Oregon Ballet Theatre Announces New Season; Unveils new Carmen, Petrouchka and Wheeldon Ballet

On Monday, before announcing its 2011-2012 season last night to a crowd of dance lovers at its Southeast Portland studio, Oregon Ballet Theatre heightened the dramatic tension by asking its Facebook fans to guess what might be in store. Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote and Coppelia were top picks (honorable mention goes to the as-yet unballetified Harry and the Hendersons), but no.

Instead, the new season, dubbed “Affairs of the Heart” will open this fall with a world-premiere double bill featuring fiery factory girls and sad clowns: OBT artistic director Christopher Stowell turns in a new Carmen alongside Nicolo Fonte’s new Petrouchka.

Depending on your tastes, the season’s biggest excitement might be that particular pairing, or it might be the staging of uber-classical Romantic-era ballet Giselle, set by Spanish choreographer Lola de Avila in the Coralli/Perrot style. Or it might be the return of Dance United on June 9, 2012, again starring dancers from different national—perhaps even international—companies.

Meanwhile, Holiday Revue, which debuted this December (read my review for WW, here), will return with new variations, danced in tandem with The Nutcracker. That leaves a spring program featuring a thus-far unannounced work, a rerun of Val Caniparoli’s Lambarena and company premieres of Balanchine’s Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Liturgy by Christopher Wheeldon, whom Stowell rightly called one of the hottest dancemakers working today. If you were holding out for Harry and the Hendersons, well, there’s always 2013.