Royal Ballet
Cinderella, Royal Ballet review - the first British ballet learns the language of flowersSaturday, 01 April 2023
The urge to redesign a heritage ballet is a curious one, given not just the expense but the fact that the main draw of an old ballet is the steps and the music, which stay the same whatever the stage dressing. The Royal Ballet was keen, however, to... Read more... |
'You want to cry from loving to do it so much' - Lynn Seymour 1939-2023Wednesday, 15 March 2023
As a critic, I’ve rarely felt compelled to mourn publicly about an artist. Mourning goes somewhere beyond the usual sense of loss and gratitude when someone's death has been announced. But it's the only word when the departed is one of the very few... Read more... |
Light of Passage, Royal Ballet review - a new full-evening work by Crystal Pite is eloquent and movingFriday, 21 October 2022
Marshalling a mass of bodies around a stage is what all choreographers do. But nobody does it quite like Crystal Pite, the Canadian whose half-hour piece "Flight Pattern" – a comment on the global refugee crisis – was a hit for the Royal Ballet... Read more... |
Mayerling, Royal Ballet review - a masterpiece of storytelling, darkly grippingSaturday, 08 October 2022
Although the loss of its 96-year-old royal patron can hardly have come as a surprise, Covent Garden has been slow to register it. The gold-embroidered ERs on those luscious red velvet stage curtains remain in place, and when Wednesday night’s... Read more... |
Like Water for Chocolate, Royal Ballet review - confusing and ill-conceivedTuesday, 07 June 2022
When George Balanchine said that “there are no mothers-in-law in ballet”, he wasn’t just stating the obvious. He meant that there are some things that simply cannot be expressed in dance. Emotion and nuance are a story-ballet’s native territory;... Read more... |
The Weathering/Solo Echo/DGV, Royal Ballet review - the dancer as chameleonWednesday, 30 March 2022
Of all the expectations one might have of a new ballet from a choreographer raised on street dance who has made work about the American prison system, serene loveliness isn’t one of them. The name Kyle Abraham is not new to Royal Ballet... Read more... |
The unexpurgated Clement Crisp - in memoriamFriday, 04 March 2022
To the international world of ballet, Clement Crisp was the British critic to fear for half a century. Crisp's dance reviews for the Financial Times – "the pink 'un" – from 1970 until 2020 were legendary for their passionate... Read more... |
The Dante Project, Royal Ballet review - a towering achievementSaturday, 16 October 2021
Unless you happen to be a student of Italian language or culture, the significance of the 14th-century poet Dante Alighieri’s insights into the human condition may have passed you by, albeit that this year marks 700 years since his death. Where... Read more... |
Beauty Mixed Programme, Royal Ballet review - no dancers? No problemMonday, 05 July 2021
Crisis-management has always been part of a choreographer’s skillset, but staging a new ballet with two large alternating casts has rarely been fraught with so much risk. It was one hell of a week for Valentino Zucchetti, first soloist at the Royal... Read more... |
Balanchine and Robbins, The Royal Ballet review - style and substanceTuesday, 08 June 2021
People often ask why it is that in ballet there are different casts on different nights, a practice alien to opera, musicals and theatre. The most obvious reason is practical. Ballet companies keep a number of principal dancers on salary who need... Read more... |
The Royal Ballet: 21st-Century Choreographers review - dancers rise to fresh challengesThursday, 20 May 2021
The Royal Opera House wasn't taking any chances when it welcomed its first ballet audience since December this week. There was no printed programme on offer, nor even a cast sheet. “Not till October” said the uniformed man on the door. Some ballet... Read more... |
The Royal Ballet - variations on a comebackFriday, 16 April 2021
Like the British high street, the once richly diverse landscape of dance in the UK is likely to look very different once lockdown is fully lifted. There will be losses, noticeably among the smaller companies whose survival was always precarious.... Read more... |
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