Carla Fracci

Carla Fracci was born in Milan from a family of humble origins. Her father was a tram driver for the ATM (Milan Transport Company). In 1946 she began studying classical dance at the Scala Theater School. In 1954 she graduated and continued her artistic training with participation in advanced internships in London, Paris and New York. During this period, among her many teachers, she had the opportunity to attend the courses of the great Russian choreographer Vera Volkova (1905-1975). Just two years after graduation, she was promoted to soloist and at twenty-two, in 1958, she became first dancer. Starting from the fifties she will make numerous appearances on the scene. Until the seventies she danced with some of the main foreign companies, the London Festival Ballet, the Royal Ballet, the Stuttgard Ballet and the Royal Swedish Ballet. Since 1967 she has also been a guest artist at the American Ballet Theater. Carla Fracci's enormous international fame is linked above all to the most important roles of romantic ballet, such as Giulietta, Swanilda, Francesca da Rimini or Giselle. Carla Fracci danced with great partners, including Rudolf Nureyev, Vladimir Vasiliev, Henning Kronstam, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Amedeo Amodio, Paolo Bortoluzzi. But the most beautiful pages of her career was, probably, together with the Danish dancer Erik Bruhn. The Giselle danced with him would have remained unforgettable so much that, in 1969, a film will be made of it. Among his other great interpretations, we should certainly mention Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet", "Baroque concert", "Le demoiselles de la nuit", "The seagull", "Pelléas et Mélisande", "The stone flower", "La sylphide "," Coppelia "," Swan Lake ". At the end of the eighties, she took over the direction of the corps de ballet of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples together with Gheorghe Iancu. In 1981, she played the part of Giuseppina Strepponi, soprano and second wife of Giuseppe Verdi, in the television production of the same name. In the following years she interpreted "L’après-midi d'un faune", "Eugenio Oneghin", "Maria's life", "Kokoschka's doll".