At least there are some memorable performances to recall from 2021: at the beginning of the year none of us had any idea when we might sit in a theatre and watch live dance again...
Tag - Fumi Kaneko
With Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell in the lead roles. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★✰✰ The latest Royal Ballet premiere is a full evening ballet from Wayne McGregor, using a cracking custom score from Thomas Adès...
Both the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet are opening their 2021/22 seasons with the same ballet - Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. Jann Parry takes a look at how one of the most admired narrative ballets of the 20th century came to be and details of the many dancing debuts we can look forward to...
A special photoshoot at the Royal Ballet by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
The Royal Ballet's new Covid-safe version of the well known production. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★★ Thank you, Royal Ballet, for giving so much pleasure in trying times.
★★★★✰ Kevin O'Hare, director of the Royal Ballet, came on stage to welcome the return of a paying audience for what turned out to be the opening and closing live performance of the season...
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 (★★★✰✰)
★★★★✰ The singers had the lions' share of the concert, with just two pas de deux by Royal Ballet couples, Matthew Ball and Mayara Magri, Reece Clarke and Fumi Kaneko.
★★★★✰ 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.
Lynette Halewood with some reflections on London dance performances over the last year - the good and the less good...
★★★★✰ The dancing is so enjoyable, the comedy so appealing, that any flaws in the story telling are easily overlooked.
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★★✰ 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...
★★★★✰ Three short but densely packed ballets infused with a strong Russian flavour were at the heart of the Royal Ballet’s last bill of the season.
★★★★★ 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 School in Liam Scarlett's new Cunning Little Vixen. ★★✰✰✰ - Royal Ballet's Yasmine Naghdi debut in Two Pigeons.
★★★★✰ 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.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...