ABT's Young Man in a HURRY.

American Ballet Theatre's Italian-born soloist has scored a series of triumphs in his first season.

American Ballet Theatre dancers are slowly gathering for their 11:00 A.M. company class in a studio beneath the huge stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. They take their places on the floor or drape themselves over a barre, where they stretch their bodies as if looking for the ignition switch to turn them on. Instead of the gossamer tutus or sleek tights and tunics of the evening before, when they appeared in the gala performance that opened ABT's past New York City season, they now wear all manner of dancer's poverty-chic, and their faces look slightly wan without makeup. Few members of last night's audience would recognize, say, young Paloma Herrera, who looks surprisingly vulnerable, or Julie Kent, now a puffy vision in huge warm-up slippers, baggy sweats, and a shapeless shirt.

However, on the edge of the group is a young man who looks drop-dead gorgeous, even in this unglamorous setting. Giuseppe Picone, an up-and-coming twenty-two-year-old soloist, stands tall and trim at the barre. His dark-haired Italian good looks include large eyes and nearly perfect features, enhanced by a slightly sharp nose. With his well-muscled chest and shoulders, he has the demeanor of a prize athlete. Picone has had his eye on stardom since childhood and, like a long-distance runner, he is working hard at gaining the prize.

In 1995 when Picone was a soloist with English National Ballet in London, Susan Jaffe, a frequent guest with ENB, was urging him to leave for America. "Susan used to say to me, `Why don't you come to ABT?'" he recalls. "That proposal made me very happy. I knew that if I went to ABT I had to go by myself--I mean, take my luggage, take the flight, and go. I was scared, and I wanted to improve my dancing a little bit more." He waited two years before he decided he was ready. Told that there were no available contracts but that he was welcome to take company class anyway, Picone showed up at ABT's Manhattan studios in October 1997.

Artistic director Kevin McKenzie and assistant artistic director David Richardson were there to watch. McKenzie recalls that he saw in Picone "a tall, elegant, confident, and musical dancer." Picone was offered a contract the next day. After fulfilling a prior engagement to perform opening night of The Nutcracker for the Rome Opera, Picone returned to ABT on December 15 to begin his new life as a soloist with the company.

Within a week he had been cast as the Prince in Cinderella opposite Julie Kent for his U.S. debut at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Georgina Parkinson, one of ABT's ballet mistresses, vividly remembers coaching him for the role: "He's just so full of promise that it's ridiculous. He's got this beautiful body. He's got every sort of piece of equipment you'd need. He's sort of like a young stallion, really, that still has to be trained somewhat. He's young enough. If he's smart enough, he'll deal with it. He has so many natural gifts, there's no earthly reason he shouldn't make it, as long as he learns on the way." The reviews of Cinderella were equally glowing, as Picone learned at 9:00 A.M. after his debut when a friend phoned. "Giuseppe, you are a little star," the caller said. "Go get the New York Times."

Despite the drama of this first performance in the U.S., Picone is hardly an overnight sensation. Born in Naples, he began studying ballet at the school of the San Carlo Opera when he was ten years old. "I used to enjoy going to discos with my two brothers and sister," he recalls. "One brother is ten years older; my sister is eight years older; another brother is three and a half years older. I used to enjoy dancing a lot, like Michael Jackson." Picone's oldest brother, Raffaele, a percussionist whose teacher played in the orchestra of the San Carlo theater, convinced the family to allow his kid brother to audition for the ballet school. Picone says, "The only thing I remember, which amazed me, is that they took my leg at the barre and started stretching and stretching," says Picone, "and my leg went nearly next to my ear. I went, `Oh, my God!'"

Even as a child studying under the direction of Yugoslav ballet master Zarko Prebil, he attracted attention. Wayne Eagling, when he choreographed Nijinsky for the Ballet of Naples in 1989, cast the twelve-year-old Giuseppe as the child Nijinsky. The stellar cast included Vladimir Vasiliev (Nijinsky), Ekaterina Maximova (Romola Nijinsky), and Carla Fracci (Tamara Karsavina). When Picone danced opposite Fracci again eight years later in the ballet sequence of a 1997 production of Verdi's Macbeth, in Verona's outdoor arena, she told him, `The baby is grown." Picone says, "Now I was lifting her."

After four years at the San Carlo ballet school, Picone enrolled at the Academy of Rome, where the curriculum included modern dance and choreography. When he was fifteen years old, he won first prize at both the Rieti and Positano ballet competitions. Pierre Lacotte, who attended the competition while vacationing in Positano, offered him a contract with his Ballet de Nancy as a soloist in 1992. "My first role onstage as a principal was Petrouchka," Picone recalls. "That was my first big role ever. I told friends that this was not the role for a sixteen-year-old boy. It was too early. I did Giselle, Paquita, then L'Ombre [Lacotte's revival of the 1839 ballet danced by Marie Taglioni]."

