This ballet should have premiered in the spring of 2020. Then the pandemic happened and threw a huge spanner in the works. The recurring process of the rise and fall of an entire society is a highly topical issue at present.

GLORIA is created under extraordinary circumstances: conceptually at a distance and choreographically as a collective. It’s a further opportunity for ballet director Richard Wherlock to work with Andrea Marcon’s La Cetra Baroque Orchestra and the La Cetra Vocal Ensemble. Sorrow any joy flow through the bodies of the dancers. They tirelessly and relentlessly rebuild their ruined world... Pergolesi’s ‘Stabat Mater’ and Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria’ provide the musical backdrop.

Conceiving a piece about the continuous ‘rise and fall of human civilization’ before the burst of the Covid-19 pandemic, it obviously received a special inspiration and nourishment while creating it under strict regulations in almost impossible conditions. Nevertheless, it grew into a powerful, poetic and sensitive journey to be part of and watch the dancers build and destroy the world on stage.