fri 29/03/2024

Kenneth MacMillan

The Royal Ballet, 2012-13 Season

World premieres, new faces, lower ticket prices (and the first recycled opera production). The Royal Opera House announced a bullish attitude today as it enters the austerity post-Olympics period for next season with six ballet  premieres and...

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Romeo and Juliet, Royal Ballet

Better late than never. It took till Act 3 for a new Juliet to fledge her wings and shed the nervous caution, but Melissa Hamilton, debuting yesterday afternoon in probably the Royal Ballet’s most coveted ballerina role, suddenly did what we all...

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Romeo and Juliet, Royal Ballet

How far would you go, if you were utterly in love? Till death you do part? Kenneth MacMillan’s 1965 ballet Romeo and Juliet remains a magnet for audiences and for performers all playing that ritual game with their own feelings. Marianela Nuñez and...

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Manon, Royal Ballet

Manon is the planet around which a series of moons orbit, locked in place by her gravitational pull. There is Des Grieux, who gives up his seminary studies for nights of pleasure; there is her brother Lescaut, who translates her into cash; and there...

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Limen/Marguerite & Armand/Requiem, Royal Ballet

The cool physical activity of McGregor’s Limen, the crimson passions of Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand, the symbolic sculpture of MacMillan’s Requiem - the weekend's new triple bill at Covent Garden shows three faces of British ballet-making over...

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What Was it Like...? Ballerina Tamara Rojo on Dancing to 12,000 People

Last weekend ballerina Tamara Rojo performed to the largest live audience ever to watch the Royal Ballet, at London's O2 Arena. But what was it like facing 12,000 people, and trying with her partner, the Cuban star Carlos Acosta, to tell the...

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Romeo and Juliet, Royal Ballet, O2 Arena

Taking ballet to the masses: the Royal Ballet's corps de ballet on the roof of the O2

The Royal Ballet says it is inviting a new audience to experience the thrill of live ballet by taking Romeo and Juliet to the gigantic O2. Beware what you wish for. It’s the thrill of the live audience I’m starting with before I get onto the...

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Manon, Royal Ballet

If an excess of enthusiasm troubles you, look away now. Because this is less a review, more a love letter. Alina Cojocaru has been astonishing audiences for more than a dozen years. Regular ballet-goers attend her performances expecting to be...

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Ballet's Bad Girl Has a New Sound

Kenneth MacMillan’s dramatic ballet Manon was premiered in 1974 to a chorus of attacks on its tale of a “nasty little diamond-digger”, as one critic had it. Since then the slut who can’t help herself has risen to become one of the most coveted roles...

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Ballet biography wins top theatre book prize

The Society for Theatre Research’s book of the year award has been won by ballet critic Jann Parry for Different Drummer, her biography of the Royal Ballet choreographer Kenneth MacMillan. The book was chosen this morning in a tight finish at the...

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Manon: Shock that turned to respect

One of the first, scathing reviews of Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Manon in 1974 nailed it exactly: "It is an appalling waste of lovely Antoinette Sibley who, as Manon, is reduced to a nasty little diamond-digger." In that sentence all the prevailing...

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