The English National Ballet’s Spring/Summer 2017 season sees a refreshing nod to the company’s past with a revival of Rudolf Nureyev’s Romeo & Juliet during August of 2017 when the company makes a return to The Royal Festival Hall, its old hunting ground that it hasn’t revisited since 2008. Tamara Rojo has shown with her recent programming that she is investing in the company’s future – as well as that of dance – but she certainly is not going to ignore the past.
Nureyev created his Romeo & Juliet in 1977 to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, and English National Ballet recently performed it on its national tour to critical acclaim.
In March 2017 the English National Ballet will join the Paris Opera Ballet as being the only companies outside the Tanztheater Wuppertal to perform Pina Bausch’s masterpiece Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring). It will be part of a triple bill that features another work new to ENB’s repertoire, Adagio Hammerklavier choreographed by Hans van Manen, performed by three couples and set to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 29, Op 106, and William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated will complete the programme.
After the recent success with My First Ballet: Sleeping Beauty (53,000 people saw it), the series returns in Spring 2017 with an eight-week national tour of My First Ballet: Cinderella. Part of ENB’s commitment to making ballet accessible to all, in collaboration with the English National Ballet School, My First Ballet takes a popular ballet title and reworks it with the addition of a narrator for an audience as young as three.
The eighth edition of the Emerging Dancer competition will be in Spring 2017.
The last competition – won by Cesar Corrales – was not only seen by the audience at the packed London Palladium but by 10,000 people online via a livestream.
The first tickets for the new period are on sale from tomorrow, 17 June.
Ticket on sale dates:
Pina Bausch / William Forsythe / Hans van Manen
November 2016
Sadler’s Wells
23 March – 1 April 2017
Tickets: £12 – £60
For more information see: www.ballet.org.uk/spring
My First Ballet: Cinderella (all dates apart from the Peacock Theatre)
Friends: 17 June 2016
General: 22 June 2016
(venues, see below)
My First Ballet: Cinderella at the Peacock Theatre
November 2016
Peacock Theatre, London
11 – 22 April 2017
Box Office: or www.ballet.org.uk/myfirstballet
Tickets: £10 – £25
Romeo & Juliet
Friends: 21 June 2016
General: 22 June 2016
Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall
1 – 5 August 2017
Box Office: or www.ballet.org.uk/romeoandjuliet
Tickets: £12 – £55
Emerging Dancer
Autumn 2016
Venue and Date TBC
For more information see: www.ballet.org.uk/emergingdancer
VEUNUES My First Ballet: Cinderella
Orchard Theatre, Dartford
6 – 8 April 2017
Box Office: or www.ballet.org.uk/myfirstballet
Tickets: £15 – £20
New Theatre, Oxford
28 & 29 April 2017
Box Office: or www.ballet.org.uk/myfirstballet
Tickets: £11.50 – £26.50
Liverpool Empire
5 & 6 May 2017
Box Office: or www.ballet.org.uk/myfirstballet
Tickets: £11.50 – £26.50
New Wimbledon Theatre
13 & 14 May 2017
Box Office: or www.ballet.org.uk/myfirstballet
Tickets: £11.50 – £26.50
Bristol Hippodrome
20 & 21 May 2017
Box Office: or www.ballet.org.uk/myfirstballet
Tickets: £11.50 – £26.50
New Victoria Theatre, Woking
26 & 27 May 2017
Box Office: or www.ballet.org.uk/myfirstballet
Tickets: £11.50 – £26.50
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano’) about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.
Back to the RFH. What a terrible decision. Noisy, shallow and simply the wrong space for dance. Is it cheaper? Did ENB just forget what a woeful place for ballet it is?
This all feels as though Rojo;s been nobbled and had to retrench. What a depressing season for dancers and audiences alike. What a shame.
I was privileged to see Nureyev and Fonteyn dance Romeo and Juliet many years ago. It was one of those “Lifetime Experiences.”
just saw “rite”
at Kansas City Ballet this May.
With all the bombastic political rhetoric it is nice and relaxing to read his ballet news. I have seen recordings of Nureyev in this role- nice to see it renewed.
Are you sure ENB is the only company to perform “Rite of spring “? I’m quite sure Paris opera ballet have been performing it for a few years
Yes, in fact they did it with Abbagnato just a few months ago. The ‘article’ is the ENB’s press release trimmed down. I’ll ask them why they have said this. I’ll let you know!
ENB were right… The press release says that they’ll become the SECOND company beyond Bausch’s own. That’ll teach me to do posts with my phone! I cut out too many words. Thanks.