Philadelphia Ballet to open the 2023-24 season with a new ‘Carmen’

Philadelphia Ballet artistic director Angel Corella was a star who danced with companies all over the world. When he came to Philly in 2014 to lead this company, he decided to create his own versions of full-length ballets.

He started in 2016 with Don Quixote, which seemed fitting since Corella is from Spain.

In the 2023-24 season, he is taking on another major Spanish classic: Carmen, which will kick off the company’s 60th anniversary celebration.

“We’ve done pretty much almost every full-length in the repertoire,” Corella said, announcing the ballet’s 2023-24 season. “And the funny thing is that Carmen is one that has kept coming up every season. And everyone is like, ‘Oh, why don’t you do Carmen? You should create Carmen because you’re Spanish.’“

Incidentally, Corella’s sister, also called Carmen, danced with Philadelphia Ballet before both siblings wound up at American Ballet Theater.

Carmen will open the season Oct. 5-15 and is the only new ballet the company will be performing next season.

It will be followed by George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker on Dec. 8-30. Corella’s Giselle will return on Feb. 29-March 10, 2024.

Later that month, March 14-16, 2024, there will be a program of three ballets: Alvin Ailey’s The River, set to music by Duke Ellington; William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, set to a score by Thom Willems; and Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room, to Philip Glass’s music.

The season will close May 9-12, 2024, with a two-part program that includes Frederick Ashton’s The Dream, based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Balanchine’s Prodigal Son.

In the past, programs were divided between the Academy of Music and the Miller Theater. More recently, some performances were held at the smaller Perelman Theater. All programs next season will be at the Academy of Music.

“The cost is the same,” said executive director Shelley Power, “when you have to do more performances at the Perelman because of the size of the audience. So we just figured [the Academy of Music is] kind of our home.”

The Philadelphia Ballet has previously performed all of the ballets, aside, of course, from Corella’s Carmen. Ailey’s The River hasn’t been presented in many years and is the only one besides Carmen that Corella did not dance during his career.

Full-length ballets provide a lot of performing opportunities to the dancers, and this year Philadelphia Ballet grew to 50 dancers. (It had 42 when Corella took over in 2014.) More dancers were hired, but also positions were moved from Philadelphia Ballet 2 into the main company.

Unlike other full-length ballets Corella has choreographed, including this season’s Coppélia (running May 11-14), Corella is building his version of Carmen from scratch.

“Every choreographer, has some sort of influence, let’s call it, from other choreographers. But I think that I was very lucky to have done so many different styles and so many different choreographies that now I sort of have a mixture of all those styles and different choreography.”

That includes flamenco, which will be heavily featured in his Carmen.

Corella recently met with music director Beatrice Jona Affron and principal pianist Martha Koeneman to select and arrange pieces of Bizet’s music. He is also creating an outline for the story, planning the sets, and even buying and designing costumes.

“After Nutcracker, I went to Spain and I spent a week there searching and buying castanets, buying head pieces,” Corella said. Forty pairs of flamenco pants will be created in Spain, while some costumes and sets will be made in the company’s warehouse.

How much will all this cost?

“Angel is the most frugal person I’ve ever met my entire life for an artistic director,” Power said. “He’s amazing, because he wants us to succeed and he doesn’t want to approach a production that we can’t afford. We’re not done with the budgeting for this, but he’s been really reasonable. I can say that.”