Casting for The Royal Ballet Romeo and Juliet opening the 2021-2022 Season
This October The Royal Ballet returns for its first full season in 18 months. The season includes world premieres of Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project, Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate, a new work by Kyle Abraham as well as the full-length ballets Giselle, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.
The season opens with Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet on Tuesday 5 October. It will be the first time the company has performed a full three-act ballet since March 2020. It will have a Valentine’s Day cinema screening on 14 February 2022.
The Royal Opera House dates are from 5 October until 24 October 2021, and then 10 January until 25 February 2022.
Casting
Casting includes Royal Ballet Principals Francesca Hayward and Cesar Corrales, Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae, Yasmine Naghdi and Vadim Muntagirov, and the newly promoted Principal Fumi Kaneko and First Soloist William Bracewell will be making their debuts on Saturday 9 October.
Romeo and Juliet returns to the repertory in January 2022 with Natalia Osipova and Reece Clarke, who will be making his debut, Marianela Nunez and Federico Bonelli, Lauren Cuthbertson and Matthew Ball, Melissa Hamilton and Ryoichi Hirano, and the Valentine’s Day screening will be with newly appointed Principal Anna Rose O’Sullivan and Marcelino Sambé. Debuts in 2022 also include Alexander Campbell performing with Akane Takada, and recently promoted Principal Mayara Magri and First Soloist Calvin Richardson.
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 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.
