Federico Bonelli

in conversation with Gerald Dowler

FEDERICO BONELLI: So, it’s quite funny because, when I started ballet as a kid – I was five years old, I think – I didn’t even know what ballet was. What I enjoyed was movement and music and the combination of these two, and is just quite a bit later, then, I discovered that you can tell a story with ballet. So, it’s not just physicality on the music, but… So, when I was in school later on, when I was 14 or so on, I left my hometown to go to Turin to study in a professional school. I dreamt of doing Swan Lake and Giselle and these kinds of ballets… and Swan Lake, I used to watch Anthony Dowell and [Natalia] Makarova in a famous video. So, that’s a connection, I guess, to The Royal Ballet. At the time it felt like an impossible dream. The Royal Ballet was very far away and [had] very high standards, and [that] sort of thing. Then, after a few years in my career, I actually managed to join the company and to do some of these amazing ballets that we do. Looking back, I’m so grateful and so lucky that I managed.

GERALD DOWLER: What was your training? I mean, what was the basis of your training?

FEDERICO BONELLI: So, throughout my career, I think, Cuban. I had Cuban teachers.

GERALD DOWLER: And what do you think that [training] has given you now as a mature artist and dancer? What is there that’s Cuban [that is] still in you?

FEDERICO BONELLI: Well, if I think of what the Cuban school is for male dancers, it’s very strong on technique and very virtuoso. If I think of me, I wouldn’t really describe myself as that. So, I can definitely say that my teachers taught me about clean technique and, you know, clean lines and positions, and that definitely came from my teachers over the years. And somehow the emphasis on virtuoso technique didn’t quite work for me, but that’s because of my characteristics as a dancer. But definitely, the… I don’t know how to say… the purity of the movement: a jump is a jump; a turn is a turn. And, you know, a position is a position. And so there was that and the joy of dancing. That is definitely something that I remember.

When I finished school, it was that and I wanted to do Siegfried [in Swan Lake] and this and that, and then I started to discover, actually, when I joined at Zurich Ballet, I very naively thought that we were going to do more classical ballets than we did. But obviously, the company was 36 dancers, and we did a lot of modern and neoclassical choreography, and I learned a lot. I have to say, but also, I was a young boy with not a lot of experience, just a lot of enthusiasm, and I had a great time in Zurich.

GERALD DOWLER: So, when did you join Zurich?

FEDERICO BONELLI: ‘96.

GERALD DOWLER: And how long did you stay with them?

FEDERICO BONELLI: Three seasons. Basically, I felt that I wanted something more, something else for me, for my development or for my evolution. I needed something different. I needed to move somewhere else. That’s what I felt. And so, I joined Dutch National Ballet in ‘99, and I spent four seasons there. And then again, at some point, I guess I felt that I wanted to experience something else and try something else. Again, I learned so much in Dutch National, but it got to this natural point in my evolution, and I wanted to try something else, and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to come to The Royal Ballet as a principal dancer.

GERALD DOWLER: Why The Royal Ballet?

FEDERICO BONELLI: Now, what I will tell you about this is, then, I didn’t even think it was possible. Remember, I used to watch videos? For me [it] was the very far, rarified kind of company, and I didn’t think it was possible to actually join in. But my wife – at the time, girlfriend – Hikaru Kobayashi, [who] also just retired last year with The Royal Ballet, had worked with Sir Peter Wright in Japan. My wife is Japanese. And she said, “Well, we should just try [to] go today to The Royal Ballet and audition, and see what happens”. And I said, “Well, sure, let’s try”. And I didn’t really expect much of it. But then, somehow, we got offered contracts, and a contract, an opportunity that I couldn’t refuse. So, of course, it was very easy to accept.

GERALD DOWLER: And your director at the time was…?

FEDERICO BONELLI: Monica Mason. Monica Mason had just taken over when I auditioned, and I remember that I took a class for a week in London, and then Monica came to Amsterdam to watch a performance. And then, after that, I received a call and she offered me a contract, and that was it.

GERALD DOWLER: You packed your bags…

FEDERICO BONELLI: Pretty much. It was quite difficult at the beginning. I think the first performance I did with The Royal Ballet was Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, and this was after three months with the company. So, for three months I didn’t do any performance. Obviously, I rehearsed, not for the three months, but I really was quite a bit, and I watched the other performances, other dancers. So, in a way, there was a lot of… I remember there was a lot of pressure. The first year at The Royal Ballet was… I felt the pressure. In Dutch National, I used to do a lot of performances, so I was on stage a lot, and all of a sudden, I was here for three months. I didn’t have any show, and then I had that one show of Romeo and Juliet. And so, I needed to get it right the first time and then no second chance. I don’t think I did a very good show, if I’m totally honest. It was quite stressful. I felt the pressure of the amazing dancers than were in the company.

GERALD DOWLER: Who was your Juliet?

