Gillian Whittingham

Born in London, Gillian Whittingham was appointed ballet mistress for the Compagnia Italiana di Balletto directed by Carla Fracci, and choreographed and staged numerous productions. As artistic director, she founded the Olympic Dance Company together with Mario Mattia Giorgetti, which performed in the most important Italian theatres as well as in New York and London. For ten years was Principal Ballet Mistress at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where she also remounted works by numerous choreographers. Under the Direction of Carla Fracci at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma she staged Raymonda, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella and Les Sylphides and choreographed various productions.

Furthermore, she has staged the corps de ballet of Roland Petit’s repertory at the Paris Opera, Lyon Opera, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Opéra de Nice, Opera national du Capitole de Toulouse, Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Novosibirsk Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, Moscow State Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre, Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Astana Ballet, Bavarian State Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Tokyo Ballet, K-Ballet Company Tokyo and National Ballet of China. She works frequently with Francesco Ventriglia both at the Royal New Zealand Ballet, setting Midsummer Nightʼs Dream (Liam Scarlett) and Giselle (Ethan Stiefel & Johan Kobborg), as well as with the Alberta Ballet Company, Canada. With the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, under the direction of Eleonora Abbagnato, she has set the corps de ballet of Rudolph Nureyevʼs Cinderella, Paquita together with Abbagnato, Carla Fracci’s Giselle together with Julio Bocca, Benjamin Pech’s Swan Lake and she was assistant choreographer to Laurent Hilaire for Don Quixote.