Tag Archives: Fumi Kaneko
Posted on 30 March 2023
Tick tock goes the clock on the backdrop at the start, reappearing at the end of Act 2 towards midnight, projected on the ballroom floor. This is the new Royal Ballet production of Prokofiev’s Cinderella using Frederick Ashton’s choreography, first seen in 1948 with the nasty step-sisters played by Robert Helpmann and Ashton himself. See …
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Posted on 1 December 2019
This year over December and January the Royal Ballet presents Sleeping Beauty and Coppélia, the first a wistful hope for a reawakening of the French monarchy after a hundred-year sleep, the second a merry spoof on romanticism — see my review in The Article.
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Posted on 4 December 2018
Tchaikovsky’s final ballet contains some of his most glorious music, but you wouldn’t know it from this dull and occasionally too forceful rendering of the score conducted by Barry Wordsworth. A pity too because the dancing was superb. As Clara, Anna Rose O’Sullivan was full of lightness and youthful wonder, with beautiful arm movements, and …
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Posted on 9 December 2015
This Christmas sees the Royal Ballet reviving Nutcracker — absent last year in favour of Don Q and Alice — in the Peter Wright production that has been with the Company for over thirty years. Yet it still looks entirely fresh, as did the dancers on opening night with Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell making …
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Posted on 23 October 2013
For dancing and characterisation of the roles this second performance in the current run was close to perfection. Steven McRae and Evgenia Obraztsova, guest principal from the Bolshoi Ballet, took us to an ethereal world beyond technique. When we first encounter her with her nurse she charmed us with her airy grace, and her sweetness …
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Posted on 30 December 2012
What a terrific triple bill this is, and on the evening of 29 December it was beautifully danced. Among cast changes in Raymonda, Zenaida Yanowsky and Ryoichi Hirano replaced Nuñez and Pennefather in the main roles, and Ricardo Cervera replaced Whitehead in the Hungarian dance. Cervera showed a fine cutting edge and dramatic sense, and his …
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Posted on 16 December 2011
This performance, broadcast by live cinema relay, had a super cast along with plenty of musical excitement from the conductor and the orchestra, right from the very beginning of the Prologue. As we start, at the christening of the baby princess, those wonderful fairy variations were danced by Yuhui Choe, Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Fumi Kaneko, Iohna Loots, and Emma Maguire. Yuhui Choe in particular was wonderfully …
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