Royal Ballet
Rhapsody/ Sensorium/ 'Still Life' at the Penguin Café, Royal BalletThursday, 17 March 2011
For those in the know, Sergei Polunin has been marked out as “the one to watch” from his schooldays. Since he won the Prix de Lausanne in 2006 and joined the Royal Ballet the following year, he has been “the next big thing”. Well, I’m here to tell... Read more... |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Royal BalletMonday, 28 February 2011
Some ballets are drugs in themselves - you’re under their sway no matter what the performance. Other ballets need drugs to help. This new Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is definitely of the second kind, a very odd, very shallow, very bright and... Read more... |
Production Gallery: The Royal Ballet's Alice's Adventures in WonderlandMonday, 28 February 2011
Charlotte MacMillan took photographs of the first new full-length ballet at The Royal Ballet for 16 years, Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which premiered last night at the Royal Opera House. Designs are by Bob Crowley,... Read more... |
Ballet Boyz, The Talent, AylesburyTuesday, 15 February 2011
Aylesbury, a town without a theatre, has built itself one - a gleaming, glass-fronted, smack-you-in-the-eye 1,500-seater, driven and supported by the district council. High Wycombe and Milton Keynes must beware, so thin are the pickings these days... Read more... |
Royal Opera & Royal Ballet, 2011 SeasonMonday, 31 January 2011
2011 at Covent Garden launches with two much-anticipated world premieres in February: Christopher Wheeldon's first full-length storyballet, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Mark-Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole, written by Richard Thomas (of Jerry... Read more... |
Swan Lake, Royal BalletSunday, 23 January 2011
The return of the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake production coincides with the tumult over the film Black Swan, about which the company’s marketing department must be pretty pleased, even if some of the dancers aren’t. The chief surprise for any newcomers... Read more... |
Q&A Special: Photographer Colin JonesThursday, 13 January 2011
Colin Jones was part of a legendarily painful triangle. Married to one of the greatest of ballerinas, Lynn Seymour, but constantly edged aside by the brilliant choreographer who was obsessed with her, Kenneth MacMillan, Jones left ballet to become a... Read more... |
Photo Gallery: 50 Years of the Ballet, By Colin JonesThursday, 13 January 2011
Rudy and Margot do intensely serious barre in an Italian garden, Lynn Seymour enjoys a "Loyal Ballet" poster on a 1962 Japanese tour, in Glasgow two ballet girls snatch some rest in uncomfortable chairs. The real world of ballet, as shot by the... Read more... |
Giselle, Royal Ballet/ Swan Lake, Russian State Ballet of SiberiaWednesday, 12 January 2011
The chasm between the top-class ballet available to London-area ballet-goers and the low-grade stuff peddled in the regions is the field where the battle to save ballet’s soul is nightly won or lost. Nothing could be more dispiriting than to see the... Read more... |
Cinderella, Royal BalletSunday, 21 November 2010
Christmas rolls around, and so does Cinderella, a welcome alternative to the seasonal dance-critic bah-humbug that is The Nutcracker. First, the good news. The good news is Marianela Nuñez. Always a lovely dancer, in Ashton she just glows. No one... Read more... |
Sylvia, Royal BalletWednesday, 03 November 2010
Places, please, deliciousness, please. This is Delibes, a man whose music goes with delectable disbelief, and this is that zany thing, a Fifties nymph ballet, so let us sip hallucinogenic Arcadian cocktails and leave normality at the cloakroom. But... Read more... |
La Valse/ Invitus Invitam/ Winter Dreams/ Theme & Variations, Royal BalletFriday, 15 October 2010
The ballet world knows uniquely well how to stage gracious gestures to one of its own - dance history is close-knit and last night the Royal Ballet’s first mixed bill of the season turned into a surprising celebration of the Cuban ballerina Alicia... Read more... |
