Cristina Saso
Talent Scout European School of Ballet Amsterdam
Born in Rome, she began her dance studies at the Balletto di Roma. At the age of 14, she was awarded by Carla Fracci in a competition on the Island of Capri and won a scholarship to the Princee Grace Academy in Monte-Carlo directed by Marika Besobrasova where she remained for a year. She then continued her studies in Monaco, Germany, with Konstanze Vernon at the Ballet School Heinz Bosl Stiftung.
Read more: Cristina Saso
Her professional career began in 1993 at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome under the direction of Vladimir Vassiliev. The following year, she joined the Ballet Company of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples where she remained for ten years, performing principal and solo roles under the direction of Roberto Fascilla, Elisabetta Terabust and Luciano Cannito. In 2004, she danced for a season in the United States, with the Tulsa Ballet. In September 2005, she returned to Rome, to the Ballet Company of the Teatro dell’Opera, where she still works today. Many roles and ballets interpreted also as soloist and prima ballerina in the corps de ballet capitolino under the direction of Carla Fracci, Micha Van Hoecke and Eleonora Abbagnato.
Her repertoire includes the major classical ballets of the repertoire which she has performed in various choreographic versions: Giselle (Carla Fracci, Ricardo Nunez, Patricia Ruanne, Patrice Bart), The Nutcracker (Jean-Yves Lormeau, Amedeo Amodio, S. Muchamedow, Luciano Cannito, Derek Deane), Romeo and Juliet (Kenneth MacMillan, John Cranko, Patrice Bart), Swan Lake (Ricardo Nunez, Galina Samsova, Christopher Wheeldon, Benjamin Pech, Patrice Bart) and Raymonda (Loris Gay, Rudolf Nureyev). She has also performed numerous twentieth-century masterpieces by George Balanchine (Serenade, Walpurgisnacht, Who Cares, La Valse, La Chatte, Le Bal), Roland Petit (Pink Floyd Ballet, Duke Ellington Ballet, L’Arlesienne, Carmen, Coppelia), Alvin Ailey (The River), Frederick Ashton (Rhapsody, Thais), Martha Graham (Diversion of Angels), Hans van Manen (Grosse Fugue), José Limon (The Moor’s Pavane), Massine (Pulcinella) and choreographies by contemporary authors including Youri Vamos (Carmina Burana), Paul Chalmer (La Gitana, La Vestale), Renato Zanella (Alles Waltzer, Peer Gynt), Luciano Cannito (From Goethe’s Faust), Maurizio Wainrot (A Streetcar named Desire). Since 2019 he has been ballet master and assistant in the major ballet productions of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. In recent years he has also worked internationally, holding masterclasses in Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan. Since 2019 he has also been a talent scout and guest teacher at the European School of Ballet in Amsterdam directed by Jean Yves Esquerre.
