Between coming of age and pushing the edge, the winsome artist and étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet is at the peak of his stride. As he prepares to debut in Nureyev’s Nutcracker at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala – alongside the company’s Principal dancer Alice Mariani — Glass recounts the joys, feels and thrills of the French trailblazer.
AT A time when society’s downturns are increasingly commonplace, dashes of feel-good optimism tend to be few and far between. For centuries, though, the arts have consistently and ingeniously trod the line between tradition and sophistication, innovation and intellectualism, with surprising and thought-provoking results that push our inner consciousness to far-fetched realms, becoming a no-brainer when seeking a soothing respite amid the world’s frantic chaos.
For Hugo Marchand, the art of dancing felt like a tool he could use to mould his freedom. “As a kid, I remember being in the studio, realising that my body was going to be a tool to express feelings,” recalls Marchand, laughing and talking with a gently poised demeanour like we’re in the back row at school. “While growing up, you become acquainted with the fact you have a body and you feel differently about it. That was the first thing that struck me strongly: that I had a body I could use, and within myself, I was triggered that this was going to be a tool of freedom.”
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
Hailing from Nantes – a small town nestled in Western France – and now based in Paris, Marchand glimmers with an electric energy. Approximately a few minutes in, I’m already besotted with my interviewee. “I began dancing when I was nine years old, and previously I took circus and gymnastics classes,” he offers, as we begin to settle into our conversation. After four years at the Conservatoire de Nantes, Marchand joined the Paris Opera Ballet at 13, living in a boarding school which he deemed “challenging.”
“I feel very grateful, because the Paris Opera school is free as it’s a government-owned institution, and I would have never been able to join if it wasn’t publicly-funded,” he freely admits. “I did four years there, and I was lucky enough to be hired in the company when I was 17.” Marchand confesses the hierarchy and complexity present within the company’s ranks, detailing how one has to go through all of these to become a Principal dancer.
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
“You have an exam every year, a contest you have to pass which is quite complex because the Paris Opera has 154 dancers, not one more,” he says. “If you want to achieve the rank above you, you need to wait for a place or that someone retires in order to be promoted.”
Following a performance by La Sylphide, in which he took on the role of James on the stage of the Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo (Japan) on March 3rd 2017, he was named danseur étoile. “I wasn’t scheduled to attend the trip, but I did because one of the dancers got injured two weeks before going,” he opines. “La Sylphide is a very romantic ballet, and after the first performance, I got nominated.”
As a dancer with a wealth of artistic feats under his belt, I couldn’t help but wonder how the past year was. “Very challenging and packed!” he grins, with cheer. His season began in September when he danced William Forsythe’s at the Paris Opera. Moreover, Marchand has starred in a ballet titled The Blake Works (choreographed over James Blake’s music) and Mayerling: a historical ballet by Kenneth McMillan that is daunting because the main character, Prince Rudolph, goes through a sad plot.
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
“He was a crazy man who got a disease, and he had to take morphine to deal with the pain,” he explains. “Moreover, the character has very complicated yet violent relationships with women: he ends by committing suicide with the last lover Mayerling, who is a city in Vienna, in Austria. This is a very famous story across Central Europe, but not very known in France and Italy. It’s a really incredible ballet that I loved dancing.” Marchand has recently rehearsed alongside Mats Ek, a modern choreographer that he’ll be working with in April 2025.
Marchand is an artist of great poise and sheer gratitude: a feeling I sensed when he touched on the importance of mentorship. “I would say that Manuel Legris has been really the strongest example for the Paris Opera and myself,” he admits, “because we’ve been seeing him dance for so many years. All the Nureyev versions are mostly danced by Legris, and it’s great to be in Milan because I’d never worked with him.”
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
Marchand admires dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Nicolas Le Riche, to whom he’s very drawn from a technical and emotive perspective. “[Le Riche] was always very human in the way he embodied characters on stage,” he opines. “Never too much, but always with strong inspiration and taking risks.”
Risks, then, with a wealth of determination for the taking were the elements that helped him navigate through the ranks amid a pool of talented artists. “I just followed my path and tried my best time after time, but I wouldn’t consider my career extraordinary,” he says, nodding his head without signs of peacocking braggadocio on display.
