When he arrives in Saint Petersburg, at the age of 29, Marius Petipa is just an obscure dancer who fled western Europe to escape his debts. He is far from imagining that his engagement in the troupe of the Russian Imperial Ballet, then rather mediocre, will reveal him, forty years later, as one of the greatest choreographers in the history of dance. It is within the Bolshoi Kamenny theaters, then Mariinsky, in a still provincial capital where three productions a year are enough to satisfy an undemanding audience, that this native of Marseille will invent a new art of ballet, over the course of sixty of creations, between 1862 (La fille du pharaon) and 1895 (Le lac des cygnes).

The rivalry between the manipulative boss of an advertising agency and her talented protégée escalates from stealing credit to public humiliation to murder.

Ballerina Polina Semionova performs the mythic parts of Odette and Odile (white swan and black swan) with her great partner Stanislav Jermakov. The Zurich Opera House Orchestra is conducted by Russian musical director Vladimir Fedoseyev acclaimed in this repertoire.

Caravaggio, born Michelangelo Merisi, has entered history due to his paintings of dramatic intensity. Caravaggio used to venture the threshold beyond the pale throughout his life. He was seen for admiration of his work and harsh opposition towards his extraordinary realism in painting human beings. Due to his passionate personality, he encountered more than several confl icts with people around him, sponsors, and the law. One of his foremost artistic twists was the extreme contrast between brightness and darkness, light and shadow. Mauro Bigonzetti is one of the leading choreographers of the Italian ballet which freed itself from the predominance of mainly classical opera companies in the 80's. He created his choreographies mainly for the Aterballetto in Reggio Emilia that helped him to fame and worldwide attention. In collaboration with the Staatsballett Berlin.