| Date and venue | Title | Submitted by |
|---|---|---|
| 22-Feb-2013 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Two new works in an inspiring triple bill from The Royal Ballet | Cristina de Lucas |
 Last Friday, The Royal Ballet presented an exciting bill composed of George Balanchine’s iconic Apollo (1928) and two new ballets by acclaimed choreographers Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon. The programme was cleverly designed, since Ratmansky and Wheeldon are renowned explorers of the neoclassical style inaugurated by Balanchine. However, the success of the evening was uneven, since not all the pieces proved to be equally effective.
Read full review... | ||
| 10-Dec-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | The Nutcracker with The Royal Ballet | Margaret Willis |
 Christmas must be nearing when that traditional fare of sparkle, excitement and the surging score of The Nutcracker bursts in full flood onto the world’s ballet stages. Originally created in 1891 by Marius Petipa for the Mariinsky Theatre, the ballet has become the annual bread-winner for most companies (albeit in various versions), guaranteeing full houses and happy customers. No other ballet brings such heart-warming satisfaction to both seasoned balletomane and newcomer.Read full review... | ||
| 8-Oct-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | The new Royal Ballet season opens with some old magic | Hanna Weibye |
 Swan Lake is so iconic that describing it in a review seems superfluous. The idea of it, moreover, so dominates people’s perceptions of ballet, mine included, that before Monday night’s performance I was worried that I would be lost for fresh words, silenced by the weight Tchaikovsky and Petipa’s swans have acquired in the 117 years since they first fluttered across the stage in St Petersburg. (Although the first treatment, and the music, date from 1877, it is really with the Petipa/Ivanov revival in 1895 that Swan Lake’s success story begins.)
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| 17-Jul-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Titian 2012: A cultural olympiad of new works from the Royal Ballet | Hanna Weibye |
 Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 invited artists from different disciplines, mainly the visual arts, dance and music, to respond to Titian's three magnifient paintings of the Diana and Actaeon myth. The results are displayed in an exhibition at the National Gallery (alongside Titian's originals), and in an triple bill of new ballets at the Royal Opera House.Read full review... | ||
| 2-Jun-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | A historic revival of MacMillan's Prince of the Pagodas at Covent Garden | Hanna Weibye |
 The Royal Ballet's revival of The Prince of the Pagodas is an extraordinary achievement in many ways, not least because the ballet has an undistinguished history.Read full review... | ||
| 21-May-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | An Exhilarating Jubilee Double Bill from The Royal Ballet | Margaret Willis |
 This Royal Ballet programme, staged to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II, makes an exhilarating tribute, and shows the company on top form in two very different works. The first offering, to Verdi’s dance sequence in his opera Don Carlos, is an eye-watering collection of virtuoso variations, a plotless barrage of intricate and technical wizardry that sweeps the stage with grace and elegance.Read full review... | ||
| 20-Apr-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | La Fille Mal Gardée at the Royal Opera House | Kit Brown |
 Laugh-out-loud comedy is a rare find in dance, which usually elicits no more than a polite, awkward titter. However it is such comedy that is one of the chief merits of this ballet. La Fille Mal Gardée is as anxious to show off bad dancing as it is to show off the good, pleasing the audience with all manner of buffoonery.
The ballet’s opening gives me a childish thrill. A clutch of chickens and their pompous rooster-ringleader perform a joyfully inelegant dance, bobbing and flapping around. Thankfully they continue to appear throughout the evening.
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| 15-May-2011 The London Coliseum | Russian Ballet Icons Gala; 100-Year Anniversary of Galina Ulanova | Margaret Willis |
 The Russian ballerina Galina Ulanova is a true legend in the world of classical ballet. Her dramatic interpretations plumbed deep into the human soul and revealed its full gamut of emotion and poetic beauty. In her private life, she was a shy and gentle person but on stage, she came to life embodying her characters with heartfelt emotion, refinement and realism, often giving to the smallest detail, an enormous lasting impression—(who can forget her love-smitten Juliet seeing Romeo’s unmasked face for the first time?Read full review... | ||
