Swan Lake
‘La Scala was maddening’: an interview with John Macfarlane, the finest set designer of his generation
Pantomime season is upon us, and unless your taste in colour runs no further than Smarties, there is no more…
The problem with Swan Lake
Over this summer you can see Swan Lake performed at the Royal Opera House by the Royal Ballet; at the…
Why the Arts Council should kill off ENO and ENB
It is high time the Arts Council put ENO and ENB out of their misery, says Rupert Christiansen
The magic of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
Louise Levene on the male ballet troupe that realised the ballerinas have all the best lines
I miss the faint hiss of a spinning foot: Royal Ballet – Live reviewed
Ballet lovers driven square-eyed by a drip feed of livestreaming and archive footage have been pining for the patter of…
Silly but stellar: Bolshoi Ballet’s Spartacus reviewed
It’s togas-a-go-go as the Bolshoi bring Yuri Grigorovich’s 1956 ballet Spartacus to the Royal Opera House. Oh dear, I did…
Where would ballet be without Marius Petipa?
Should the man on the Clapham omnibus ever turn his mind to ballet, he is bound to envisage the work…
January as you would wish it: Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs reviewed
The Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs is January as you would wish it. No slush, no new-year sales, no streaming chest…
Proper tutus, gorgeous designs, first-rate dancing: Royal Ballet’s new Swan Lake reviewed
The Royal Ballet’s 2016 Frankenstein was a masterclass in how not to make narrative dance and the news that Liam…
The nymphs are hit and miss, but Osipova is a witty, multifaceted Sylvia: the Royal Ballet’s Sylvia reviewed
You can pay homage to a ballet classic or you can tear it up and reinvent it. Both approaches were…
Wayne’s world
Ballet would have been an obvious revenue stream for Sadler’s Wells when it reopened back in 1998 but straight-up classics…
Mad about the boy
Tall, handsome boys with long legs and beautifully arched feet do not grow on trees (if only). Every ballet director…
Predictably meh: Scottish Ballet’s new Swan Lake reviewed
Every ballet company wants a box-office earner. But why Scottish Ballet’s leader Christopher Hampson kept on at David Dawson until…
Dance from Edinburgh: a flamenco master who could tell classical ballet a thing or two
Every August when London dims, Edinburgh calls, promising nothing less than ‘the greats of the arts’ at the International Festival.…
Will the real Swan Lake please stand up
Ismene Brown unpicks the great enigma of ballet theatre
ENB’s Swan Lake: the rights and wrongs of ballet thighs
There’s been heated disagreement over the past week about what’s right and wrong. Is the rocket-propelled ex-Bolshoi enfant terrible Ivan…
Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin: ‘The KGB put a microphone in our marriage bed’
Ismene Brown talks to the Russian super-couple Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin about ballet, opera and the KGB
Romeo and Juliet: a Mariinsky masterclass
According to some textbooks, one thing the fathers of Soviet choreography hastened to remove from ballet was that awkward-looking language…
A swan to die for at Sadler’s Wells
Swans, swans, more swans. If the lifespan of a dance critic were calculated by the number of performances of Swan…
