Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 08/02/2017

Max Richter : Woolf Works

Artists of The Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Koen Kessels

Bolshoi Ballet (HD broadcast), 22/01/2016

Tchaikovsky : The Sleeping Beauty

Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Pavel Sorokin

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 02/11/2016

Tchaikovsky / Martinu : Anastasia

Artists of The Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Simon Hewett

Ballet Black, 28/10/2016

Cristaux (chor. Arthur Pita, mus. Steve Reich)
To Begin, Begin (chor. Christopher Marney, mus. Dustin O'Halloran)
Storyville (chor. Christopher Hampson, mus. Kurt Weill)

Bolshoi Ballet (HD broadcast), 16/10/2016

Shostakovich : The Golden Age

Artists of the Boshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Pavel Klinichev

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 18/05/2016

Lowell Liebermann : Frankenstein

Artists of The Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Koen Kessels

Bolshoi Ballet (HD broadcast), 10/04/2016

Minkus : Don Quixote

The Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Pavel Sorokin

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 06/04/2016

Adam : Giselle

The Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Barry Wordsworth

Capitole de Toulouse, 18/03/2016

Deletes : Coppélia

Ballet du Capitole
Orchestre national du Capitole
Nathan Fifield

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 26/01/2016

Rachmaninoff : Rhapsody
Messager : The Two Pigeons

Robert Clark, piano
Artists of the Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Barry Wordsworth

Bolshoi Ballet (HD broadcast), 24/01/2016

Shostakovich : The Taming of the Shrew

Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Igor Dronov

Scottish Ballet, 13/01/2016

Prokofiev : Cinderella

Artists of Scottish Ballet
Scottish Ballet Orchestra
Atvars Lakstigala

Bolshoi Ballet (HD broadcast), 06/12/2015

The Lady of the Camellias (chor. John Neumeier, mus. Chopin)

Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Pyotr Chuknov, piano
Alexei Melentyev, piano
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Pavel Sorokin

What was THAT...?

What it was supposed to be was a production of The Nutcracker by one of those itinerant Eastern European companies that roam around the UK two or three times a year.  Now, I'm not daft.  I don't expect miracles, especially when they come to this city and use a venue very little suited to the performance of ballet (and that escapes me too - surely there are some proscenium arch auditoriums in town that could take these companies for a couple of nights, at no greater expense than the Concert Hall?).  They schlepp around the country, the dancers underpaid and overworked, with their shoestring budget productions, (usually) badly recorded soundtracks, and minimal and often old-fashioned staging values, but that's the world of dance for you.  A dancer - a good dancer, particularly - is a wondrous thing, an athlete swathed in beauty, driven by a vocation as all-consuming as holy orders, so that even under the patchiest of circumstances, they can still communicate their own passion for their art, and their devotion to their craft.  I was merely expecting an honest evening's entertainment; it's the only Nutcracker I'm going to see live on stage this season.  What I got was the most charmless and graceless performance I've ever seen! So, that's as much of a review as I'm going to give, and the company concerned deserves no recognition, not even a name.

[Next : 21st November]

Royal Ballet (HD broadcast), 12/11/2015

Viscera (chor. Liam Scarlett, mus. Lowell Liebermann)
Afternoon of a Faun (chor. Jerome Robbins, mus. Debussy)
Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux (chor. Balanchine, mus. Tchaikovsky)
Carmen (chor. Carlos Acosta, mus. Bizet, arr. Yates)

Robert Clark, piano
Fiona Kimm, mezzo-soprano
Royal Opera Extra Chorus
Artists of the Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Emmanuel Plasson
Martin Yates (Carmen)

RNZB, 29/10/2015

Adam : Giselle

Artists of the Royal New Zealand Ballet
Orchestra Wellington
Michael Lloyd (pre-recorded soundtrack)

The Trocks, 20/10/2015

Tchaikovsky : Swan Lake (Act 2)
Drigo : Le Corsaire - Pas de Deux
J.S. Bach : Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
Saint-Saëns : The Swan
Minkus : Don Quixote (extracts)

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte-Carlo

Bolshoi Ballet (HD Broadcast), 11/10/2015

Adam : Giselle

Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet
Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Pavel Klinichev

Paris Opera Ballet (HD Broadcast), 01/10/2015

Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward (Benjamin Millepied, chor.; Nico Muhly, mus.)
Opus19/The Dreamer (Jerome Robbins, chor.; Prokofiev, mus.)
Theme and Variations (George Balanchine, chor.; Tchaikovsky, mus.)

Artists of the Ballet of the Opéra National de Paris
Frédéric Laroque, violin
Orchestra of the Opéra National de Paris
Maxime Pascal

Scottish Ballet, 24/04/2015

Exalt (Marc Brew, choreography; Nils Frahm, music)
5 Tangos (Hans van Manen, choreography; Astor Piazzolla, music)

Artists of Scottish Ballet
Indepen-dance 4
(pre-recorded soundtracks)