“When I was in the ranks in the company, I felt the urge to go out of them because it was a race about who would make it first,” Marchand reflects. “Once you’re a Principal, your role lasts for 15 years; so if there’s an available spot you need to take it and be ready for it. At first it was hard because I’m very tall, and my body is a bit different compared to the standards people see at the Paris Opera. I’m quite muscular, and I would be too visible in the corps de ballet. I was worried about that, but I actually discovered that it was a strength because I could dance with many different artists.”
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
On career challenges, he speaks with unguarded honesty. “Injuries spark many doubts within you, and when you have so much pressure and feel the stress sometimes you wonder whether you’re going to make it, if you’re talented enough, if you have what’s required to be an interesting artist so you can have big moments of doubt. It happens very regularly.”
It’s not all doom and gloom though; artistically speaking, Marchand’s talent is tinged with a positive air, with his impassioned identity providing weight and the slightly-potent confidence pulling all his qualities into sync.
Moving on to lighter territory, Marchand will debut in Milan’s Teatro alla Scala premiere of Nureyev’s Nutcracker, alongside the company’s Principal dancer Alice Mariani on December 18th. “The Nutcracker is a big deal for me because it’s the first role I danced as a soloist at the Paris Opera,” recalls Marchand. Back then, he was a coryphée (leading dancer in a corps de ballet) and he jumped into the role to dance with first soloist Melanie Hurel. “I remember that being a very stressful experience, and that before the last pas de deux I wanted to die,” he offers, chuckling between sips of water.
“After dancing my first show I felt so much anxiety that I kept thinking that I made a mistake, that I’m not made to be a dancer and all that,” he says, pausing momentarily. “After the second performance, though, I remember that during the pas de deux the music felt so beautiful to my ears that something let go and I began to take pleasure in the chasses, where I found a sense of freedom.”
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
It’s exactly the reason why Marchand has a strong affection for this version of The Nutcracker. “It’s not about sugar-sweet vibes or little princesses: the ballet is much more complex than that, and the performances are much deeper and more meaningful. What I love about this version is that there’s a very psychoanalytic way of seeing things, because Clara is changing through the whole ballet; she’s a young girl discovering all her femininity and sexuality, while becoming a woman.”
Rudolf Nureyev always twisted the plot somewhere, and that’s a point of this Nutcracker Marchand feels it’s interesting because it shows how complicated the relationships in families can be. “It’s interesting to see that Drosselmeyer was a prince who is not just a charming person, but someone who will take Clara on a trip to help her discover herself. I love this version even though it’s very challenging technically, and musically with tricky patterns, but I’m really happy to dance with Alice as it’s the first time we dance together.”
The duo met in January, the last time Marchand paid a visit to Milan to take a class and see the company. “After two days, Legris asked if I wanted to come and dance in a show next season,” he says. “That’s how the Nutcracker came about, and I’ve been waiting for this moment for a few months now.”
Marchand feels “lots of pressure and very honoured as well to be invited to La Scala, because of how prestigious the institution is.”
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
An institution that never lacks in ambition, which will see him partnering with the brilliant Alice Mariani, Principal Dancer at Milan’s Scala who completed a mesmerising performance of Balanchine/Robbins’ triptych a few weeks back. “I was five years of age when I started dancing, and as a very bubbly kind I was always running around to free-up my energy,” Mariani reminisces. “I started ballet and I’ve loved it since day one, so it felt like an awakening to me: there were mornings when I woke up, waiting for that hour to come.”
Mariani’s ballet teacher advised her parents to take her to La Scala’s academy, a place where she didn’t know what to expect. “I didn’t even know what being a professional ballet dancer meant, and the beginning was quite hard because coming from a private ballet school and getting into the academy is no mean feat: the discipline, the rules like you had to be always silent and bow when the teacher was making her way in were quite shocking,” she says.
However, her then-mentor Tatiana Nikonova saw something in her. “I joined the school at 13 to then graduate in 2011, and then moved to Dresden for 10 years; but then, I felt the desire to come back home and to join La Scala.”
