William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated was created for the Paris Opera Ballet who have performed it at home and abroad since 1987. The piece entered the repertoire of Dresden’s Semperoper Ballett in 2006 and now they are about to invade the Palais Garnier and perform it on the stage it was created for; […]
Sleeping Beauty
Royal Ballet’s 70th anniversary revival of The Sleeping Beauty – casting and photos
The Sleeping Beauty reopened the Royal Opera House after the war in February 1946 when the Company first took up residence in Covent Garden with Margot Fonteyn dancing the role of Princess Aurora. Now, 70 years later, The Royal Ballet will be performing their signature piece from Wednesday 21 December 2016 until Tuesday 14 March 2017. The 70th anniversary […]
Swan Lake at La Scala – Alexei Ratmansky puts the ballet’s heart where it belongs
Alexei Ratmansky’s reconstruction of the Petipa/Ivanov Swan Lake is as eye-opening as was his version of The Sleeping Beauty: it is fresh, it is vital, it effectively tells a story and communicates right to the heart with both joy and pathos. Going back to Vladimir Stepanov’s original notations has brought forth something stimulating and rich […]
La Scala dancers talk about being in Ratmansky’s Swan Lake
The new director of La Scala’s ballet company, Mauro Bigonzetti, has chosen to present the new version of Swan Lake with in-house casting “to help our dancers grow”. This is very unusual at La Scala, at least for the big repertory pieces. The young talents are Principal dancer Nicoletta Manni who will open the run […]
Ratmansky explains why his Swan Lake is arriving bigger and better at La Scala
Alexei Ratmansky’s reconstruction of Marius Petipa’s Swan Lake was rapturously received by almost all the critics when it premiered in Zurich in February. Alastair Macaulay in The New York Times said, “This Swan Lake has become the one by which we should judge all others.” This touchstone production, then, is about to open in Milan, […]
Old and new in English National Ballet’s 2016-2017 Season, Spring/Summer
The English National Ballet’s Spring/Summer 2017 season sees a refreshing nod to the company’s past with a revival of Rudolf Nureyev’s Romeo & Juliet during August of 2017 when the company makes a return to The Royal Festival Hall, its old hunting ground that it hasn’t revisited since 2008. Tamara Rojo has shown with her recent programming that […]
Sergei Polunin replaces David Hallberg in Ratmansky’s Sleeping Beauty at La Scala
Sergei Polunin will replace David Hallberg in the performances of Alexei Ratmasky’s The Sleeping Beauty at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. Polunin will partner Svetlana Zakharova for three performances on 26 September, 2 and 6 October, and will share the stage with Massimo Murru who will dance Carabosse for those performances. It was Polunin who stepped into […]
A good, old-fashioned gala? Pignotti salutes Nureyev
Luigi Pignotti was Rudolf Nureyev’s massager then manager. He now has a company which produces evenings of ballet, flamenco and tango… though not together. It was, maybe, obvious that he would dedicate something to the memory of his old friend and still one of the ballet world’s most talked about personalities. For several years he […]
Amici della Scala celebrates Lila de Nobili with Frigerio, Fracci, Bruson and …
The annual presentation of the latest additions to the series of books produced by the Amici della Scala (Friends of La Scala) is quite an event. It is held in the grand foyer on the first floor of Teatro alla Scala with the sovrintendente of the theatre, the unstoppable Anna Crespi who founded the association […]
Introducing… Brandon Lawrence, Birmingham Royal Ballet
Q&A When did you start dancing? I started dancing at 8 years old and then I joined the Royal Ballet School full time at 14 Why did you start dancing? I’m not sure why… I was probably influenced through films and TV. Which dancer inspired you most as a child? As a child Carlos Acosta […]
