Eleonora Abbagnato is all fire. «I am Sicilian and I am a volcano». Until 2021 she became the only Italian ballerina (along with Carlotta Zambelli, but in distant times) étoile at the Paris Opéra, the place where it all began, for it was Louis XIV who founded the first Academy of Dance. There you will learn the style, the positions, the elegance, the taste, the vocabulary that is French in dance. On stage, the encounters of her life are two: Pina Bausch, whom she chose for La Sagra della Primavera when she was 17, and above all Roland Petit. Since 2015 she has been Director of the Corps de Ballet of the Rome Opera. But keep dancing, it will be a star among the stars in a gala on June 20th at the Ravenna Festival. “My dancers call me Wonder Woman.”
How did dance come into your life?
«Mom had a clothing store in Palermo and since she had nowhere to leave me, Marisa Benassai’s dance school was upstairs, she left me there. At the age of 4 I was already hanging on the pole».
And then?
«At the age of 10 I started an important internship in Montecarlo, at that time it was a big school attended by Nureyev. A little later Marisa told me that Roland Petit, the great choreographer, was coming to Palermo for The Sleeping Beauty. He was looking for a little girl. At 14 I entered the Paris Opera School. Italian only. The level was very high, the director Claude Bessy told me, let’s see if you can resist. Carla Fracci encouraged me to study abroad».
Have you suffered from loneliness?
«Yes, of course I wore my name tag around my neck. But I only cried when I couldn’t talk to my mother on the phone at night. There were no cell phones. I remember the phone booth as it was today. I was social, I chatted with the other students, I lingered in the aisles. So I was always the last in single file in front of the stand. And I couldn’t always make a phone call. At nine o’clock in the evening we had to turn off the light, everyone was asleep. When I tell my children about my life, I compare the Paris Opera School to a boarding school, which shouldn’t be seen as a punishment. I have wonderful memories.”
Black Swan is the movie that showed us it’s not all about sunshine and roses.
“I don’t like this film, it’s not good for dancing, it doesn’t make young people fall in love with ballet. And he tells untruths, it happens once in a thousand that the maitre d’ falls in love with the dancer. But it’s true that the dance is a world unto itself, filled with resentment and petulant jealousy. I’ve seen them too.”
Did they put toothpaste in her shoes?
“The no. But I remember at a competition two little girls came into the dressing room and told me jokingly that they hadn’t taken me. My teacher in Paris used to stick a needle in my buttocks because I had my back closed arched a lot, my back is very elastic. The great teachers entered the classroom with a cane: not to give it to us, it was the sense of authority. Still intimidating. It was a different time, today there is no abuse at all possible, students, especially in America, you are not even allowed to physically touch until you get an ad. And it is excessive, you have to explain the strictness properly. A dance director today also has to be a psychologist. The negative elements are not the students, but the mothers. There are exaggerated protagonists».
What happened to her?
«At the Rome Opera I received anonymous letters. Then I got death threats when the director of the Bolshoi burned his face with acid. I wasn’t in Moscow, but I was emotionally drained. When I was étoile in Paris, a letter came saying: Let’s get rid of the Sicilian mafia».
She lives in a small tribe. He has two children, 10-year-old Julia and 8-year-old Gabriel; plus the two children Federico Balzaretti had in his first marriage, Lucrezia is 17 and Ginevra is 14.
«I am not the mother of Lucrezia and Ginevra, but I raised them. It’s a special story, Federico had sole custody».
And her biological mother?
“He had other things to do.”
What’s it like raising kids that aren’t yours?
“It’s more difficult, you have the thought that maybe you’re doing something wrong or that you’re missing out on something. I love them, it’s like they are my daughters. But if they don’t study I get angry, if they misbehave I scold them and pick up my phone. I have always loved children, as a child I played mother, my father had six siblings, a large Sicilian family.”
Do you call her mom?
