Liam Scarlett's first full-length ballet is revived for the first time running from tonight, 5 March 2019 until 23 March. Victor Frankenstein is played by Federico Bonelli, Elizabeth by Laura Morera, and The Creature is Wei Wang. Scarlett's production uses music by Lowell Liebermann with magnificent designs from John Macfarlane, beautifully and dramatically lit by … [Read more...] about Photo Album: tonight’s opening cast of Frankenstein, The Royal Ballet
Luke Jennings
Matthew Ball in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake
Luke Jennings – The Observer From the moment of his first entrance, it’s Ball’s show. As well as being an assured technician, he’s a dance actor of real charisma. As the Swan, he’s dangerous and commanding, all sinew and hissing aggression; and as the Stranger he’s as disdainful as he is sexually predatory, cutting a ruthless swath through the female courtiers before finally, … [Read more...] about Matthew Ball in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake
Compare and contrast: The Sunday Times vs The Observer
While the opinions expressed by theatre critics are always different, the five or six reviews that I read on major productions of plays, operas and ballets nevertheless head in the same general direction. How delightful it was, therefore, to read Debra Craine in The Sunday Times and Luke Jennings in The Observer on the Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet's Coppélia! Neither is … [Read more...] about Compare and contrast: The Sunday Times vs The Observer
“Who’s pulling the strings in Russia’s ballet revolution?” asks The Observer’s Luke Jennings
The ballet world was surprised when Nacho Duato (ex-director of Spain's Compañía Nacional de Danza) was headhunted by St Petersburg's Mikhailovsky Theatre, maybe enticed by the fat wallet of general director Vladimir Kekhman. He has now been at the company's helm for a year. When Mariinsky star Leonid Sarafanov jumped on board a couple of months later fans were perplexed at him … [Read more...] about “Who’s pulling the strings in Russia’s ballet revolution?” asks The Observer’s Luke Jennings
Christopher Wheeldon explains why his Alice ballet isn’t a slow-motion car crash
Luke Jennings, summing up the critics' verdicts on the 'McCartney Ballet' in the Guardian's theatre blog, reflected on unsuccessful narrative ballets: Ballet's gatekeepers tend to almost infinite credulity, and this, to a large extent, is why there are so many bad narrative ballets. Here in the UK there are dance directors who understand the nature and importance of story … [Read more...] about Christopher Wheeldon explains why his Alice ballet isn’t a slow-motion car crash
When critics are artists: Luke Jennings on Les Patineurs
In one of the most elegant, poetic and precise pieces of criticism I've read this year The Observer's Luke Jennings sums up the essence of Ashton's 'Les Patineurs' in a single paragraph: 'Les Patineurs', Frederick Ashton's 1938 skating ballet, knows exactly when to call it a day. It ends with one of the most unforgettable images in the Royal Ballet repertoire: the Blue Boy, … [Read more...] about When critics are artists: Luke Jennings on Les Patineurs
