Review: Manon, with The Royal Ballet’s Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé – as bitingly savage as ever
Francesca Hayward has deepened her heroine over more than a decade and Marcelino Sambé’s Des Grieux is honestly, gloriously danced – only the slow tempi in the pit hold back the passion.
| Title | Manon |
| Company | The Royal Ballet |
| Venue | Royal Ballet and Opera, London |
| Date | 13 October 2026 |
| Reviewer | Jonathan Gray |
Kenneth MacMillan‘s Manon has become a regular fixture in The Royal Ballet’s repertoire since it was first created in 1974, and it was back on stage at Covent Garden for the start of the company’s 2026/2027 season for a run of 22 performances (and there will be even more from next June). The ballet received a magnificent opening night performance on 13 October, but is Manon in danger of becoming too familiar? Possibly, especially as you can also see it performed this month by companies in Paris and Prague, but as the ballet appears to be guaranteed to regularly fill a theatre, it’s not really a surprise to see it performed so frequently.
The current revival, staged by former principal Laura Morera, who now acts as The Royal Ballet’s artistic supervisor for the MacMillan Estate, was vivid and exciting, with an excellent principal cast led by Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé as the doomed lovers, Manon Lescaut and Des Grieux. Joining them was the Lescaut of Joseph Sissens, Anna Rose O’Sullivan as his Mistress, Bennet Gartside as Monsieur GM, Elizabeth McGorian as Madame and Nicol Edmonds as the Gaoler.
Hayward has been performing Manon for more than a decade now, and it is interesting to observe how she has deepened her interpretation over time. Lusciously danced, her Manon is playful and teasing in the first act, obviously in love with Des Grieux, then giddy with excitement at the prospect of untold riches offered to her by Monsieur GM if she agrees to become his mistress. In the second act, where Manon is forced to choose between wealth or true love, Hayward shows us a woman teetering on the edge of a precipice, before she plunges headlong into disaster and ultimate destruction in the final act. It was a poignant performance, with Hayward’s fine pointework and flexible torso, in particular, demonstrating how she changes from an eager, youthful novice to a young woman brutalised by all she has endured during her short life.
Providing Hayward with wonderful support throughout the ballet, especially in the two big pas de deux, Sambé gave an intelligent and sensitive account of Des Grieux, the young student in love with Manon. As with Hayward, Sambé’s performance reveals the destruction of a young life with complete honesty, and it is also gloriously danced, with the spiralling turns and long, long arabesques of his first solo radiating right out into the auditorium. The pair dance so well together, with a joint instinct for musicality, movement and emotion, that they have become one of The Royal Ballet’s most treasured partnerships. They were let down at this performance only by the slow pace of Massenet’s music, under the baton of conductor Koen Kessels, which tended to dissipate the intensity of MacMillan’s passionate choreography.
Sissens, new to me in the role of Lescaut, was yet another example of fine casting. He danced with pin-sharp accuracy and beautifully pointed feet, but he portrayed a man who was vicious and dangerous, especially when drunk. Sissens was particularly good at depicting Lescaut’s moral bankruptcy, and you could truly believe this thoroughly disreputable character would have no reservations not only about selling his mistress to the highest bidder but also his sister. Likewise, O’Sullivan gave a strong performance as Lescaut’s Mistress, her dancing buoyant and expansive, and her character showing a strong mercenary streak beneath the smiles.
With excellent support from the remainder of the company, all of them superb in evoking the decadence of 18th-century France, and Nicholas Georgiadis’ striking sets and gorgeous costumes looking magnificent in the stage lighting by Jacopo Pantani, Manon was as bitingly savage as ever. MacMillan does not attempt to prettify this degenerate world of appalling injustice, and, rather shockingly, the ballet continues to draw many parallels between this pitiless period of history and that of our own.
