
Staatsballett Berlin – La Bayadère (premiere of Ratmansky reconstruction) – Berlin
★★★★✰ In the last several years, the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has developed a sideline to his main choreographic efforts: the reviving of ballets by Marius Petipa in a way that represents the original choreography with as much fidelity as possible…

Royal Ballet – Mayerling (Hirano, Osipova) – London
★★★★✰ Osipova is lethally orgasmic… Never has MacMilllan’s choreography for the death duet seemed so astounding as in her account of it.

Australian Ballet – The Merry Widow – Sydney
★★★★✰ The Merry Widow is Robert Helpmann’s great gift to the Australian Ballet. It premiered in November 1975 and has been staged more than 400 times since.

Russian State Ballet of Siberia – La Fille mal gardée – Basingstoke
★★★✰✰ The Siberian company performs its Fille mal gardée with good heart and neat feet.

American Ballet Theatre – La Fille Mal Gardée – New York
★★★★★ La Fille Mal Gardée is a ballet that glows from within, lighthearted, tender and bursting with happy ideas.

Paris Opera Ballet – La Bayadère – Paris
At the end the curtain came up once again, and Brigitte Lefèvre (artistic director of the ballet) and Nicolas Joel (director of the opera as a whole) emerged to announce the promotion of the evening’s Solor, Josua Hoffalt, to the ultimate rank: étoile. There were buckets of tears, from Hoffalt, Gilbert, and Dupont. In fact, it was the high point of the evening. An uncontrolled release of emotion, at last.