When Wayne McGregor first asked Alessandra Ferri to come out of retirement and anchor his ambitious ballet Woolf Works in 2015, it was an easy yes—and not only because the endearingly polite British choreographer asked her nicely, over tea. Now, nine years later, the Italian dancer—one of the very few awarded the title of prima ballerina assoluta—has agreed to dance the role McGregor created for her once more.
I’m making this work with really powerful women”—including lighting director Lucy Carter and dramaturg Uzma Hameed—“who have a lot to say, and collaboratively that’s really exciting to me.” When dance-lovers settle into their seats at the Metropolitan Opera House this week, there’s a good chance they won’t have seen anything like Woolf Works before. McGregor likens its three acts—which take cues from the fluid way that Woolf wrote—to renderings of her work.