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Dance

Wheeldon’s new ballet lacks guts: Royal Ballet’s Strapless reviewed

The golden boy is weedy with the dresses - swish, swish - and laughable with the sex. And Mark-Anthony Turnage’s score is unmemorable and prescriptive

20 February 2016

9:00 AM

20 February 2016

9:00 AM

After the Rain/Strapless/Within the Golden Hour

Royal Opera House, in rep until 11 March

How could it possibly go wrong? The magnetic, seething Russian star Natalia Osipova playing the tragic woman in John Singer Sargent’s magnetic, enigmatic portrait of Madame X, all alabaster skin, black dress and arrogantly sexy profile. A Mark-Anthony Turnage-commissioned score, a top-prestige Bolshoi co-production, and enough scenery to rebuild Canary Wharf.

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