Philadelphia Ballet turns 60, with Angel Corella completing a decade at its helm

When Philadelphia Ballet opens its season on Friday with artistic director Angel Corella’s Le Corsaire, it will not just be a curtain raiser for the new season but will also be the company’s 60th anniversary and Corella’s 10th year as artistic director.

“It’s been an amazing 10 years, to be honest,” said Corella, who is from Spain and had an illustrious career as a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre and starred with companies all over the world before retiring from the stage.

“They really flew,” he said of the years. “I could think like a few days ago it was when I arrived, and a lot has changed since then. But I think that this year sort of represents the past, the present, and the future of who we are and where the company is heading.”

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Indeed, much has changed in the past decade. For one thing: the name of the troupe, which was called Pennsylvania Ballet from its debut in 1963 until 2021.

“Philadelphia has an international recognition,” Corella said at the time. “It’s got such a power that we wanted to feel even more attached to the city.”

The company’s founder, Barbara Weisberger, who passed away in 2020 at age 94, played a critical role in shaping ballet in America. Weisberger was George Balanchine’s first child student and was inspired to establish her own company as part of Balanchine’s broader vision to spread ballet across the U.S. He supported her efforts by offering ballets free of charge and sending dancers to help launch her fledgling troupe. For decades, the company was known as a “Balanchine company.”

However, under Corella’s leadership, the company shifted its focus toward the full-length classics. Corella, despite initially claiming he wasn’t a choreographer, has taken on that role, beginning with his reworking of Don Quixote in 2016.

The next year, he took on Le Corsaire, which he is reviving this week.

“It’s really important to keep doing the classics, keep continuing our heritage of Balanchine,” Corella said. “And keep every time that we put something on stage, to be the highest quality possible, and keep developing and bringing new audiences to the to the theater.”

But that also means keeping up with the times. What he felt was acceptable in 2017 might need a refresh in 2024. For example, the female protagonist in most versions of Le Corsaire is an enslaved woman.

“There’s a lot of controversy about the selling and the trading of the slaves,” Corella said. “I mean, it is history and it’s a story that unfortunately did happen, and in some places and unfortunately still happens. But the last time [audiences were] a little bit sensitive to that, so I changed the story line.”

This time, it is a love story and the woman has free will.

“I also tried to make it as lighthearted as possible. It should be about the dancing and about pirates, so not Pirates of the Caribbean, but It shouldn’t be so intense and so deep.”

The anniversary season will also include Corella’s Swan Lake.

“I didn’t want to make it selfish and be about me, but just because it was my 10 years, I sort of wanted to put ballets together that I was kind of popular for,” he said. He danced in versions of Le Corsaire and Swan Lake that were broadcast on PBS.

He is also planning to create a new La Sylphide and a Bolero ballet and is hiring Houston Ballet artistic director Stanton Welch to choreograph a new work. There is a gala performance on Oct. 25, which will include highlights from many of the company’s favorite works.

So what’s next for the company? Corella would like a few more dancers and wants the company to tour more as well as perform more at home. The company will be performing The Nutcracker in December at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

A larger company will make performing easier, he said, as will the long-awaited expansion of their studios, which will include a black-box theater.

“I think that until the building is done, it’s going to be difficult to [implement all my other goals],” Corella said, “but I’m already planning to when the building is finished, to how it’s going to look with the repertoire.”

Philadelphia Ballet in “Le Corsaire.” Oct. 18-26, Academy of Music. $28-$242. 215-893-1999 or ensembleartsphilly.org

Philadelphia Ballet 60th anniversary gala performance. Oct. 25, Academy of Music. $10-$160. 215-893-1999 or ensembleartsphilly.org