16:00 CET.

Surrogate Cities is the latest creation by Demis Volpi, ballet director and chief choreographer of Ballett am Rhein. Set to Heiner Goebbels's visceral and hypnotic composition of the same name, Volpi has set out to create an evening-length abstract ballet, inspired by the multicoloured sound world of Goebbels. In the days before 29 April 2024, Ballett am Rhein have recorded specially this excerpt for OperaVision’s International Dance Day celebrations. Be prepared for something new, abstract and urban, echoing the metropolis as a space of extreme contradictions.

10:00 CET.

Romanian Folk Dances is a joyful choreography for 3 dancers, set to Béla Bartók’s music by Antonio Lanzo, a young member of Polish National Ballet. The work is part of Creations 16, the 16th Choreographic Workshop of Polish National Ballet, performed on stage from 13 to 16 March 2024. The release of this film for International Dance Day is followed by a live interview of Antonio Lanzo on OperaVision’s Instagram account.

21:00 CET.

Two dancers, yearning for human contact, face the impossibility of coming together. A personification of justice tries to free herself from her stone slumber. An intimate duet unfolds in Antwerp Cathedral. Our Nature, Iustitia and Pie Jesu are three poetic works choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and produced by Opera Ballet Vlaanderen during lockdown, as part of their #verbeeldingleeft (Imagination Lives) series. International Dance Day is an opportunity to rediscover these short and moving pieces on timeless themes.

Ariadne holds a historical place in the legacy of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal collaboration. The composer and the librettist wanted to redefine a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) for the twentieth century.

17:00 CET.

First created for Royal Swedish Ballet in 2018, Totality in Parts is ‘a soft, sharp, musically pulsating flow, structured with the precision of clockwork’ (according to the Swedish daily, Svenska Dagbladet). This performance was filmed in February 2024, and today OperaVision unveils the digital premiere, especially for International Dance Day. In Lukaš Timulak’s choreography after the entrance of a single soloist, the number of dancers doubles until sixteen dancers fill on stage - exploring what connects us humans, our planet and the universe. 

A rarely performed yet masterful Overture, two key scenes from Macbeth, that one striking violin solo in I Lombardi and an Aria from Il corsaro that is both loved and feared by sopranos: conductor Carlo Goldstein tips you five musical highlights from the second part of the Verdi diptych.

In the decade following his first successes, Giuseppe Verdi composed at a terrific pace, producing one or two new operas a year. The composer himself called this period his anni di galera (‘years as a galley slave’). During this time he delivered such hits as Nabucco, Macbeth and Ernani, alongside La battaglia di Legnano, Il corsaro and Alzira, titles that are rarely performed in their entirety today. Yet each of these early operas contains music that unmistakably bears the stamp of Verdi’s genius, music that deserves to find its way to a wider audience.

It's a long way from hobby to career and there are a number of challenges that young talents have to overcome. One of these is the audition process for a position in an orchestra.