ROH
FAR, Wayne McGregor / Random Dance, Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera HouseSaturday, 17 November 2012Make no mistake; this is dancing of the highest order. The classically trained members of Wayne McGregor's company Random Dance demonstrate such exceptional mastery of technique that their movements should have one drooling in admiration. And since... Read more... |
Viscera/Infra/Fool's Paradise, Royal BalletSunday, 04 November 2012A new Liam Scarlett ballet has become an event, even as, in this case, Scarlett’s home company, the Royal Ballet, is recreating a work he choreographed last January for Miami City Ballet – the young choreographer’s first international commission.In... Read more... |
Swan Lake in world's cinemas tonight launches new offensive on elitismTuesday, 23 October 2012Tonight the Royal Ballet's live Swan Lake opens the most extensive season yet of live screenings to cinemas worldwide of the Royal Opera House's productions. Zenaida Yanowsky and Nehemiah Kish, in the leading roles of the Swan Queen and her evil... Read more... |
Russian superstar Natalia Osipova to perform with Royal BalletTuesday, 31 July 2012The virtuoso Russian ballerina Natalia Osipova will guest with the Royal Ballet this autumn with Carlos Acosta in the opening run of Swan Lake. Osipova, whose partnership with the phenomenal Ivan Vasiliev has become the most talked-about in world... Read more... |
Otello, Royal Opera HouseFriday, 13 July 2012Pardon the anomaly of a lightly browned-up Latvian Moor married to a German-Greek beauty. This, after all, is not Shakespeare’s play but Verdi’s opera, for which all too few are born to sing heroic tenor Otello and lyric-dramatic soprano Desdemona.... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Massenet, David Russell, WeinbergSaturday, 26 May 2012Massenet: Werther Rolando Villazón, Sophie Koch, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/Antonio Pappano (DG)Massenet’s Goethe adaptation needs a lot of love to make it convince as a drama. Fortunately this live Covent Garden performance, taped... Read more... |
Ballo della Regina/ La Sylphide, Royal BalletTuesday, 22 May 2012Ballo della Regina is a strange piece, for many reasons. A piece of minor Balanchine, it was created late in life for a dancer he clearly admired but who was not core to his vision. Strangest of all, he used music by Verdi, a composer whose music he... Read more... |
Maestro at the Opera, BBC TwoSaturday, 05 May 2012Even in this age of desperate reality TV, you have to have doubts about any show that tries to convert “celebrities” into serious contenders in an alien field. Is it serious or a padded-out joke? To an extent we’ve been here, or close by, before.... Read more... |
Polyphonia/ Sweet Violets/ Carbon Life, Royal BalletFriday, 06 April 2012All year we've had to wait for a world premiere, and two come along at once. Last night was built to make some noise about the three most impressive young names in Royal Ballet choreography, and that will be where the PR story ends, but not where... Read more... |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2012), Royal BalletSunday, 18 March 2012"I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works," accuses the Mad Hatter. "It was the best butter," replies the March Hare apologetically, in Lewis Carroll’s original tale. Butter might or might not suit the works onstage in the Royal Ballet’s everything... Read more... |
The Royal Ballet, 2012-13 SeasonWednesday, 14 March 2012World premieres, new faces, lower ticket prices (and the first recycled opera production). The Royal Opera House announced a bullish attitude today as it enters the austerity post-Olympics period for next season with six ballet premieres and... Read more... |
Boy George and rapper Wale to sing live in Royal Ballet's upcoming premiereMonday, 12 March 2012Boy George will be in a live line-up of singer-performers for the latest Royal Ballet premiere by Wayne McGregor. Mark Ronson's cycle of nine love songs, orchestrated by Rufus Wainwright, will be performed by the former Culture Club New-Romantic (he... Read more... |