Ballet tour in Japan, February 2024

Since 1995, this is the 11^th time that the Company has performed in the Japanese capital. This 2024 tour to the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, at the Japan Performing Arts Foundation and its Executive Director Norio Takahashi's invitation, will once again demonstrate the links which have been developed over time between the Ballet de l'Opéra national de Paris and the Japanese public.

No fewer than 99 dancers including 13 Étoiles and 9 Premières Danseuses or Premiers Danseurs will perform in Rudolf Nureyev's Swan Lake and - for the first time on tour - Kenneth MacMillan's L'Histoire de Manon.

A fairytale ballet set to Tchaikovsky’s scintillating score, Swan Lake was created in 1877 for the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and later restaged by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Almost a hundred years later, Rudolf Nureyev brought his own interpretation of the ballet to the Paris Opera in 1984. 

With, in solo roles (subject to change):

Odette/Odile
Amandine Albisson or Valentine Colasante or Hannah O'Neill or Sae Eun Park

Prince Siegfried
Guillaume Diop or Germain Louvet or Paul Marque or Jérémy-Loup Quer

Rothbart
Antonio Conforti or Thomas Docquir or Jack Gasztowtt
 
 

Inspired by Abbé Prévost’s mythical heroes, in L'Histoire de Manon Kenneth MacMillan expresses his fascination for dramatic subjects and characters who have fallen from grace. The Paris Opera Ballet will be performing L'Histoire de Manon on tour for the first time. 

With, in solo roles (subject to change):

Manon
Dorothée Gilbert or Myriam Ould-Braham or Ludmila Pagliero

Des Grieux
Mathieu Ganio or Hugo Marchand or Marc Moreau

Lescaut
Pablo Legasa or Francesco Mura or Andrea Sarri

La Maîtresse de Lescaut
Héloïse Bourdon or Roxane Stojanov or Silvia Saint-Martin

"This new Tokyo tour illustrates the special relationship that the Paris Opera cultivate with Japan.

This is an important event for our Company and I would like to warmly thank Mr Norio Takahashi, Executive Director of the Japan Performing Arts Foundation for this invitation.

This year, our artists will be performing Rudolf Nureyev's sumptuous Swan Lake and Kenneth MacMillan's virtuoso theatrical ballet L'Histoire de Manon.

I am delighted that the Étoiles, the Premières Danseuses, the Premiers Danseurs and the Corps de Ballet of the Paris Opera will be reunited with the Japanese public to present these two jewels of our repertoire."

Alexander Neef
- Director General of the Paris Opera

"It is always a great pleasure for the Paris Opera Ballet to return to Japan.

I would like to thank the Japan Performing Arts Foundation and its director Mr Takahashi for the loyal links they have maintained with our company for many years.

I have long been welcomed by Japanese audiences, whose fidelity affects me as a dancer and now as a director.

The Paris Opera is delighted to be returning to Japan to present Swan Lake, a Nureyev's great ballet which is at the heart of our repertoire and tradition, and to show to the Japanese public how our dancers have appropriated a production like L'Histoire de Manon."

José Martinez
- Dance Director