Photo Album: Royal Ballet first night with Dances at a Gathering and The Cellist
First photos of tonight’s opening of a new double bill at The Royal Opera House with Jerome Robbins‘s Dances at a Gathering and Cathy Marston’s The Cellist.
Dances at a Gathering
Jerome Robbins’s elegant and elegiac classic forms the first part of the programme. This exercise in pure dance for five couples, set to music by Chopin, is a masterpiece of subtlety and invention.
Choreography Jerome Robbins
Music Fryderyk Chopin
Costume designer Joe Eula
Cast
Marianela Nuñez
Fumi Kaneko
Alexander Campbell
Federico Bonelli
Luca Acri
The Cellist
Cathy Marston has previously been an Associate Artist of the Royal Opera House and Director of Bern Ballett, and is much in demand internationally. The inspiration for her first work for The Royal Ballet Main Stage is the momentous life and career of the cellist Jacqueline du Pré.
Choreography Cathy Marston
Scenario Cathy Marston and Edward Kemp
Music Philip Feeney
Set designer Hildegard Bechtler
Costume designer Bregje van Balen
Lighting designer Jon Clark
Cast
Lauren Cuthbertson
Matthew Ball
Marcelino Sambé
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