In September 1993, Picone moved to London to join English National Ballet at the invitation of director Derek Deane, who had met him in Naples while assisting Eagling on Nijinsky. Deane took Picone into ENB as a coryphee, then promoted him to soloist in 1994. Picone's repertory at ENB included Balanchine's Square Dance, the Lead Cadet in David Lichine's Graduation Ball, Romeo in Rudolf Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet, the Turning Boy in Harald Lander's Etudes, the Prince in The Nutcracker, Gold and Silver in The Sleeping Beauty, Albrecht and Hilarion in Giselle, and the pas de trois from Swan Lake. Picone worked extensively, because ENB did more than two hundred performances a year. "I'll never forget my first year in the company," he says. "Eight weeks of The Sleeping Beauty, five weeks of The Nutcracker, three weeks of Giselle, then going on tour and a season in London at the Coliseum. Some days I danced a solo role at the matinee and a principal role in the evening."

A great influence on him at ENB was the late Woytek Lowski, a ballet master who had trained at the Kirov, then danced with Maurice Bejart's company and Boston Ballet before turning to teaching. "He absolutely changed my way of dancing," says Picone. "He said to me once, `You are a dirty diamond. I have to take the dirt away, and the diamond will come out.' That was great."

Jann Parry, a Dance Magazine London correspondent, recalls Picone well. "I wrote in a review that his performance in Coppelia was in the grand manner," she says. "ENB sold souvenir T-shirts with his photo on the front. Board chairwoman Lady Pamela Harlech, after receiving one for Christmas, announced that she was wearing him close to her heart. So everyone was aware of how dishy he was."

Picone also impressed the late Princess Diana, an ENB patron. "I will never forget Romeo and Juliet," says Picone. "I was about nineteen. She watched the performance and then asked me to go to dinner with her. I was the only one invited from the company. I didn't know what to say. She was so wonderful. I saw her many times. She was always giving me compliments. Sometimes I wondered if I said, `You are so beautiful,' what she would say. But I didn't have the nerve. In February 1997, the first time I did Who Cares?, she watched loads of rehearsals. She was one of the most charismatic women I've ever seen."

After four seasons at ENB, Picone decided to leave. "English National Ballet is a wonderful company, but it doesn't have the standards of ABT, the Royal Ballet, or the Pads Opera Ballet," he says. "This is my point. I wanted to join a bigger company. That's why I left Nancy. Nancy is a wonderful company, but I wanted a bigger one. And I think that there is nothing wrong with that if you want to work."

To say that Picone's first season with ABT was a success is to understate the impact he made on audiences and critics. He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House gala in Jiri Kylian's Sinfonietta, had a small role in Ben Stevenson's Snow Maiden, and danced in Etudes, but he hit pay dirt as Conrad, the leading role in the company premiere of Le Corsaire.

Anna-Marie Holmes, artistic director of Boston Ballet, set Le Corsaire on ABT She had never seen or heard of Picone until she met him in New York. "I came in first and saw some of class," she says. "I had a whole stack of Conrads, a different one for opening night--not that they weren't all interesting and good--but I just thought he was perfect. He had the jump, he had the mm, he had the charismatic, swashbuckling way about him, and he had the height. I thought that he would be tremendous with Nina [Ananiashvili], a good partner for her. He has a wonderful big jump, a very flexible split. When he really kicks that first leg, he flies. He has this charismatic, sensual way of dancing. He's got a Hollywood-idol face. It's very exciting to see."

For Conrad, Holmes wanted an over-effusive, emotional style. "At first [Picone] didn't want to work that big," she says. "He was used to working in England, where the stages are smaller. We're lucky over here. We have the Met, the Wang Center--large stages, so you really have to jump." For his part, Picone admits to being nervous facing the Lincoln Center audiences. "This is the Met. Everybody has been there, people who are known," he says. "Sometimes being nervous makes a better performance. It means that you really care about the performance." Dance Magazine critic Amanda Smith found his Conrad "charmingly raffish" and hailed his Ali the Slave in a subsequent Corsaire for being "outrageous, over the top [with] grands jetes wider than 180 degrees" [October 1998, page 92]. McKenzie sees Picone as being "on the road to fulfilling his potential." When asked if he was pleased with Picone's first season, McKenzie answered, "Of course!"

Picone sees room for improvement. "I think everything should be worked on more--from the toes to the hair, from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. A dancer is not only pirouette, not only extension. A dancer is everything better. I am learning from the men in the company. They are generous. The company has a good atmosphere. I want to learn everything. Absolutely, for me, this is the best move I have ever made."

Iris Fanger, a contributing editor of Dance Magazine since 1972, is a theater and dance critic for the Boston Herald and a contributor to the Christian Science Monitor; she directed the Harvard Summer Dance Center from 1977 to 1995. This year she was on the Dance Magazine Awards '99 selection committee.