A year into his artistic directorship, Francesco Ventriglia talks about his goals for Royal New Zealand Ballet and his first program for the company

 “My life is where I can have a theatre, where I can have dancers, where I can have a space to express my creativity. I don’t care if it’s Milan or Florence or Wellington or New York.”

Not everyone would mention Wellington, New Zealand, in the same breath as New York and Milan, but Francesco Ventriglia is more than happy to. And why not? We’re sitting in one of the New Zealand capital’s fine restaurants, drinking excellent local wine and talking, amongst other things, about the impending Royal New Zealand Ballet’s world premiere of Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (It opened in late August.) Life is good.

Then there are all the things he wants to do as the company’s newest artistic director, a position he took up late last year after former American Ballet Theatre star Ethan Stiefel decided to return to the US after three years at the helm. Even when seated Ventriglia throws out megawatts of energy, face alight with enthusiasm and wreathed in smiles. He talks a million to the dozen in charmingly accented English which he says is improving but is already excellent – not entirely idiomatic, to be sure, but pouring out fluently and vividly. (“I feel more comfortable now, even with the Kiwi accent, which is a little bit different,” he says.)

Essentially it comes down to this. When he arrived in New Zealand he was warmly welcomed. People liked his outgoing nature and his vibrant optimism. “They like me and I really like them. I try to put things on the table in a very honest way, no strategy. I am what I am, I’m here. We can work and make the future. Everyone gives me the space to do that. So I feel free.”

Lucy Green, an Australian dancer with the company, says Ventriglia is very passionate. “You really get that enthusiasm and energy every time he’s in the studio. He loves to push us very, very hard, and that’s exactly what we need. He’s always telling us: ‘more, more; more body, more emotion, more heart’, which is really lovely. ‘More turnout, more quality.’ He loves quality. I love the way he describes things – ‘be royal, be expensive’. From day one he was fully here and fully committed. ‘I’m here for everyone and I’m here for the long haul.’ That’s really nice.”

Ventriglia inherited the 2015 season from Stiefel, including the gift of the full-length Scarlett that proved to be a very big hit and which will feature on RNZB’s 2016 Asian tour (it is a co-production with Queensland Ballet, which will perform it in Brisbane early next year). The 2016 season, his first full program, was announced this week.

He spent his first year getting know the dancers, bringing in a series of guest ballet masters and mistresses before deciding who he wants to hire permanently, and getting acquainted with other companies and dance directors in the region (The Australian Ballet’s David McAllister, Queensland Ballet’s Li Cunxin, Sydney Dance Company’s Rafael Bonachela). “Very nice and open” is how he describes his early encounters and he is keen for connections, collaborations and exchanges in this part of the world as well as in Europe.

“New Zealand arrived at a moment of my life and career where I was really ready to jump into a new thing, a new energy, even in the dark a little bit,” he says. Ventriglia was working at the Bolshoi last year, staging his Boléro and Carmina Burana, when he got the message that RNZB was trying to get in touch with him. They called and said he was their choice to succeed Stiefel. He’d got the job.

Naturally he’d thought seriously about his application. The life of an artistic director is very different from that of a freelance choreographer who also occasionally likes to design sets and costumes. There’s time in that life for personal study, deep immersion in scores, lots of travel. But RNZB beckoned and he said yes. In Moscow, “at that moment I thought, that’s not my choice; it’s what life chooses for me”.

Ventriglia, who is in his mid-30s, made his dance career at La Scala. It was a good one. When he was just 19 Natalia Makarova came to stage her version of La Bayadère and chose him for the virtuoso Golden Idol solo; when he was even younger and newer to the company, William Forsythe hand-picked him to be in In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated. He danced Hilarion to Sylvie Guillem’s Giselle and appeared in ballets by Neumeier, Bejart, Preljocaj, Kylian, Mats Ek, Nureyev, “always in the lead role”. He retired at the early age of 31, becoming artistic directorship of Florence’s MaggioDanza. The company closed abruptly in 2013, a victim of funding cuts.

RNZB is in a happier situation as the country’s much-admired national ballet company. Ventriglia understands the importance. “What is great from my point of view is that the company can spread ballet culture through the country, from tiny, tiny cities to Auckland. This is a great, great responsibility.” There is also an imperative to tour internationally, “because it’s quite important to spread the New Zealand brand”. This year’s tour, from October 27 to early December, takes the production of Giselle created for the company by Stiefel and Johan Kobborg in 2012 to the UK and (naturally) Italy, along with a mixed bill. “We do one tour a year, and we hope two in the future.”

Ventriglia is also keen for the company, which has 37 dancers (they are unranked), to be seen at festivals. “We could send just a group – 10 to 15 dancers – and the other group can dance here,” he says. “We can be present in the same moment in an international place and national place. That’s what I want to do. It’s great – a national company. National! It’s a big responsibility. It’s for all New Zealand, not just your city.”

The first festival in Ventriglia’s schedule is the 2016 New Zealand Festival, and it will be the first time in a dozen years that RNZB has appeared at the event. The program, called Speed of Light, is an exuberant one: In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated; Alexander Ekman’s Cacti and Andonis Foniadakis’s Selon désir, which is also being seen on this year’s northern hemisphere tour.

The year continues with a world premiere, Ventriglia’s family-friendly The Wizard of Oz, which was to have been seen in Florence but “between the dress rehearsal and the opening night the theatre was closed. So after five years the ballet will be reborn in New Zealand.” Giselle will again be seen on home soil, and the Asian tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will follow. Ventriglia also talks obliquely about a further project, something very big, but will give no details at this stage.

The RNZB dancers are an international lot – New Zealanders, of course; a handful of Australians; a group of Americans, part of the Stiefel era (they were all still there a year later despite Stiefel’s departure); and now some Italians. There are dancers from the UK, Japan and China. “Artists don’t have any passports. They don’t have any nationality. They are good artists or bad artists,” Ventriglia says robustly. “Dancers want to dance the right choreographers – Forsythe, Ekman, Naharin. If you have the quality you attract the dancers. If you have the best choreographers in the world the best dancers want to come.”

 Royal New Zealand Ballet’s 2016 program

Speed of Light: Forsythe, Ekman, Foniadakis

The Wizard of Oz, Ventriglia

Giselle, Stiefel/Kobborg

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Scarlett