“I don’t like being called that, but yes, the little one calls me Mama, the big one calls me Ele. She was one and a half years old when I first saw her. She is very close to Federico who is an amazing father. And he was sincere from day one. The first thing he told me the day we met (through Nino, a mutual friend who is a hairdresser) was that his daughters were his priority. I was wary, he had become a father at such a young age, at 21… I found out later that he had given up moving to Milan and Naples for his daughters. Federico answered him every month».
Are you interested in football?
“He’s always been part of my life, my father was president of Palermo and my uncle sporting director of Catania, my maternal grandfather used to play”.
And his two children?
«We are lucky, the four love each other, there is no jealousy. Gabriel plays football with the Roma girls, Julia is in the dance school of the Rome Opera. It’s not original as a path. She has a strong character, she is generous, sincere, direct. We look the same. I took her to all the theaters, I don’t know if she will later become a dancer. She has already complained about not being the center of attention. I replied that I wasn’t either, I fought to be one».
But does it feel lonely being the center of attention?
«Yes, there is the loneliness of prime numbers. It got me when I had to dance because I knew I wasn’t at the top or had to play roles that didn’t really suit me. And all eyes are on you, the star. People saw me that way, but some nights I really didn’t feel ready.”
Was it love at first sight for Federico?
According to our mutual friend, we have a similar character. Although we have the same values, he is a man from other times, but rather reserved in temperament, I am obtrusively cheerful. If someone moves me an object, I go crazy, the clothes in the drawers are sorted by color, red with red and so on. I’m obsessed even when I shower: I take three a day ».
The first meeting with Federico?
«It happened at my dinner in Palermo, my father was there too. We met when he asked for my hand after a year, in my house in Paris, in Montmartre. He had lit I don’t know how many candles. I was afraid that everything would catch fire.” He laughs: “I immediately said yes, have you ever seen that he never asked me again”.
What struck you about Federico?
“A letter. When my paternal grandmother, Eleonora, died, she wrote to me that she understood my suffering and that family was a fundamental point for him. Now he is the sports manager of the Vicenza team, I live in Rome with my children. See you at the weekend. The problem is, I’m not a phone guy. We send each other a lot of messages, also to strengthen each other. Not an easy situation.”
Occasionally she takes trips to other worlds.
«Everything it takes to spread the dance. I was an actress for Ficarra and Picone; on TV, Amici, Sanremo, Dancing with the stars; I took part in a video clip of Vasco Rossi, I remember him sitting in a corner, discreet, almost intimidated. I didn’t expect it, it surprised me».
Are there still prejudices against homosexuality in dance?
“Less, but they never go away completely. Abroad they are in front».
Rites and superstitions before the performance?
“If I don’t get twenty minutes of sleep just before the show, I can’t dance.”
She speaks in the present tense as if she were still Giselle… How was your departure from the Parisian stage?
«Lange, I would say that it was consumed in three acts. The first year was the pandemic and there was no dancing. The following year there were yellow vest strikes in France. The real goodbye was June 30, 2021, when I turned 42. Retirement age at the Paris Opera. I had a party with relatives, friends, old partners, teachers».
At what age do you stop in Italy?
«At 46. Are you asking me if there are too many? A little bit'”.
What is it like directing a corps de ballet in our country, where the dance theaters are always full, but the social recognition is zero?
“It was exhausting in Rome because opera came from a difficult time. We started from scratch, rejuvenated and dusted off the repertoire. But it’s interesting, there’s so much to build, when great choreographers come they don’t want to go. I managed to start a corps de ballet the way I wanted. The dance is Cinderella, but has the greatest hits and with a young audience. Superintendent Francesco Giambrone, like me from Palermo, has known me since my childhood, when I speak he understands me, he is a person with a big heart.”
But is it hard to quit?
“Yes, with pleasure, from one day to the next you are asked to return the key to the room in which there are memories of a lifetime.”
How do you see yourself in ten years?
“It’s hard for me to imagine a situation without theatre.”