FEDERICO BONELLI: Mara Galeazzi. And she was lovely. It was just that I could definitely tell the audience was different in London. And what I felt at the time was that the audience was very knowledgeable. They knew very well what they were coming to see, and they have seen countless previous interpreters. And so, they knew what it was meant to be. And I, as an outsider, I didn’t quite know.

Yeah, I suppose I didn’t enjoy very much my performances right at the beginning. I felt a lot of pressure. I think at some point it started to change. I started to feel a bit better. I guess, now, looking back, I think a part of that might have been when I… I had never done [The] Sleeping Beauty, so my first time I danced Sleeping Beauty in my career was here in London and I don’t know if you remember, but for me [it] was a memorable experience because my debut was on an opening night because Johan Kobborg got hurt.

GERALD DOWLER: I do remember.

FEDERICO BONELLI: During the first solo in the second act, or something, and I was watching from the wings trying to learn. I used to love watching Johan and Alina [Cojocaru]. And so, I really… I was there to learn the version, but also to learn how to do it well. And I was sitting in the wings, and they closed the curtain because he hurt himself. And I remember thinking: “What’s going to happen? I wonder what’s going to happen now?”. And then I remember hearing steps, somebody running across the back of the stage… tumf-tumf-tumf… and I remember Bennet Gartside saying, “Federico, Monica’s looking for you” and I won’t swear because it’s probably not the right place, but I went, “Sugar! I know what’s going to happen”. And so, I remember, actually, Monica Mason, while I was getting a quick make-up done, Monica was dyeing my shoes because my shoes were white, but it was an off-white colour. So, Monica dyed my shoes with a teabag while I was putting my make-up on and she was there and saying, “Freddie, you just go on and do your best. It’s going to be fine.” And that’s how I had my debut in Sleeping Beauty. So, it’s quite… I mean, [it] was quite a story for me. And then I did lots of performances and I got to dance and feel part of the company. And then I think I started to feel better.

GERALD DOWLER: And in terms of arriving in your first season, were there any particular… Anything that surprised you about either the structure of rehearsals or class or the style? Things which you were being asked to do, which stick in your memory?

FEDERICO BONELLI: Definitely the style. I guess countless moments were just learning the style of, for instance, the [Kenneth] MacMillan way of acting, which is not the balletic way where you do… Do you call it mime? There’s often no mime at all [in MacMillan’s ballets]. And so, when you’re Romeo [in MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet], for instance, you are a boy, a man. You stand on two feet, you almost don’t stand with a pointed foot to the back, and you’re really being the character and being almost like a normal, everyday person and just live in it. Where I suppose, in the past, I felt more balletic in a way than even when I was trying to tell a story. I was still stretching my feet and being turned out. And I still think then you must stretch your feet and be turned out. Absolutely. But there are moments where you’re just expressing emotions, where you don’t need to do that. And that is, I think, one of the characteristics of The Royal Ballet and the way that we tell stories.

GERALD DOWLER: Do you think that that way of telling a story, actually, do you feel it influences the productions of the classics that we have here?

FEDERICO BONELLI: Yes. Simple answer is yes. I think it does. So, say we were talking about Sleeping Beauty. I could say The Sleeping Beauty is not the most interesting character for the Prince, meaning that it is quite two dimensional and there isn’t all that much in it. Obviously, it’s a technical challenge and the music is wonderful, so I love it for those aspects. From telling the story, there isn’t that much. And say, in the second act after you’ve seen the apparition of [Princess] Aurora, you could just go through the motions and run around… you know, the girls in the middle twice and do the little mime, she’s so beautiful, and so on. You could do it like that, and many companies do it like that. Then there is another way where you can really try to be part of… you know, get yourself into the story. It is a fairytale. And so, the prince can actually be really in the fairytale. And I think this is a characteristic of how we do things here.

Another typical example is Giselle. Giselle can obviously have the technical challenges… it’s got the beauty of the, and the second act and the Wilis’ and, you know, the things that people think of when it’s ballet – it’s not the tutus but the skirts, and all of these things. This is all true and is, by itself, very important and very beautiful. I think it gives so much more to the story of Giselle, when, actually, Albrecht is a real person, a real character, who then goes through an arc through the evening. So, he starts in one place. And I remember Sir Peter Wright giving me corrections the first few times that I danced the role. He used to tell me, “Very good Federico, you dance really well, but you don’t really like the peasants, you know. You’re a Duke!” I want to say Prince, I don’t know what! Anyway, a nobleman. And he says, “You don’t really like them. You’re too friendly to them. You’re just pretending to like them because you want to get to Giselle.” And I didn’t really understand that at the beginning because I was, you know, in part, still that student and wanted to do the jumps and the turns and all these things. And I still want to do those things. It’s just then there is this extra dimension where you actually portray a character on stage that makes this so much more interesting, and so much more rewarding for the dancer and, I believe, also for the audience.