Matthew Ball

#OurHouseToYourHouse: tonight’s Royal Opera House’s 2nd live concert and next week’s programme

20 June 2020 by gramilano Leave a Comment

Tonight is the second of the Live from Covent Garden concerts at 7.30pm BST which will be broadcast via the Royal Opera House website from Covent Garden. These are the first live performances at the Royal Opera House since the building closed its doors to the public on 17 March.

Tonight’s concert includes a performance of Albert Schönberg’s reduction of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with tenor David Butt Philip, mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly and soloists of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Principal dancer of The Royal Ballet Vadim Muntagirov will perform Frederick Ashton’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits. The solo was initially created in 1978 for Anthony Dowell and is a showcase of balance and poise.

Interview with The Royal Ballet’s Lauren Cuthbertson – so much passion

2 May 2020 by gramilano Leave a Comment

On 14 March 2020, The Royal Ballet’s principal dancer Lauren Cuthbertson was dancing Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. A rare honour. She was dancing with former Royal Ballet dancer and Mariinsky principal dancer Xander Parish and cheered on by her mother, her boyfriend and his parents. Two days later, they were returning to London on the Gatwick Express when a message arrived: Royal Ballet classes, rehearsals and performances were suspended with immediate effect because of the spread of the coronavirus.

I’d heard from friends in Europe and America that things were shutting down, so I knew what was coming. So we drove out of London, and now I’m in the countryside with my boyfriend and his parents. I’m lucky to have a garden – if I were in London, it would be a very different story.

Free reading from Dancing Times – the complete archive is available from 2000

1 April 2020 by gramilano Leave a Comment

Dancing Times has opened up the last 20 years of its archives to all until 7 April. The monthly magazine has its think pieces, reviews, articles about technique, dance’s past and present, but I always head first to the interviews. Here are some tidbits I’ve come across…

Photo Album: Royal Ballet first night with Dances at a Gathering and The Cellist

17 February 2020 by gramilano Leave a Comment

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 […]

Photo Album: The Royal Ballet in Onegin with Natalia Osipova, Reece Clarke, Francesca Hayward, Matthew Ball and Gary Avis

19 January 2020 by gramilano Leave a Comment

John Cranko became acquainted with Alexander Pushkin’s verse-novel Eugene Onegin when he choreographed the dances for Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s opera of the same name in 1952. He created his own distinctive version of Pushkin’s work in 1965 for the Stuttgart Ballet. Onegin displays all of Cranko’s genius as a narrative choreographer, featuring finely drawn characters who are transformed by […]

Photos and full programme of Margot Fonteyn, A Celebration with The Royal Ballet

9 June 2019 by gramilano 2 Comments

Last night, 8 June 2019, The Royal Ballet celebrated the centenary of the birth of its most famous ballerina, Dame Margot Fonteyn, who was born on 18 May 1919. A performance of The Firebird, currently in a triple bill, was followed by a gala of extracts from ballets representing some of Fonteyn’s most celebrated roles. […]

The Royal Ballet in Japan and Los Angeles – dates and casting

6 June 2019 by gramilano 1 Comment

The Royal Ballet tours to Japan and Los Angeles this summer, presenting signature work from the Company’s repertory, a world premiere by Wayne McGregor and community engagement projects. Tokyo, Bunka Kaikan Carlos Acosta’s Don Quixote, 21 – 26 June Yokohama, Kanagawa Kenwin Hall Royal Ballet Gala, 29 – 30 June Los Angeles, The Music Center […]

Photo Album: first look at The Royal Ballet’s new triple bill

4 June 2019 by gramilano Leave a Comment

The Firebird / A Month in the Country / Symphony in C The curtain has just gone up on The Royal Ballet’s latest triple bill and here are the first photos. The flash of a firebird, a family sent into a spin and a classical ballet explosion. Michel Fokine’s The Firebird with Igor Stravinsky’s music is a […]

Photo Album: first look at tonight’s premiere of Medusa with The Royal Ballet

8 May 2019 by gramilano 4 Comments

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui new work, Medusa, opens at The Royal Ballet this evening, together with revivals of Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour and Crystal Pite’s ballet exploring the refugee crisis, Flight Pattern. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Medusa is his first work for The Royal Ballet. Medusa Choreography: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui Music: Henry Purcell Electronic music: […]

Matthew Ball in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake

16 December 2018 by gramilano Leave a Comment

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 […]