Paris (AFP)

Dancers are often anxious about the end of their career at a relatively young age. Not Eleonora Abbagnato, a dancer with a double cap since she is a star of the Paris Opera, soon to leave, and director for four years of the Ballet de Rome.

If the strike allows, the first Italian to reach the title of star in the venerable French institution will bow out on December 23.

"My farewells will be less harsh than other dancers who have left without having a baggage ready for the future," said the dancer, who, at 41, leaves a year earlier than the official retirement age for the dancers of the Opera.

If the Ballet de Rome, less known than that of La Scala, gained visibility under his mandate with the invitation of great choreographers and a collaboration with Dior, Eleonora Abbagnato had to face a crisis in August after a letter from a dancers' union reported a "disrespectful and inappropriate" attitude and "abusive epithets" by the director.

This incident "has passed", assures Abbagnato who is with her husband, ex-footballer Federico Balzaretti and her four children a star in the Italian media.

- "One of the only foreigners" -

"I + reconstructed + 70 dancers. When I arrived there were very few," said Abbagnato. I am very proud of what I have done because it is not easy. "

She praises the "very open" spirit of the ex-director of dance of the Paris Opera Benjamin Millepied who allowed her this double career, because "I wanted to save dance in Italy", where two companies in Florence and Verona had closed.

"I'm a very outgoing person, I say what I think," she says.

A strong character that served him. If her journey looks like a fairy tale, her entry into the Opera dance school at 14 was not easy for a little Sicilian from Palermo.

"At the time, I was one of the only foreigners. I suffered a lot from that. Mothers said that it was not fair that I was the darling of Claude Bessy", legendary director of the school, she recalls.

The star, who is going to shoot a film about his childhood, evokes a family more interested in football than in dance, with his football grandfather and his father, president of a team in Palermo.

She owes everything to her mother, who kept her in the afternoons in the dance school located below her clothing store. "In the evening, I didn't want to leave".

Abbagnato landed in France at 10, without a word of French, after being spotted by Roland Petit, one of the greatest French choreographers and his future mentor.

"He was very hard. He told my mother that I was not flexible enough. It was at the time of Sylvie" Guillem, a great French dancer famous for her extreme flexibility. "I started to force like a patient," says Abbagnato.

- "We must not let go" -

Another physical requirement, very widespread in the world of ballet: "Roland wanted us to be skinny; he always told me that I was fat". "Today, we can't say anything. If we say (that), I don't know if it will pass," says the ballerina, convinced that in dance, you have to accept remarks "to push us to the maximum".

Another equally inspiring and demanding figure: Pina Bausch.

At the Opera, where Abbagnato had just been hired at the age of 18, "Pina revolutionized this hierarchy a bit ... she auditioned with the biggest stars but she chose us (corps de ballet)".

"She never congratulated us ... it was to try to raise the level".

She had to wait 12 years before being promoted from "first dancer" to a star.

"I had everything very quickly and at one point it stopped. It is a choice of direction that happens to all artists," said Abbagnato.

"I say to the first dancers + you must not give up ... Being a star is everyone's dream, but it is not for everyone".

© 2019 AFP