“I’ve danced in pavilions, in churches, in squares. I have been a pioneer of delocalization. I did not want my job to be only for the elites, locked behind the golden doors of opera theatres. And even when I was performing on the world’s most important stages I would always come back to Italy to perform in the most remote and unusual of places. Nureyev used to tell me off: ‘why in the world would you do that, you’re driving yourself too hard, one day you’re flying in from New York and the next you must go to, say, Budrio…’ But that was how I liked things to be, and the audience always rewarded me”.

These were the words of Carla Fracci “prima ballerina assoluta”, an absolute queen of world stages who bid her final farewell on 27 May in her hometown Milan.

The secret to her success were work, dedication, and passion. She started dancing when she was 10 and at 22 she was already prima ballerina at Teatro alla Scala. From Via Ugo Tommei, between the Porta Romana and Porta Venezia districts where she grew up in a working-class casa di ringhiera  with no bathroom she made it to the greatest cities around the world. Carla Fracci dedicated her life to ballet, endlessly travelling and always accompanied by the applause of her adoring public.

After her death, the Mayor of Milan Beppe Sala announced he intended to dedicate a tram to Carla Fracci. And on Monday 7 June an all-white tram with the writing “Milano per Carla Fracci” started circulating on the no.1 route, the same line the ballerina’s father used to work on. “The public can always tell when an artist is authentic, sincere and fully dedicated. Only under these conditions can artistic interpretation become magic” Fracci said in an old interview. And Carla Fracci certainly did bestow plenty of magic on her public.