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
The first time Mariani saw The Nutcracker, she was shocked. “When they told me I had to do it, even more!” She exclaimed, “because I think it’s one of the most challenging ballet there is in the classical repertoire. For myself, I find that there are many ballets that are very hard, technically. But in a way, in this one you have to be very clean because there are some steps like the assemblè – which isn’t very hard – where if you don’t cross your legs enough it looks terrible.”
The first time Mariani met Marchand in January, she had a winsome feeling about the artist. “I actually said it to people when he came, and I didn’t even know he was rehearsing for The Nutcracker and he probably didn’t even know,” she says. “I think we’re missing a dancer like him at La Scala, so I think it is an amazing opportunity for Milan, for our theatre, for us dancers to work with someone like him. And also, he’s such a hard worker too, fully committed to his role.”
Turns out that Marchand’s least favourite roles fall into place when there’s a lack of honesty. “What is very hard for me to interpret is when the story is not true, if I don’t believe in the story myself, or if I don’t find my character real enough,” he admits.
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
“There are some roles in which I feel dumb in,” he says. On the flip side, though, he’s fond of the impassioned characters within Manon, La Dame aux Camélias, Onegin or Mayerling. “All these roles are very strong and allow you to share many different emotions,” he opines, “while showing all the skills of how theatrical we can be, because we’re like actors.”
Today, Marchand is aware of how the passing of years has changed his creative persona. “Well, I’ve been seeing myself changing a lot and it’s very reassuring, because changes are reassuring to me. It shows that we are moving on and we’re always improving,” he says. “Because if you don’t change and you find yourself doing the same things always the same way, what’s the point? You just repeat yourself all over again.”
Photograph: Alessandro Lo Faro
On days off in Paris, Marchand enjoys a glass of wine with friends, connecting with nature, meditating and filling his life with other things than ballet. “Otherwise, we’re always staying the same!” He says, “so we need to have other experiences in life: love, pain, joy, disappointment, freedom—things that need to be explored, so that we can live them through the characters we bring on stage.”
What will he do at 42, when étoiles are contractually obliged to retire? “Drag!” he wildly cackles, past our allotted interview time. “I’m joking, but I’d love to try once,” he concludes. “On a serious note, I’d love to still be on stage as an actor or as someone telling stories. I feel like storytelling is what I love the most about my job right now.” Retirement isn’t imminent though. Until then? “I hope to keep expressing freedom and love through my art.” And just like Marchand, I very much hope the same.
by Chidozie Obasi
Photographer: Alessandro Lo Faro (@alessandrolofaro.archive)
Stylist: Chidozie Obasi (@chido.obasi)
Hair: Gaetano Pane (@__mr.bread__) via (@julianwatsonagency)
Make up: Sofia Foiera (@sofiafoiera) via (@blendmanagement)
Set Designer: Irene Coveri (@pennyennyemmy)
Head of Production: Jessica Lovato (@jessicalovato_)
Fashion Coordinator: Davide BeloO (@coccobeloooo)
Photography assistant: Pietro Dipace (@_jamas_)
Styling sssistants: Isabella Petrocchi (@isabellapetrocchi) + Lilly Padilla (@lillympadilla)
+ Veronica Vaghi (@vaghiveronica) + Clara Bacetti @clabacetti + Linda Ripa (@lindaripaa)
Clothing Credits:
Look 1: GIORGIO ARMANI
Look 2: PRADA
Look 3: Top PHILOSOPHY DI LORENZO SERAFINI | Shorts GIVENCHY | Earrings ALICE’s OWN
Look 4: Blazer BOSS | Trousers PAUL SMITH
Look 5: Jacket GIVENCHY | Trousers JIL SANDER
Look 6: Hugo Top PAUL SMITH | Trousers GUCCI | Alice Dress TOD’S | Skirt DOLCE & GABBANA
Look 7: Top, skirt MARNI
Look 8: Coat ACT N.1 | Tank DOLCE & GABBANA | Trousers HERMES
Look 9: Jumper HERMES | Shirt MOSCHINO | Pins LOUIS VUITTON
Look 10: DIOR MEN