Happy Days

The programme of the Paris Opera Ballet School’s annual show for 2026 is shaped by a return to origins. Compared with recent editions, what stands out is its pronounced tendency to look backwards, less through canonical classics than through the recreation of an idealised past. All three works celebrate artistic formation and transmission, yet cannot help but cast youth as a lost paradise. The programme brings together “Soir de fête” by Léo Staats, a seminal figure of the early twentieth-century French school; “Le Petit Prince,” a new choreographic creation by former Paris Opéra étoile Clairemarie Osta, based on a quintessentially French literary classic; and “Yondering,” John Neumeier’s American classic set to country music.

Performance

Spectacle de l’École de Danse

Place

Palais Garnier, Paris, April 15, 2026

Words

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Students of the Paris Opera Ballet School in “Le Petit Prince” by Clairemarie Osta. Photograph by Svetlana Loboff | OnP

“Soir de fête” (1925) by Léo Staats is a work of resistance and reinvention, designed to reassert the values of the French school in the face of the Ballets Russes’ growing influence in Paris at the time. It is set to music from “La Source,” the 1866 ballet by Léo Delibes, one of the great composers associated with the Paris Opéra, whose score for “Sylvia” famously left its mark on Tchaikovsky. Passed down through direct transmission by Christiane Vaussard, this plotless, semi-abstract ballet derives much of its structure and charm from the colours of the costumes and the inventiveness of its choreography, with its brilliant batterie and elegant lightness standing as a testament to the academic beauty and rigour of the French tradition. The ballet unfolds before a garden gazebo in a dreamy atmosphere, like the prelude to an unforgettable evening. Yet it is precisely this surface of ease that conceals the ballet’s extreme difficulty, with its intricate timings, exacting lifts for the men, and strikingly complex coordination among the partnering couples.

The leading roles were danced by Ekaterina Bréau and Sacha Alié, two virtuosic first division students. Opening night placed considerable demands on them, yet they responded with such brilliance that their slight uncertainties only made them more endearing to the audience. As much of the ballet’s weight falls on its central pair, originally embodied by legends such as Olga Spessivtseva and Gustave Ricaux, one inevitably wonders whether such demands should rest on a single young couple in the context of a school performance. Nevertheless, the overall effect was mesmerising, sustained by the freshness and sincerity of the young interpreters, who all sparkled, with double pirouettes and balances executed with beautifully suspended poise. Particularly touching was their visibly close rapport with conductor Fayçal Karoui, leading the Orchestre des Lauréats du Conservatoire. Among the ensemble, Carina Elena Giorgiu and Safiya Bilek, appearing as the Danseuses en violine, shone brightly and proved especially promising.

Students of the Paris Opera Ballet School in “Soir de fête” by Léo Staats. Photograph by Svetlana Loboff | OnP

We then entered the poetic world of “Le Petit Prince,” a new creation by Clairemarie Osta, who in recent years has been developing her own choreographic voice, notably through her work on the 2024 Opéra-Comique production of Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” and Ravel’s “L’Heure espagnole.” With an original score by Simon Bång, the ballet is brought to life through the maison’s refined theatrical savoir-faire, as Saint-Exupéry’s original drawings are materialised in masterful costumes and shifting scenography. The presence of the much-loved former Paris Opéra étoile Mathieu Ganio as the Aviator reinforces the production’s nostalgic undertow, while Marcel Sardà Masriera is a wonderful Little Prince, with impeccable technique and a captivating light in his eyes.

Osta proves herself a gifted and sensitive choreographer, giving shape to all the story’s essential figures: the Fox, the King, the Businessman, the Geographer, and the Lamplighter, magnetically embodied by Viktoriia Pirogova. The ensemble passages are equally successful: the choreography for the stars, danced by two girls and two boys, has a dynamic, airy lightness, while the birds, as well as the rose garden, with twelve boys and six girls in exquisite petal-like costumes, are equally well cast and given attractive material. After a lovely pas de deux between the Prince and the Rose, danced by Cassandre Faugas, in which we are reminded that love is inseparable from care and from the time devoted to another, the ballet leaves us with Ganio’s Aviator falling to the ground and disappearing into the desert.

Students of the Paris Opera Ballet School in “Yondering” by John Neumeier. Photograph by Svetlana Loboff | OnP

After his extraordinary career in Europe, one almost forgets that John Neumeier was an American born in Milwaukee. In “Yondering,” he turns to his own roots through the songs of Stephen Foster, sung by baritone Thomas Hampson, to create a sequence of vivid dances in which the sense of westward wandering suggested by the title is transposed into a more metaphorical journey: the passage from childhood into adolescence. The ballet was originally created in 1996 for the students of the Hamburg Ballet School, which Neumeier founded in 1978, before entering the Paris Opéra Ballet repertoire in 2002. Conceived for students and consistently kept by Neumeier from professional companies, on the grounds that only young dancers can truly embody its “idealistic topic and the naïve, idealistic, folk-talk atmosphere,” the choreography is undeniably beautiful. It unfolds as a cycle of youthful sketches, moving from the playful flirtation of “Molly! Do You Love Me?” and “Ah! May the Red Rose Live Always” to the bittersweet nostalgia of “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.” It all works remarkably well: from the girls’ loose hair, later gathered into ponytails, to the folk-inflected steps suggestive of communal festivity, the pantomime, hats, braces and shouted interjections all contribute to the ballet’s rustic joy and sense of first discovery, while also showcasing the Opéra students’ remarkable preparation, versatility and expressive talent. Several dancers who already stood out last year have since become genuine audience favourites, among them Prune Kaufmann, Ilyane Bel-Lahsen, João Pedro Dos Santos Silva, and Marc-Anthony Betta Ndabo. Yet a word must be said about this programming choice: whatever the ballet’s metaphorical meaning as a rite of passage shaped by loss and transformation, the world it evokes draws on a colonial imaginary that today feels strikingly uncritical.

Revisiting the past is, to some extent, part of the school show tradition. Nevertheless, unlike in 2024, when the celebratory beauty of Lifar’s “Suite en blanc” gave space to many soloists rather than resting on a central couple, or in 2025, with Béjart’s “Seven Greek Dances” and its stylised and affectionate backward glance, the 2026 programme feels more restrained by comparison, despite its undeniable beauty and the majesty of its dancing. There is so much art, skill and effort in this evening that one is left wondering why such conservatism was necessary for an institution that surely does not need to keep reasserting its roots. It feels as though one is taken on a long journey, only to land back at the point of departure. What also unites all three works is their deceptive ease: all seem carefree, light and almost simple, yet they all demand immense labour and discipline, an aspect these exceptional dancers concealed from our admiring eyes.

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti is a Paris-based philosopher researching ancient thought, divination, and practices of salvation at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. With over a decade of ballet training, she studied History of Dance as part of her Philosophy and Aesthetics degree at the University of Bologna. Alongside her academic work, she writes about dance.

comments

Featured

REVIEWS | Victoria Looseleaf

Into the Spirit World

Men: You can’t live with ‘em, and you can’t let ‘em die! Seriously, “Giselle,” the über-Romantic dance that premiered in Paris in 1841 and was the peak of the pre-Tchaikovsky ballets (before, for example, “Swan Lake”), was first presented by Los Angeles Ballet in its fifth season.

REVIEWS | Karen Greenspan

Stepping Out of the Ring

What gives a dance staying power? What makes any work of art continue to be relevant over time? These are questions I pondered while revisiting Andrea Miller’s “Blush,” performed by her company, Gallim, at 92NY’s Harkness Mainstage Series this spring.