, 1050 København K, Denmark

The Royal Danish Ballet has cancelled performances through April 19, but it’s arranged to stream—for free—one of its most beloved Bournonville ballets, Napoli. Choreographed in 1842, this three-act work has one of those old-fashioned stories. A pretty girl, Teresina, refuses marriage to two wealthy suitors because she loves the poor charmer, Gennaro. After a storm, Act Two finds her underwater, now a naiad in the Blue Grotto. Gennaro rescues her and in a celebratory Act Three they marry. In 2009, under director Nikolaj Hübbe, the ballet received an update that moved it from early-1800s Naples to the 1950s. While this kind of transposition can rub balletomanes the wrong way, most seemed to roll with it. Here’s a chance for us all to see the production. The leads are danced by the charmingly paired Alexandra Lo Sardo and Alban Lendorf. She is dark-haired and petite, a beauty with lovely line, especially through the feet. And he is her match for correctness fused with ecstatic brio. —L.J.