Birmingham Royal Ballet
2011: Ballerinas, Cuts and the Higgs Boson TheorySaturday, 31 December 2011
The year’s best arts story was not the cuts (which isn’t art, it’s politics), but the appearance in Edinburgh of a mysterious series of 10 magical little paper sculptures, smuggled into the city’s libraries by a booklover. No name, no Simon Cowell... Read more... |
The Nutcracker, Birmingham Royal Ballet, O2 ArenaWednesday, 28 December 2011
It would always be a risk putting such a gossamer Christmas charmer as The Nutcracker into a gargantuan Mammonite cavern like the O2 Arena, where magic only counts if it rings loudly in the coffers - car park £25! programmes £10! As with the Royal... Read more... |
La Fille Mal Gardée, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler's WellsFriday, 21 October 2011
It may be that there is no sunnier place than Ashton’s La fille mal gardée. Certainly there is no sunnier ballet. It speaks not of great drama, nor ecstasy, but instead of gentle happiness, of quiet content and loving kindness. Not, one might think... Read more... |
Nuclear star dancer Robert Parker leaps to head ballet schoolMonday, 19 September 2011
Birmingham Royal Ballet’s star Robert Parker has been a ballet dancer and a trainee pilot - and is now to become artistic director of Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham, one of the two most important ballet schools in Britain.Known as “nuclear”... Read more... |
Next Royal Ballet chief is smiling insider Kevin O'HareTuesday, 14 June 2011
There were apparently unanimous whoops of joy inside the Royal Ballet this morning, even as brows were wrinkling perplexedly outside, when it was announced that the likeable No 2, administrative director Kevin O’Hare, will succeed director Dame... Read more... |
Cinderella, Birmingham Royal Ballet, London ColiseumTuesday, 29 March 2011
Birmingham is the fount of beauty and magic when it comes to ballet design. Covent Garden - forget it, too much money, too little taste. What illustrates that truism is the comparison that can be made between the Royal Ballet’s cartoony Cinderella... Read more... |
Birmingham Royal Ballet, 2011-12 SeasonThursday, 24 March 2011
Family-favourite storyballets dominate Birmingham Royal Ballet's 2011-12 season, as the company looks forward to a stringent year. Beauty and Beast, Hobson's Choice and Far From the Madding Crowd, three of director David Bintley's full-lengthers,... Read more... |
Birmingham Royal Ballet, 2010-11 SeasonThursday, 10 February 2011
Family favourites and fewer dates on the spring split tours mark straitened circumstances for Britain's busiest touring company, Birmingham Royal Ballet, keeping a smiling, child-friendly face on. Coppelia, La Fille mal gardée and the London... Read more... |
Cinderella, Birmingham Royal BalletThursday, 25 November 2010
Fairy-tale ballets are a bitch. We all grow a mental image of what is “right” when we are about five, and then woe betide anyone whose vision is different – because of course it isn’t different, it’s “wrong”. So David Bintley and his designer,... Read more... |
Design Secrets of Cinderella and The NutcrackerMonday, 22 November 2010
The designer of a fairytale ballet is far, far more important than the choreographer. It's those visions that lodge themselves in children's heads, in adults' memories, embedded with the music. And at no time more potently than Christmas when it's... Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Birmingham Royal Ballet & English National Ballet, touringThursday, 21 October 2010
“Rudolf thought, what you wanted out of life you had to get straightaway, because if you thought about it too long, you might be dead,” said the ballerina Patricia Ruanne, the first Juliet in Rudolf Nureyev’s version of Romeo and Juliet. Coming a... Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet in Opera and BalletSunday, 10 October 2010
Those teenage lovers Romeo and Juliet will be dying nightly on a stage near you in various guises for much of the autumn - not as Shakespeare’s play, but as ballets and operas based on it. Next week both Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National... Read more... |
