Royal Ballet – Back on Stage – London
The entire Royal Ballet were back on stage and performing for a live audience last Friday in a gala style show which was/is also streamed. Jann Parry was mightily impressed with the dancing and repertoire (★★★★★) if not so much with the live audience experience in a Covid aware Opera House (★★★✰✰)
Feature – Ashton Rediscovered Masterclass: Voices of Spring, coached by Merle Park and Wayne Eagling
For anyone with an interest in the machinations of bringing a difficult pas de deux to performance standard, this was an experience to cherish.
Some Memorable Performances of 2019 – London
Lynette Halewood with some reflections on London dance performances over the last year – the good and the less good…
Royal Ballet – Concerto, Enigma Variations, Raymonda Act III – London
★★★★✰ It is all too easy to assume that the first triple bill of the Royal Ballet’s autumn season celebrates its creative heritage from the 1960s. In fact, two of the ballets were made for other companies…
Gallery – Royal Ballet in Concerto / Enigma Variations / Raymonda Act III
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
Royal Ballet – Merce Cunningham celebration: Cross Currents, Monotones II, Everyone Keeps Me – London
★★★★★ Quite some achievement by Pam Tanowitz, to have followed treasured works by Cunningham and Ashton with one that pays homage to both, yet stands on its own as her distinctive tapestry of dance.
Gallery – Royal Ballet Merce Cunningham celebration – works by Cunningham, Ashton and Pam Tanowitz
Featuring works by Merce Cunningham, Frederick Ashton and Pam Tanowitz. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
Royal Ballet – Margot Fonteyn, A Celebration – London
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet did themselves a lot of good with the last new bill of the season – a one-off celebration of Margot Fonteyn. There was much to be reminded of and be proud of.
Royal Ballet – Don Quixote – London
★★★★★ With Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov… Theirs was a performance that caught up everyone in the sheer pleasure and excitement of spectacular dancing.
Royal Ballet – Les Patineurs, Winter Dreams, The Concert – London
★★★★✰ Now that we are all one more Nutcracker nearer death, as weary critic Richard Buckle used to bemoan, the Royal Ballet has given us a wintry bonne bouche of ballets to savour.
Royal Ballet – The Nutcracker – London
★★★★✰ Wright’s ending is the best ever, preserving the assurance of the Grand pas de deux that the future must surely be blissful.
City Center Balanchine Festival – Miami City Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet
★★★✰✰ It’s fascinating to see how Balanchinean charm and wit are interpreted by dancers for whom the Balanchine repertoire is more of a foreign language.
Feature – Frederick Ashton’s choreography for Le Rossignol – a masterclass with Sir Anthony Dowell
The Metropolitan Opera in New York staged “Le Rossignol” in December 1981 as part of a programme commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Stravinsky’s birth… the producer was John Dexter. He told Ashton, back in London, that he could choreograph two dancers as the Nightingale and the Fisherman on stage, while the roles would be sung by opera singers in the orchestra pit…
Royal Ballet – The Illustrated ‘Farewell’, The Wind, Untouchable – London
★★★✰✰ Kevin O’Hare is commissioning choreographers who want to make use of what the Opera House can offer; he’s not setting out to declare where ballet ought to be heading and he’s not playing safe.
News – Royal Ballet Promotions, Joiners and Leavers, 2017/18 Season
Hightlight – Yasmine Nagdhi promoted to Principal dancer. Full press release with all Promotions, Joiners and Leavers
Royal Ballet – Jewels: Emeralds, Rubies, Diamonds – London
★★★★✰ The first Emeralds ballerina, Beatriz Stix-Brunell, could be a water nymph, touching the hands of her suitor, Valeri Hristov, in the opening pas de deux before drifting out of reach.
Royal Ballet: Promotions and joiners for the 2016/17 season
Four Royal Ballet dancers promoted to Principal from the start of the 2016/17 Season – Alexander Campbell, Francesca Hayward, Ryoichi Hirano and Akane Takada
Gallery – Carlos Acosta in Diana and Actaeon & Majisimo, part of his A Classical Selection bill
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
Gallery – Royal Ballet – Draft Works 2015
Draft Works 2015 features pieces by Joshua Beamish, Valentino Zucchetti, Sander Blommaert, Erico Montes & Marcelino Sambe. Gallery by Dave Morgan…
