What happens when Hugo Marchand, Danseur Étoile of the Paris Opera Ballet, gathers seven fellow étoiles and premier dancers from one of the world’s most revered ballet companies? The answer is Superstars of Paris, an evening of remarkable artistry that transformed Walt Disney Concert Hall into an intimate celebration of classical dance.

Rather than presenting a full-length ballet, the program offered a series of solos and pas de deux drawn from some of ballet’s most celebrated works. Accompanied at times only by piano and cello, the dancers performed without elaborate scenery or theatrical embellishment, allowing every movement, line, and expression to command the audience’s full attention.

The evening opened with Letizia Galloni and Antonio Conforti in José Martinez’s elegant Delibes Suite, immediately establishing the refined tone of the program. It was followed by Michel Fokine’s iconic The Dying Swan. Accompanied live by pianist Elena Bonnay and cellist Julie Sevilla-Fraysse, Danseuse Étoile Dorothée Gilbert appeared alone against the darkness in a delicate white feathered tutu. With astonishing control and expressive grace, she captured the swan’s final moments through movements so fluid they seemed almost weightless. It was a performance of exceptional beauty and restraint.

“Without elaborate scenery or theatrical distraction, every movement, every line, and every expression became the evening’s true spectacle.”

The mood shifted dramatically with Roland Petit’s Carmen Pas de Deux. Antonio Conforti’s Don José and Hannah O’Neill’s magnetic Carmen filled the stage with simmering sensuality and emotional tension, every glance and embrace suggesting the tragedy that inevitably awaits them.

Among the evening’s highlights was another Petit work, Le Rendez-vous, in which Dorothée Gilbert, confidently navigating the stage in high heels, seduced Marc Moreau in a theatrical blend of dance and drama. Evoking the atmosphere of a 1950s film noir, the ballet unfolded with mystery, elegance, and understated wit.

Perhaps the evening’s most memorable image came when Hugo Marchand and Dorothée Gilbert performed one of the program’s most romantic pas de deux. Dressed simply in flowing white, they embodied intimacy with effortless ease before arriving at a striking final image: locked in a lingering kiss as Marchand slowly turned Gilbert across the stage without ever breaking their embrace. It was a moment of remarkable theatrical poetry that drew audible sighs from the audience.

Superstars of Paris was far more than a showcase of technical virtuosity. It celebrated the emotional expressiveness of classical ballet and the enduring artistry of one of the world’s great dance companies. For one evening, Los Angeles was transported to Paris through elegance, romance, and movement of the highest order.

–Rosane Grimberg

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