FEDORA - Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Work Featured at the Paris National Opera’s Ballet Season Opening Gala

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa 2025 b&w © Opéra national de Paris i

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Work Featured at the Paris National Opera’s Ballet Season Opening Gala

Details

23 September 2025

Paris / France

Industry News, Winners

The Opéra national de Paris opens its new dance season with its traditional gala at the Palais Garnier on 27 September, beginning with the celebrated Défilé du Ballet.

This year, the evening features the repertoire debut of Requiem for a Rose by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. Performed by the Junior Ballet to music by Franz Schubert, Requiem for a Rose uses the metaphor of red roses to explore themes of love and romanticism through Ochoa’s distinctive choreographic language.

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa is also the choreographer of Gentleman Jack, the winning project of the FEDORA – VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Dance Prize Winner 2025, supported by Van Cleef & Arpels, in collaboration with Opera Europa, as part of the FEDORA Prizes Biennale competition that is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

We are proud to follow Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s continued success, with her presence at the Paris Opera Ballet marking another milestone for one of today’s most innovative choreographers whose work resonates with audiences worldwide.

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

Annabelle is a prolific, award-winning choreographer that has created more than 100 ballets for 79 dance companies around the world. Annabelle’s choreography career started in 2003. That same year she is hailed as the “rising star of the Dutch dance scene” (NRC newspaper) and only 7 years later the Temecula Performing Arts Examiner wrote; ”Ochoa is truly a masterful choreographer with an edge for what dance can and should be in this constantly changing industry”.

Learn more

Gentleman Jack - Winner of the FEDORA - VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Dance Prize 2025

A major new ballet based on the life of Anne Lister (1791-1840), the inspiration for the hugely popular and critically acclaimed BBC series, Gentleman Jack. Often referred to as ‘the first modern lesbian’, Lister was a fiercely independent diarist, landowner and business owner, who lived and loved in Yorkshire – where Northern Ballet creates, performs and tells stories to resonate with audiences today.

Learn more