sun 01/12/2024

Swan Lake

Swan Lake, Dada Masilo, Sadler's Wells

There are all sorts of companies and shows out there that claim to “rock” the ballet, or otherwise shake up, take down or reinvent an art form that, they imply, is (breathe it softly, the dirty word) elitist, or at least irrelevant. Few, I’d imagine...

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Swan Lake, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera House

Everyone must be wishing the Bolshoi Ballet a swift return to company health after the tragic events of this year, as well as a return to physical health by their horribly injured artistic director - in the circumstances it’s heroic that they have...

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Swan Lake, English National Ballet, Royal Albert Hall

So much is wrong with Derek Deane’s arena Swan Lake, as if he read a poem and rewrote it as a press release. If you want big fat images of swans, 60 white-feathered girls in precision-tooled lines, this is for you. Take your photos on your phone,...

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Swan Lake, Royal Ballet

The Royal Ballet’s autumn season began on Monday, but this was the eagerly awaited Swan Lake. Natalia Osipova, ex-Bolshoi, now principal with American Ballet Theater and the Mikhailovsky in St Petersburg, was making her debut as a guest with the...

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Russian superstar Natalia Osipova to perform with Royal Ballet

The 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...

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Win tickets for Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake 3D premiere, plus live Q&A

Matthew Bourne, creator of the famous male swans of his modern reinvention of Swan Lake, is to launch the nationwide screening of a spectacular new 3D film of his creation, along with a live Q&A - and we have free tickets to be won for this...

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Birmingham Royal Ballet splits in half

Reaching parts of the country that otherwise it couldn't reach, Birmingham Royal Ballet is to do a split tour of mixed ballets across the UK's theatres, one group travelling to south and west, the other going north and east.Now in its ninth year,...

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Irek Mukhamedov dances again in London

Former Royal Ballet leading star and Bolshoi hero Irek Mukhamedov is coming out of retirement to perform in Peter Schaufuss's Tchaikovsky Trilogy at the London Coliseum 23-28 July. He will be playing the roles of Rothbart in Swan Lake, the Queen’s...

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Russian Ballet Icons Gala: Celebrating Anna Pavlova, London Coliseum

Fokine, the founding choreographer of the Ballets Russes, wrote on Anna Pavlova’s death, “Pavlova will be the dream of many generations, a dream of beauty, of the gladness of movement.” The superb array of international stars of ballet last night...

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BBC Proms: Swan Lake, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Gergiev

The fact that the world’s most popular ballet score had never, until last night, been performed in full at the Proms says something about the lowly regard in which musical circles long held composition for ballet. The fact that the Albert Hall’s...

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Swan Lake, Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China, London Coliseum

What you see in the picture is the money shot, and yes, it's a miracle that you won't fully believe, even as you watch it. But there are plenty of other belief-defying miracles in the Guangdong Acrobats’ version of Swan Lake - just don’t make the...

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Swan Lake, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House

Uliana Lopatkina in the Mariinsky's 'Swan Lake'

Act IV is the core of Swan Lake. It doesn’t seem so theatrically, being a peculiar 20-minute bolt-on after an interval that frequently lasts longer than the act that follows. But musically it transcends everything that has gone before, its thready...

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