★★★✰✰ This summer's showcase of English National Ballet School's students was the first under its new director, Carlos Valcarcel... The Wimbledon programme consisted of two creations by him, two by students, and excerpts from The Sleeping Beauty as a conclusion.
Tag - The Sleeping Beauty
★★★★✰ The audience laughs, the company looks great, the orchestra... sounds full and vibrant, and you leave the theatre with a rare feeling of joy. Lightness of spirit and complexity of execution in one delightful package.
★★★✰✰ Williamson’s commission – the first of an ambitious Ballet Now programme for new works – was themed on issues of gender and alienation, with Brandon Lawrence being a man struggling for identity...
★★★✰✰ But, at least to my eye, the production’s triumph is its final lakeside act. There, the formations of swans, as originally choreographed by Lev Ivanov, become intricate, delicate, lyrical, and intensely moving.
For the first time, English National Ballet's competition for its junior members was held in the capacious London Coliseum, where the company has been performing The Sleeping Beauty...
★★★★✰ This show defied the norm: a counter-intuitive observation about a spin-off from the archetypal routine of a Saturday evening institution that millions of us watch with our feet up.
★★★★✰ It's a better Sleeping Beauty than the Royal Ballet's, but it benefits enormously from a stellar performance at its heart, a reminder of how civilised ballet can be.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
"I knew that I had to seize my only chance to have a ballet career. Masha Mukhamedov agreed to teach me privately six days a week for ten months..."
The occasion was the 15th anniversary of the Ekaterina Maximova Arabesque Ballet Competition named, since 2012, after the late and much-loved Bolshoi ballerina, and organised by her husband, Vladimir Vasiliev...
★★★★✰ Steeped in the company’s history, this Sleeping Beauty is a real treasure – a lavishly-outfitted and deeply absorbing spectacle which bears the indelible imprint of its creator, the legendary Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
This is a Beauty like no other – the most spectacular classical production in the National Ballet’s repertory and a true jewel of a ballet.
February's masterclass, the fifth in the series, featured choreography from the start and end of Frederick Ashton's tenure as artistic director of the Royal Ballet, 1963-1969.
★★✰✰✰ The efforts of San Francisco Ballet’s artists are sadly misplaced in this largely joyless and wholly unsatisfying rendition of The Sleeping Beauty.
Head and shoulders above other new work this year was Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern for the Royal Ballet...
★★★★★ When Peter Wright’s production of The Nutcracker for the Royal Ballet was given its premiere on 20th December 1984, gala guests were treated to free champagne and souvenir booklets. No expense was spared...
★★★★✰ Sylvia makes a welcome return to the repertoire, reacquainting dancers and audiences with Ashton’s sensibility and complex choreography. It’s a joy but not a masterpiece, as he well knew...
★★✰✰✰ All the ingredients seemed promising but the evening was disappointing, struggling to recover from the tedium of the dire opening item...
★★★★★ It seems appropriate that I’ve travelled to Russia to find a Cinderella interpreter of movement and spectacle to match up to the genius of Prokofiev’s music.