London Coliseum
james.woodall
It's a short run, in London, but a sweet one. At the Coliseum, English National Ballet's revival of a 1971 Giselle is a showcase for a company on exceptionally calibrated form, offering audiences a taste of its myriad talent over six more shows after Wednesday's opening [the cast changes each time - Ismene Brown reviews a second cast below]. On the evidence of the latter, I'd gladly go to all of them: soloists can either shine or die on their feet in this most intricate of Romantic ballets, and if time were not the defeating beast it usually is, it'd be hugely instructive to see over five Read more ...
David Nice
If your heart feels frozen while the ice glitters outside, warm it by reading Hans Christian Andersen's sharp, witty and enchanting fairy-tale The Snow Queen, or listen to the best bits of Prokofiev's erratic but often characteristic late ballet The Stone Flower. You could also drag yourself out into the cold to face Michael Corder's full-length choreography based on the Andersen story, selectively fitted to chunks of the Prokofiev score and interspersing them with other lyric highlights of the composer's Soviet period, but that would have to be a third-best option.Something ought to have Read more ...