Still flush from her role in Onegin, La Scala prima ballerina Nicoletta Manni received the surprise of her career last fall: The 32-year-old dancer was named La Scala’s first Etoile, or star principal dancer, chosen from the storied ballet company in nearly 40 years. Now, months later, she capped her first whirlwind season as La Scala Etoile this week in the femme fatale role of Manon, receiving the loudest applause during a nearly 9-minute curtain call for her melding of technical precision and abandon. “She is a stupendous ballerina.
At the top of her career. Since Onegin, every time she dances, she gets better,’’ said Manuel Legris, director of ballet company and former Paris Ballet Etoile chosen by the great Soviet dancer . “It was the same for me,'' Legris recalled.
"Once you get the title, not just doors open, but also the vision and the trust. It can make you afraid. But it can also push you to fly.
” Manni arrived at La Scala’s academy at age 13 from her small town in Italy's southern Puglia region, where she started dancing in her mother’s ballet school a decade earlier. After completing the academy, she spent four years at the Berlin Staatsballet before returning to in 2013. A year later, she became prima ballerina, or principal dancer.
The fact that she was chosen as the first Etoile from La Scala’s company is meaningful to Manni, and sets her apart from La Scala’s other Etoile principal dancer, , who has held the title as a guest dancer for two .