Philadelphia Ballet: new season, new home, new Angel Corella documentary

Philadelphia Ballet, under direction of Angel Corella, announced its 2025-2026 season on 4th March 2025.

The new season includes Carmen⁠, the Evening of Horror double bill featuring Fall River Legend and Valley of Death⁠, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®⁠, The Merry Widow⁠ and Romeo and Juliet⁠ by resident choreographer Juliano Nunes.

The dark themed Valley of Death is also created by Nunes, a very strong choreographer. It will world-premiere in October.

Milestone for new home

Philadelphia Ballet saw the final beam for The Center for Dance being raised on 12th March 2025, the Pennsylvania, the U.S. - based ballet company said in its Instagram post.

The Center for Dance is currently under construction. The five story 58,000-square- foot building is expected to be completed in February 2026, according to WHYY. The new building is being built next to the 15,000-square-foot building the Philadelphia Ballet occupies.

The planning was not easy due to slow funding process since the groundbreaking in May 2024, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.

The construction cost is $37.5 million, surprisingly unchanged since the ground breaking. "Fundraising has reaped $3.3 million in those 10 months, with $29.6 million now promised and in hand — almost 80% of the total needed," the newspaper said.

The Center for Dance will feature rehearsal studios, performance venues, administrative offices, community spaces, and state-of-the-art facilities for dance training, education, programming, and events once the construction is finished.

Angel Corella documentary

WHYY-TV will premiere a brand-new documentary about Artistic Director Angel Corella, “Angel Corella: Raising the Barre at Philadelphia Ballet”. It will air on Thursday, 20th March, 1t 7:30 pm local time.

Source: WHYY Instagram

Corella is celebrating his ten year anniversary with the Philadelphia Ballet this season. As many of you have already known, Corella was a phenomenal dancer and was Principal of the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) for many years. I personally loved his Ali in Le Corsaire and Basilio in Don Quixote. Phenomenal.

In the documentary trailer below, Corella talks about how he became the artistic director of the Philadelphia Ballet, then called Pennsylvania Ballet.

After retiring from the ABT, he went back to his home country Spain in 2007 and built the Barcelona Ballet in 2008. But five years later, Spain told him the government did not want a ballet company and he had to shut it down.

What a loss for Spain. But it is the Philadelphia Ballet's gain! I cannot watch the documentary from the Netherlands. Those who can watch it, please let me know how it is!