★★★★✰ The ballet works as a conflicted love story centred on the heroine, Tatiana. When Natalia Osipova dances the role, she brings home how Russian the character is.
Tag - Natalia Osipova
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
Lynette Halewood with some reflections on London dance performances over the last year - the good and the less good...
★★★★★ Think comic opera meets dance theatre, with choreography so animated there’s no translation needed.
★★★✰✰ Once again, Osipova gave it her all – and Osipova’s all is quite something to behold.
★★✰✰✰ While You Are Here is disappointing despite using a cohort of the best contemporary dancers in the country, working with theatre director Lily McLeish and featuring fine design and lighting.
★★★★✰ The reason the Bolshoi's Don Quixote is so enjoyable is the gusto with which it is performed. It doesn't aim to be remotely authentically Spanish or even respectful of the original 1869 version...
★★★★✰ The Mother takes already dark source material (a Hans Christian Andersen tale) and plunges even deeper into the nightmare scenario it proposes, giving everything a convincing Russian twist along the way.
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★★★ This is a superbly made film... It draws a portrait of a supreme artist, a woman with exceptional humility, all sensitively handled with warmth and humour.
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★✰✰ A very mixed bill... Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Medusa (★★✰✰✰), Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour (★★★★✰) and Crystal Pite's Flight Pattern (★★★★✰)
Works by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Christopher Wheeldon and Crystal Pite. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★✰✰ So, is Pure Dance a success? It depends on what you’re looking for. Osipova is as exciting, and as powerful, a dancer as ever. Among the commissions, only Valse Triste and Flutter are worthy of further exploration...
Semperoper Ballett Dresden were another new visitor in the summer, with a programme of Forsythe works, some not seen here before. But Forsythe is a theme this year in himself.
Jann Parry talks to the recently promoted Mayara Magri at an important time - she is about to make her debut as Gamzatti in The Royal Ballet's production of La Bayadere - her first major and leading role in the company she joined 6 years ago...
★★★★✰ In the past, the Royal Ballet's version, last performed five years ago, has sometimes seemed insubstantial. Not so this time, with a luxury cast in full dramatic mode: Vadim Muntagirov, Marianela Nuñez, Natalia Osipova and Gary Avis...
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou of the Muntagirov, Osipova and Nuñez cast.
★★★★✰ The partnership in Mayerling between Morera and Bonelli is a fine example of how experience can illumine the nuances of a dramatic ballet.
★★★★✰ Osipova is lethally orgasmic... Never has MacMilllan's choreography for the death duet seemed so astounding as in her account of it.