Daily TribuneFor Ballet Manila's historic full-length staging, the artistic director adds new characters, deeper relationships and a clearer narrative to make the 19th-century ballet resonate with today's audiences.
JUPIT REYES
When Paquita premiered at the Paris Opera in 1846, audiences were introduced to a romantic ballet filled with mistaken identities, aristocratic secrets and forbidden love. Created by French ballet master Joseph Mazilier with music by Édouard Deldevez, the work follows a young Romani woman who discovers she is of noble birth after saving the life of a French officer in Napoleonic Spain.
Nearly two centuries on, the ballet remains a fixture of the classical repertoire, thanks in large part to Russian ballet legend Marius Petipa, whose 1881 revival produced the famous Grand Pas Classique that continues to be performed by ballet companies around the world.
This month, Ballet Manila will present the Philippines’ first full-length staging of Paquita, with performances scheduled at the Aliw Theater in Pasay City on 19 June at 8:00 p.m., followed by 5:00 p.m. performances on 20 and 21 June. The production will feature two alternating pairs in the lead roles: principal dancers Mark Sumaylo and Abigail Oliveiro, and soloists Shamira Drapete and Jos David Andes.
But for Ballet Manila founder and artistic director Lisa Macuja Elizalde, staging a classic does not mean preserving every tradition attached to it.
At a press conference last week, Macuja explained that while her production remains faithful to the ballet’s story and classical foundations, she deliberately reworked parts of the narrative to make it more engaging and accessible for contemporary audiences — particularly those who may be watching ballet for the first time.
One of the biggest changes involves the way the story itself is told.
For much of its history, Paquita has relied heavily on pantomime and mime sequences, a hallmark of 19th-century ballet in which characters communicate through gestures rather than dance. While that approach was familiar to audiences of the Romantic era, Macuja felt modern viewers needed stronger dramatic connections to the characters onstage.
The artistic director therefore created a new prologue that reveals how Paquita was kidnapped as a child and separated from her aristocratic family — a crucial piece of information often left unexplained until later in the ballet.
The decision was inspired by advice she received years ago from her Russian mentors.
“I was told a long time ago by my mentors that if you put on a ballet wherein the audience needs to read the synopsis and the program notes to understand what's going on onstage, then you're not an effective choreographer,” Macuja said.
“People shouldn't need to read the program notes to understand what's happening.”
“I wanted to put the prologue because I don't want the audience to have to read the program notes to find out why all of this is happening.”
Perhaps the most noticeable departure from tradition involves several characters who, in most productions, barely dance at all.
In classical stagings, figures such as the governor, the general and the villainous Inigo function largely as mime roles, helping move the plot forward through gesture and theatrical expression. Macuja instead transformed them into fully dancing characters.
“Normally they're mime characters. They don't actually dance,” she said.
“But in my version, they dance a lot.”
She even expanded the roles of Lucien’s parents, giving them choreography and dramatic motivations of their own.
“I gave them a lot more steps to work with so each role becomes a little meatier and they're able to tell the story.”
The changes allow audiences to learn more about characters who traditionally remain in the background.
While Paquita centers on the romance between Paquita and Lucien, Macuja wanted the audience to discover other relationships unfolding throughout the production.
“I have a lot of mini-stories and mini-relationships in all the mime scenes,” she said.
“There's a side story with Doña Serafina, the general and the governor. There's a side story between Lucien and his mother. The mother wants Lucien to marry for love, while the father is trying to arrange a marriage between Lucien and Doña Serafina even though they don't love each other.”
“There's a lot of mini-stories for the audience to sink their teeth into.”
By expanding the supporting roles, Macuja turns Paquita into a broader tapestry of interconnected relationships, allowing audiences to follow not only the central romance but also the struggles and motivations of the characters around it.
The additional layers were among the aspects Macuja enjoyed most while developing the production.
“What I like about Paquita is that I could play around with it more,” she said.
“I created all these mini-stories. I didn't just concentrate on Lucien and Paquita. There are all these other things going on.”
Set during Napoleon’s occupation of Spain, Paquita explores themes of class, identity and social status that shaped European society during the early 19th century.
At the heart of the story is a romance considered impossible because of social class — at least until Paquita’s true origins are revealed.
“It brings you back to a time when a noble man marrying a peasant woman was unheard of,” Macuja said.
“Now it's perfectly fine. So it takes you to another time and makes you forget reality for a little while.”
For Macuja, story ballets continue to matter because they communicate universal emotions without relying on dialogue.
“We love story ballets,” she said.
“The great classics — Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote, The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère — all of these classics have stories.”
“It's important that we keep the story ballet alive because we're telling a story without having to say a single word.”
As Ballet Manila prepares to mount the Philippines’ first full-length production of Paquita, Macuja hopes audiences will see beyond the technical feats and lavish costumes often associated with classical ballet.
For her, the real strength of the production lies in its storytelling — a centuries-old tale made more vivid through expanded characters, clearer narrative choices and new dramatic layers.
“Dancers have been called performing athletes,” she said.
“We perform with our bodies to tell the story, portray a character, set the mood and move the audience with us.”
Nearly 180 years after its Paris premiere, Paquita remains a story about love, identity and belonging. In Macuja’s hands, it is also a reminder that classical ballet can evolve while remaining true to its roots.
