★★★★✰ It doesn’t get much steamier than Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man, the third of his productions to be presented and screened on Sky Arts during lockdown.
Tag - Rodion Shchedrin
★★★★✰ Far from being just one more interpretation of the ubiquitous Carmen, this Cuban version is a unique retelling of the popular narrative, superbly performed.
★★★✰✰ When Maya Plisetskaya commissioned a Carmen-based ballet from Alberto Alonso, co-founder of the National Ballet of Cuba, she wanted to shake up Soviet ballet conventions...
★★★★✰ Who knew the Mariinsky dancers are a group of profoundly entertaining comedians?
★★★✰✰ Every gala needs a revelation, and this one was provided by Sergio Bernal, a Spanish dancer who dominated the stage in an imperious farruca solo from Antonio’s flamenco version of The Three Cornered Hat...
★★★✰✰ By way of a défilé, the evening opened with the “Waltz of the Hours” from Balanchine and Danilova’s Coppélia ...Soloist Jennifer Stahl led two dozen girls from the SFB School, adorable in cotton-candy tutus.
More from the Cannes Dance Festival and director Brigitte Lefèvre definitely kept the best for the last night with Johan Inger’s full-length production of Carmen performed by the National Ballet of Spain...
It is almost eight years to the day since The Car Man was last revived at Sadler’s Wells (having premiered in 2000) and it seems even better than I recall...
...the Ukrainian-born soloist Anastasia Matvienko was a pliant, loose-limbed Cinderella who danced with uninhibited ease and looked perfectly at home in Ratmansky’s goofy interpretation of the character.
Ballet Ireland have danced several times in London but never at Sadler's Wells and never with the Irish ambassador as a warm-up, I fancy.