★★★★✰ Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov's account of Swan Lake is spellbinding... if Scarlett's revision of the 1895 scenario makes even less sense than the original.
Tag - Elizabeth McGorian
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet's current production of The Sleeping Beauty, dating back to 2006, is a homage to Ninette de Valois and her faith that Marius Petipa's Imperial Russian ballet should be the flagship of her British company.
★★★★✰ Sarah Lamb and Vadim Muntagirov, as Des Grieux, are not new to the roles and their understanding of the characters and the choreography has deepened with experience.
★★★✰✰ Somehow, still at the start of the run, the production seems sanitised, nicely 'English' in spite of Nicholas Georgiadis's imposing Italian Renaissance sets and costumes. Different casts yet to come might bring fresh discoveries...
★★★★✰ Wright's ending is the best ever, preserving the assurance of the Grand pas de deux that the future must surely be blissful.
★★★★★ Liam Scarlett has devised a visual and emotional treat for audiences, fully justifying Kevin O'Hare's faith in him as a director and choreographer.
★★★★✰ It's a myth that Kenneth MacMillan's Manon was ever regarded as a failure. Critics may initially have had reservations but audiences have enjoyed it from its first season in 1974 throughout its many revivals...
★★★★★ Peter Wright's 1985 production for the Royal Ballet has had many interpreters, all subtly or extravagantly different. Nunez is amongst the finest, a perfectionist who seems realistically earthy as a country girl who loves dancing and ethereal as her defiant spirit.
★★★✰✰ 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.
★★★★✰ Symphonic Dances is Scarlett’s farewell portrait of Yanowsky. Like her, the ballet is big and bold, beautiful and elusive.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★✰✰ Liam Scarlett treats Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic horror novel, Frankenstein, as essentially a domestic drama.
★★★✰✰ Wheeldon’s talents are on display, as well as the Royal Ballet’s dancers. A pity, then, that Strapless has been exposed without previews to sort out its weaknesses.
...a production that continues to set the standard against which later versions are measured.
Dancers should be allowed to have fun, especially when they've worked as hard as Ivan Vasiliev and Natalia Osipova...
...it certainly showed that Osipova is a lightning bolt which can illuminate and energise everything she appears in.
Natalia Osipova, Ivan Vasiliev, Edward Watson and Marcelo Gomes star in ARDANI 25 DANCE GALA Friday 17th and Saturday 18th July 2015, London Coliseum This summer’s hot dance ticket will be the ARDANI 25 DANCE GALA at the Coliseum on Friday 17th and Saturday 18th July, presented by producer and impresario Sergei Danilian (Ardani Artists). The evening features an all-star line-up including Natalia...
The advantage of a big company accustomed to performing narrative ballets (something we can take for granted with the Royal Ballet) is that it is able to portray a whole society on stage.
Overall, while an interesting night for them and those who know them, it wasn't a night that would garner them lots of new fans all hailing them as magnificent. For that you still need to catch them, if you can, doing their fireworks in the likes of Don Quixote...
Gallery by Dave Morgan...