dance
Curated by Carlos, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - a star turnSaturday, 06 November 2021![]()
When a great performer takes on the running of a ballet company, the effect on its dancers can be transformative. It happened when Mikhail Baryshnikov took on American Ballet Theatre in the 1980s. It’s been happening at English National Ballet since 2012 under Tamara Rojo. Read more... |
L'Heure Exquise, Linbury Theatre review - an exquisite tragedy in miniatureWednesday, 20 October 2021![]()
Ballet dancers, even the greatest, don’t expect longevity. There are no Maggie Smiths or Helen Mirrens in the ballet world – there just aren’t the roles. So the news that Alessandra Ferri was to mark the 40th anniversary of her association with the Royal Ballet (she joined aged 17) with a run of performances of a one-woman show was of more than passing interest. Read more... |
Bernstein Double Bill, Opera North review - fractured relationships in song and danceMonday, 18 October 2021![]()
Leonard Bernstein’s one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti enjoyed a relatively trouble-free gestation, at least compared to his other stage works. Its seven short scenes last around 50 minutes, Bernstein providing his own libretto and completing much of this acerbic, occasionally bitter study of a marriage in crisis whilst on his own honeymoon in 1951. Read more... |
The Dante Project, Royal Ballet review - a towering achievementSaturday, 16 October 2021![]()
Unless you happen to be a student of Italian language or culture, the significance of the 14th-century poet Dante Alighieri’s insights into the human condition may have passed you by, albeit that this year marks 700 years since his death. Where every educated Italian knows the stories and characters within La divina commedia like the back of their hand, we British generally draw a blank. Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Birmingham Royal Ballet & Royal Ballet review - a storming start to the seasonWednesday, 13 October 2021![]()
Two households, both alike in dignity … and both launching their respective seasons with a production of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. Read more... |
The Midnight Bell, New Adventures, Sadler's Wells review - dance theatre at its most compellingFriday, 08 October 2021![]()
The British author Patrick Hamilton is best known for two highly successful plays, Rope (1929) and Gaslight (1939), which in turn became highly successful films. But it’s Hamilton’s novels, set among the fog-bound pubs and clubs of 1930s Soho, that have inspired Matthew Bourne’s latest enterprise, The Midnight Bell. Read more... |
Creature, English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - bombastic and unreadableFriday, 24 September 2021![]()
If a new ballet can be doomed by the weight of expectation, then Creature didn’t stand a chance. First scheduled to appear in the spring of 2020, then again last autumn, the publicity drive over the past weeks has had the air of marketing a used car that is taking up space in the showroom. Read more... |
Hofesh Shechter Company, Double Murder, Sadler's Wells review - a well-intentioned but misjudged double billFriday, 17 September 2021![]()
If I had to sum up in a single impression the work I’ve seen of Brighton-based, Israeli-born choreographer Hofesh Shechter (now OBE), it would be that of a rock gig. His shows are noisy, populous affairs, and he writes his own drumbeat-driven music. Read more... |
Beauty Mixed Programme, Royal Ballet review - no dancers? No problemMonday, 05 July 2021![]()
Crisis-management has always been part of a choreographer’s skillset, but staging a new ballet with two large alternating casts has rarely been fraught with so much risk. It was one hell of a week for Valentino Zucchetti, first soloist at the Royal Ballet and creator of Anemoi, the 20-minute work that opens the final programme in the company’s 90th birthday season. Read more... |
Solstice, English National Ballet, RFH review - a midsummer treatSaturday, 19 June 2021![]()
“A tonic to the nation”. That was the hoped-for effect of the Festival of Britain in 1951, and its concrete legacy was the Royal Festival Hall. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today


Actually it was a Thursday evening to Saturday experience, but what riches in seven concerts. The only Britten I heard was one of the S...

As producer Jerry Bruckheimer cautioned a preview audience, “Remember, this is not a documentary. It’s a movie.” Bruckheimer teamed up with...

Composer Bernard Hughes first met director Richard Bracewell when working on the film Bill, a 2015 Horrible Histories take on...

It’s somewhat surprising to read that The Boss wasn’t happy with Born in the USA. After all, it was –...

There's something luminous about the Brad Mehldau Trio. The music they create with such joy shines with a special clarity, in which ever-changing...

Opera can take many forms and fulfil many purposes: this chamber opera by Zakiya Leeming and Sam Redway is about vaccination. Based on history, it...

Do we need any more Beatles books? The answer is: that’s the wrong question. What we need is more Beatles books that are worth reading. As the...

A Sober Conversation is the work of a master songwriter, one who knows how to achieve their goals. As the album’s nine tracks pour from...
Aldeburgh offered strong competition for the three evenings of Schubert at the discreetly restored Ragged School Museum, but I knew I had to...