A new Swan Lake at the Royal Ballet is a once-in-a-generation event.
Everyone knows that Elizabeth I was a monarch of deep intelligence and sharp wit. Fewer know how good she was at the galliard. This was a virile, proud, demandingly athletic dance, usually performed by the men at courtly gatherings, and the fact that the Queen of England so enthusiastically flouted convention in this way says a lot about her.
One day someone will come up with an algorithm for the perfectly balanced triple bill. Until then ballet directors will have to make do with hit or miss. The Royal Ballet’s latest three-part offering would appear to tick the boxes: something old, something new-ish, and something just for fun. Yet while the evening can’t be faulted on the quality of performance, the effect is less than the sum of its parts.
"Massenet feels it as a Frenchman, with powder and minuets," declared Puccini in annoucing his own operatic setting of the Abbé Prévost's 1731 novel Manon Lescaut.
The Royal Ballet last night presented an evening of Bernstein-scored ballets, two of them premieres by Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon and the other a revival of Liam Scarlett's 2014 Age of Anxiety.
The run of Giselle that opened at the Royal Opera House last night was completely sold out before it even started, and no wonder. Pair Sir Peter Wright's eerie production with some very fine casts and the reliable classiness of the Royal Ballet's corps de ballet and you have an enchanting package indeed.
With forelock-tugging celebrations of a choreographer who died 25 years ago and a summer visit by the Mariinsky the highest-profile events in the calendar, 2017 may not be remembered as a vintage year for British dance.
For some people, the festive season starts with The Nutcracker. And as it happens, this year the opening night of Sir Peter Wright’s production for the Royal Ballet was also the performance beamed live to hundreds of cinemas around the UK and many more around the world. There’s confidence for you. A global relay on the first night without so much as an edit button.
On paper, the appeal of a Sylvia revival is questionable. If even the choreographer (Frederick Ashton) wasn't sure his 1952 original was worth saving for posterity, do we really want to watch a 2004 reconstruction posthumously pieced together from rehearsal tapes? Especially given that, with its arcadian setting, it totters delicately on the dividing line between delightfully arch and camp as the Queen Mother's curtains?
Of all the stories Arthur Pita could have chosen to wrangle for his new narrative ballet, he chose one about wind, perhaps the trickiest element of all to represent on a live stage. Tricky because of course you can’t see wind, you can only see its effects. Tricky, too, because – in extremis, as this is – it does mad things to hair-dos, costumes, and the ability of the cast to keep a grip on props and even dance the steps.