BALLET DE L’OPERA NATIONAL DE BORDEAUX
ÉRIC QUILLERÉ, Director of Dance
Born in France during the reign of Louis XIV, ballet began to flourish in Bordeaux as early as the 18th century and has since grown into a prestigious and creative tradition. Since the 1990s, the Ballet of the Opéra National de Bordeaux has opened its classical heritage to modern influences, working with many renowned choreographers. Today, the company is made up of around 40 dancers. Over the years, it has received several awards, including the Herald Angels Award (Edinburgh International Festival), Best Foreign Ballet in Cuba, and the prestigious Lifar Prize (2001 and November 2014).
Alongside the classical repertoire (The Nutcracker, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake…), the Company also performs works from the legacy of the Ballets Russes (such as Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun, Fokine’s Petrouchka) and ballets by neoclassical and contemporary choreographers like Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, and Carolyn Carlson.
Each season, the Ballet performs on the stage of Bordeaux’s Grand-Théâtre and regularly tours in France and abroad. In 2024, the Company is touring China.
Since the appointment of Eric Quilleré as Director in 2017, the repertoire has grown to include Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée, Roland Petit’s Notre-Dame de Paris, David Bintley’s Cinderella, and Don Quixote by José Martinez. Company has also performed The Concert and In the Night by Jerome Robbins, Snow White, La Stravaganza and Ghost by Angelin Preljocaj, Faun by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Paz de La Jolla by Justin Peck, Obsidian Tear by Wayne McGregor, Cacti by Alexander Ekman, Celestial by Garrett Smith, and pieces by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot. Notable recent additions include Bottom of my Sea by L. Komkova (winner of the 2018 Young Choreographers competition), Mythologies by Angelin Preljocaj (July 2022), and Skywatcher by Houston Thomas (April 2023, winner of the 2022 competition), Recently, the Company presented the French premiere of Within the Golden Hour by Christopher Wheeldon (2024). The Ballet de l’Opéra National de Bordeaux also performed Maud Le Pladec’s choreography at the Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
