For his doctoral dissertation (A Prototype of a Critical Edition for Dance: Le Réveil de Flore by Marius Petipa), completed within the PhD program in History, Criticism, and Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the University of Padua (2020–2023), Marco Argentina produced the critical choreographic edition of Le Réveil de Flore, a one-act ballet by Marius Petipa with music by Riccardo Drigo, first performed at the Imperial Theatre of the Grand Palace of Peterhof, near Saint Petersburg, in 1894 on the occasion of the wedding of Grand Duchess Xenia, daughter of Tsar Alexander III Romanov.
The architecture of the edition was conceived, created, and refined with the primary aim of “translating” Petipa’s original choreography, placing it in direct relation with Drigo’s equally original music. For this reason, Argentina’s edition is structured in two facing pages designed to “dialogue” with one another: on the left-hand page, the musical text (the piano reduction of Le Réveil de Flore published by Zimmermann in 1914) and the choreographic score (the manuscript preserved in the Sergeev Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Thr 245, 45) are aligned section by section so that the correspondence between body movement and musical chord is immediately clear; on the facing page, the choreography is rendered into verbal language.
The critical edition of Le Réveil de Flore, edited by Marco Argentina, is currently in the process of publication.
On November 27, 2023, at the Teatro del DamsLab in Bologna (University of Bologna), and on March 10, 2025, at the Teatro dei Rinnovati in Siena (University of Siena), Marco Argentina presented the philological reconstruction choices of Le Réveil de Flore and showcased selected excerpts performed by two distinguished dancers of the Teatro alla Scala company, Stefania Ballone and Francesco Mascia.
27 November 2023, 4:30 p.m. - DAMSLab/Theatre (Bologna)
