After 23 years with The Royal Ballet, last night Zenaida Yanowsky gave her final curtain call on the Covent Garden stage. Her final performance at the Royal Opera House was in Marguerite and Armand where she danced alongside Roberto Bolle. Her last performance with the Company, however, will be in Australia in July, performing Paulina in The […]
Royal Opera House
Photo album of tonight’s Royal Ballet programme with Zenaida Yanowsky and Roberto Bolle as Marguerite and Armand
In a few minutes, the curtain goes up at The Royal Opera house of a mixed programme of Frederick Ashton gems. It is a special evening because this will be the last role that Zenaida Yanowsky dances on the Covent Garden stage before she retires. She will be dancing with Roberto Bolle in Marguerite and Armand, and again June […]
La Scala, Milan: Opera and Recital Season 2017 – 2018
A pleasing new season at La Scala seems to tick all the right boxes, with half the programming dedicated to the Italian repertoire, some rarities, important international operas and a world premiere. The season will also mark the 40th Anniversary of Riccardo Chailly’s collaboration with the theatre, and the 95th birthday of Franco Zeffirelli. The […]
Photo album: Opening night at The Royal Ballet includes premiere of Liam Scarlett’s Symphonic Dances
The latest mixed-programme from The Royal Ballet was unveiled last night and will run until the end of this month. “Virtuoso dance from The Royal Ballet in a programme that includes Forsythe and Balanchine classics and Wheeldon’s 2016 narrative ballet” also saw the world premiere of Liam Scarlett’s new creation for the Company, Symphonic Dances. The […]
Sergei Polunin returns to dance with Natalia Osipova at The Royal Ballet
Former Royal Ballet Principal Sergei Polunin will partner Natalia Osipova in June, when he returns to dance in Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand. Other casting sees another former Royal Ballet Principal, Alessandra Ferri, together with her fellow Italian Federico Bonelli, and the third Italian in the lineup is Roberto Bolle who will be partnering Zenaida […]
In conversation with Luca Pisaroni: back to Milan with his La Scala debut
Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni will make his house debut at La Scala in 2017 as Leporello. It will be only the second opera he has sung in Italy. The performances of Don Giovanni are just before his 42nd birthday. Astonishing: a prophet is not without honour save in his own country. I grew up musically outside […]
Interview with composer Errollyn Wallen – exploring roads less travelled
Here’s the opening of Errollyn Wallen’s official biography: Born in Belize, Errollyn Wallen gave up her training at the Dance Theater of Harlem, New York to study composition at the universities of London and Cambridge. The life of one of the world’s foremost female composers is as eclectic as her music. She has no fear […]
The Royal Ballet’s new star-crossed lovers: Yasmine Naghdi and Matthew Ball
Yasmine Naghdi and Matthew Ball are about to make a joint début as the young lovers in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. It is part of the current run at the Royal Opera House to mark the ballet’s 50th Anniversary. For these young dancers – she’s a Soloist, he’s a First Artist – it’s […]
Yasmine Naghdi – the birth of a ballerina
Yasmine Naghdi was born on 25 March 1992 in London. Everyone I meet says, ‘Where are you from?’, and I say, ‘I’m from London’, and they say, ‘No, where are you really from?’. Well, she has an exotic name and a somewhat exotic look but, although she also has an exciting mix of blood running […]
The Royal Opera House’s £27m ‘open up’ project to go ahead
The £27m scheme to ‘open up’ the Royal Opera House in London has been given the go ahead by Westminster City Council. The plans will make the entrances and street-level public spaces of the Opera House more open and inviting to the public. Alex Beard, the Chief Executive of Covent Garden, said, The ‘Open Up’ project aims […]
