★★★★✰ There's no reason to feel short-changed by the Royal Ballet's Covid-compliant Nutcracker. The magic of Tchaikovsky's music and the beauty of the dancing still enchant spectators of all ages.
Tag - Anna Rose O’Sullivan
★★★★★ Thank you, Royal Ballet, for giving so much pleasure in trying times.
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.
Lynette Halewood with some reflections on London dance performances over the last year - the good and the less good...
★★★★✰ 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 by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★★ 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.
Featuring works by Merce Cunningham, Frederick Ashton and Pam Tanowitz. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★★★ With Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov... Theirs was a performance that caught up everyone in the sheer pleasure and excitement of spectacular dancing.
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★★✰ Wright's ending is the best ever, preserving the assurance of the Grand pas de deux that the future must surely be blissful.
★★★✰✰ 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.
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...
★★★✰✰ 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.
Hightlight - Yasmine Nagdhi promoted to Principal dancer. Full press release with all Promotions, Joiners and Leavers
★★★★✰ 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.
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
Four Royal Ballet dancers promoted to Principal from the start of the 2016/17 Season - Alexander Campbell, Francesca Hayward, Ryoichi Hirano and Akane Takada