Royal Ballet
Manon, Royal BalletSaturday, 27 September 2014
In a moment of wild fantasy, I thought I might try and write a whole review of Manon without mentioning sex. After all, there’s plenty of other stuff going on in Kenneth MacMillan’s tale, which last night at the Royal Opera House celebrated 40 years... Read more... |
The Dream/Connectome/The Concert, Royal BalletSaturday, 07 June 2014
The Dream has at its heart a great partnership. Not just the original, magical pairing of Anthony Dowell and Antoinette Sibley, for whom Frederick Ashton created the ballet fifty years ago (thereby launching one of the top couples in ballet history... Read more... |
Serenade/Sweet Violets/DGV, Royal BalletThursday, 15 May 2014
Some artists acquire (or create) cults of personality because – Byron, Wagner or Van Gogh – they are just so obviously fruity. Some others, though less fruity, are venerated because their work is so tear-prickingly astonishing that we are desperate... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Lighting Designer Michael HullsMonday, 14 April 2014
Last night the Olivier Awards handed their top honour for dance not to a dancer but to the man who shines the lights on the dancers. Michael Hulls, winner of the Outstanding Achievement in Dance award, paints the dancing of Sylvie Guillem, Akram... Read more... |
The Winter's Tale, Royal BalletFriday, 11 April 2014
Another week, another major British ballet company takes on a key cultural patrimony in a brand-new work. It might seem odd that the Royal Ballet’s new Winter’s Tale generates more critical reservations than English National Ballet’s take on... Read more... |
BBC Ballet SeasonMonday, 10 March 2014
There’s been reasonable diversity in the ballet shown on the BBC in recent years – from full-length broadcasts of Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty and The Red Shoes to the compelling 2011 fly-on-the-wall The Agony and the Ecstasy. That’s why it was... Read more... |
TV Preview: BBC Ballet SeasonSaturday, 01 March 2014
Do four programmes constitute a season? Let's not quibble too much; though brief, the ballet season airing on BBC2 and BBC4 this week has some appealing offerings. Judging from the strong focus on famous names (Fonteyn, Bussell) and the best... Read more... |
The Sleeping Beauty, Royal BalletSunday, 23 February 2014
Clement Crisp, veteran ballet critic, once expressed his appreciation for Ashton’s Scènes de Ballet by saying that “if one had to throw ballets off the back of a sleigh, this would be the last to go.” Charming though the train of thought was that... Read more... |
Rhapsody/Tetractys/Gloria, The Royal BalletFriday, 07 February 2014
Is it odd that, in a bill containing an achingly contemporary première and a classic meditation on the First World War, a pastel-painted present for the Queen Mother’s birthday should race away with the honours?Not if it was by Frederick Ashton, the... Read more... |
Hansel and Gretel, Royal BalletSaturday, 25 January 2014
"Be careful what you wish for," fairy tales teach us. After I wished in December for more bite in Scottish Ballet’s saccharine Hansel and Gretel, along comes this revival of Liam Scarlett’s 2013 version of the same story for the Royal Ballet.... Read more... |
Giselle, Royal BalletSunday, 19 January 2014
Ah, Giselle. Despite being cobbled together from a huge stack of 19th-century literary and dramatic tropes – fans of La Sylphide, Robert le Diable, Lucia di Lammermoor, Walter Scott and German Romanticism will feel right at home – and having a score... Read more... |
Jewels, Royal BalletWednesday, 18 December 2013
It has been said that Mozart, so prodigiously talented so young, seemed to be merely a vessel through which God, or the music of the spheres, or whichever higher being one chooses, channelled the sounds of heaven. So, too, sometimes, does Balanchine... Read more... |
