Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will attend Birmingham Royal Ballet’s 20th anniversary gala tomorrow night celebrating two decades in Birmingham for the company which was once Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet. The Prince of Wales is President of BRB and the Duchess is Patron of Elmhurst School of Dance, now Birmingham-based and associated with BRB. The move out of the capital made in 1990 by then director Peter Wright was seen as high-risk, but it was backed by Dame Ninette de Valois, then 92, who also approved of Wright’s succession by the young choreographer David Bintley.
Bintley has given BRB a name for big new story-ballets as well as classical and neo-classical repertoire. The hot news is that Bintley himself will replace their iconic Christmas attraction The Nutcracker (the best production in Britain) with an all-new Cinderella this winter, designed by the very same John Macfarlane who made The Nutcracker so spookily magical. Expect something amazing when Cinderella's pumpkin turns into a coach.
- Birmingham Royal Ballet presents 20 Years Celebration, a gala programme tonight and tomorrow (2 and 7.30pm) at Birmingham Hippodrome. Box office phone 0844 338 5000
- Check out Birmingham Royal Ballet's 2009-10 season