★★★✰✰ With works from Christopher Wheeldon (Within the Golden Hour), Kyle Abraham (Optional Family: a divertissement - a premiere) and Crystal Pite (The Statement & Solo Echo)
Tag - Koen Kessels
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★★✰ ...exemplary performances from Momoko Hirata as Giselle and César Morales as Albrecht make for a richly rewarding and moving experience.
★★★★✰ Osipova is lethally orgasmic... Never has MacMilllan's choreography for the death duet seemed so astounding as in her account of it.
Ballet Now is an initiative between Birmingham Royal Ballet and Sadler’s Wells to develop the (classical) choreographers, composers and designers of the future. It's a 5-year programme with 2 commissions each year, made possible by the Oak Foundation, matched BRB funding and driven by a Creative Consortium.
★★★★✰ For the Royal Ballet, there could not have been a better start to their Australian tour than Ferri’s performance as Clarissa Dalloway in the first act of Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works.
Opening night cast of Celine Gittens and Tyrone Singleton reviewed + some thoughts on Delia Mathews and Brandon Lawrence...
...a production that continues to set the standard against which later versions are measured.
In his programme note, Bintley claims to have foregone sexual romance in favour of ‘something more mystical and subtle’, connected with Japanese veneration of its Imperial family. It doesn’t resonate in this royal kingdom.
...it’s actually a real pleasure to watch a company just working together for the good of the ballet.
During the season, and over five nights, I saw each of the five Giselles – Dorothee Gilbert, Myriam Ould-Braham, Ludmila Pagliero, Isabelle Ciaravola and Melanie Hurel, and four Albrechts...
Nicolas Le Riche was fabulously predatory in Bolero, a raging furnace of self-love and sex appeal. One imagines that after the show he must have ravaged a hundred virgins, but maybe he simply went home and soaked his feet in the tub, but in any case, he was magnificent, good taste (and choreography) be damned.
With its exquisite staging, and most importantly with its understanding and respect of the Romantic ballet style, and whole-hearted dedication of the dancers to their roles, the Paris Opera Ballet demonstrated just how Giselle should be produced and performed.