Royal Ballet
Cinderella, Royal Ballet review - inspiring dancing, but not quite casting the desired spellMonday, 09 December 2024
Romeo and Juliet or Cinderella? Prokofiev’s two great scores have provided the Royal Ballet with a pair of popular hits, though Macmillan’s R&J has probably been the bigger draw, its Capulets ball music sampled everywhere from TV commercials to... Read more... |
Maddaddam, Royal Ballet review - superb dancing in a confusing frameSaturday, 16 November 2024
Valiant souls who have recently read the Margaret Atwood trilogy on which this new Wayne McGregor piece for the Royal Ballet is based will be at home with its time-shifting eco-sci-fi narrative. The rest of us, not so much.The appeal of the basic... Read more... |
Encounters, Royal Ballet review - exciting mixed bill with a gem of a premiereThursday, 24 October 2024
In 2022, the American choreographer Pam Tanowitz made a duet on Royal Ballet principals William Bracewell and Anna Rose O’Sullivan, which they performed at the company’s Diamond Celebration. That piece has now evolved into a true gem.Or Forevermore... Read more... |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Royal Ballet review - big, bold and ultimately brashWednesday, 02 October 2024
In many ways Lewis Carroll’s 1865 compendium of literary nonsense is ideal material for ballet. We all like a story we can hum, even if we’re hazy on the details. And this story, with its topsy-turvy logic and anthropomorphic creatures, is stuffed... Read more... |
Ashton Celebrated, Royal Ballet review - peerless delights from the master step-smithMonday, 17 June 2024
Launching a four-year global project to proclaim the genius of Frederick Ashton might seem unnecessary. His work is the bedrock of what’s widely known as The English Style and rarely absent from any British ballet season, whether at the Royal Ballet... Read more... |
The Winter's Tale, Royal Ballet review - what a story, and what a way to tell it!Saturday, 11 May 2024
If there is a more striking, more moving, more downright enjoyable way to experience Shakespeare’s second-from-last play, I have yet to see it. The Winter’s Tale, originally a “romance” in five acts, is widely regarded as a problem play, not only... Read more... |
MacMillan Celebrated, Royal Ballet review - out of mothballs, three vintage works to marvel atSaturday, 06 April 2024
Triple bills can be a difficult sell for ballet companies. Audiences prefer big sets and costumes, and a storyline they can hum. It’s not hard to see why Kenneth MacMillan’s full-evening hits Romeo and Juliet and Manon have turned out to be such a... Read more... |
Swan Lake, Royal Ballet review - grand, eloquent, superbFriday, 08 March 2024
In uncertain times like these, the single thing that every flagship ballet company needs is a convincing iteration of a 19th-century blockbuster. New works are all very well and necessary, but they don’t have the pulling power of Swan Lake, or the... Read more... |
Dark With Excessive Bright, Royal Ballet review - a close encounter with dancers stripped bareWednesday, 14 February 2024
The word “immersive” is overused. When an immersive experience can be anything from a foreign language course to a trip down the Amazon on a headset, what might immersive dance involve? Not watching from a plush-covered seat, probably, and the dance... Read more... |
Manon, Royal Ballet review - a glorious half-century revival of a modern classicTuesday, 23 January 2024
It’s 50 years since the first, damning reviews of Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet Manon declared it to be too long and lumbered with terrible music. One of them also said that the title role was an appalling waste of the ballerina who, in the title role... Read more... |
Best of 2023: DanceTuesday, 02 January 2024
Dance lovers have had a better time of it this year as the performance sector starts to find its feet again. In the wake of a general cull of independent dance companies, 2023 has seen signs of fresh growth.Lively enterprises have sprouted in... Read more... |
The Dante Project, Royal Ballet review - brave but flawed take on the Divine Comedy returnsMonday, 27 November 2023
Singular in its variousness, this is a three-act ballet that need some unpicking. No wonder those hooked on first acquaintance in 2021, like theartsdesk’s dance critic Jenny Gilbert, have been back to see it more than once.So long as you accept that... Read more... |
- 1 of 19
- ››
