Tag Archives: Koen Kessels
Posted on 26 October 2023
The current Royal Ballet double bill starts with a marvellous new creation called Anemoi, choreographed by one of the company’s senior dancers Valentino Zucchetti. Its title refers to the Greek wind gods and its choreography shows the effect the wind has on the world around it. The second ballet, The Cellist by Cathy Marston is …
Read more >
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 …
Read more >
Posted on 3 March 2022
In the Royal Ballet’s 2018 production of Swan Lake the evil Von Rothbart appears in two guises, one as the sorcerer who has turned young maidens into swans, the other at court as the queen’s confidant, looking very much like a younger version of Vladimir Putin. This invites comparisons with Russian history — see my review …
Read more >
Posted on 14 December 2020
What a treat to be back at the Royal Opera House to watch The Nutcracker, despite the social distancing for dancers and audience. My review in The Article.
Read more >
Posted on 18 May 2018
Bravo! Liam Scarlett has put the magic back into Swan Lake. Short tutus for the swans have returned, and the ever-changing patterns they make on stage give life and strength to the white acts. From the stalls you may not be able to appreciate them — I was in the Amphi — but with 26 …
Read more >
Posted on 19 May 2017
The main focus of this mixed bill is its final item, Liam Scarlett’s new work to Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. The abundant melody of this 1940 composition allows ideas to emerge in and around each other, skilfully expressed in Scarlett’s choreography. For the forces of nature in this music, brilliantly conducted by Koen Kessels, Scarlett and …
Read more >
Posted on 17 March 2017
This wonderful triple bill of modern ballets sees revivals of two very successful works and a new ballet by Crystal Pite, all superbly conducted by Koen Kessels. First came David Dawson’s Human Seasons, inspired by Keats’s poem that refers to human life in terms of its spring, summer, autumn and winter. Dawson refers to a …
Read more >
Posted on 16 February 2017
The second run of Sleeping Beauty this season started in grand style with Marianela Nuñez as Princess Aurora and Vadim Muntagirov as her prince, and a cast close to that for the live cinema relay at the end of the month. In Act I Nuñez showed the thrill of a teenager at her own coming …
Read more >
Posted on 5 May 2016
Liam Scarlett’s interest in German myth and murderous intrigue, already apparent in his ballets Hansel and Gretel and Sweet Violets, now finds its full flowering in Mary Shelley’s 1818 story of Victor Frankenstein. This meditation on loss, the yearning for love, and fear of the outsider shows the folly of taking on oneself the gods’ …
Read more >
Posted on 13 February 2016
This was the first outing at Covent Garden for each of these three ballets, and for Christopher Wheeldon’s new narrative work Strapless a world premiere, framed here by the two abstract pieces. The first, After the Rain is a lovely ballet in two sections to music by Arvo Pärt, premiered by the New York City …
Read more >
Posted on 20 September 2015
Things are looking up at the Royal Ballet with new music director Koen Kessels. From the first bars it was clear that a new hand was at work, and his conducting on the opening night of the Company’s new season put recent musical performances deservedly into the shadows. At the end of the first Act …
Read more >
Posted on 25 May 2013
Choreographer Wayne McGregor’s strength is as a visual artist, and this ballet is based on a fairy tale by Audrey Niffenegger, a novelist and visual artist. A postman falls in love with a raven that gives birth to their child the Raven Girl, who yearns to be bird rather than human. Despite the range of …
Read more >
Posted on 24 October 2012
This triple bill, titled Opposites Attract, concludes with Hans van Manen’s fine 1971 ballet Grosse Fuge to orchestral music by Beethoven, but in the meantime we are treated to two more recent works with music of a lighter texture. The programme starts with David Bintley’s Take Five to jazz music created by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. This is fun. Lighting …
Read more >
Posted on 16 March 2012
London Coliseum audiences who went to Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann recently saw one version of Coppélia in the first act of that opera. It involves a young man who falls for a mechanical doll built by Dr. Coppélius, based on an 1816 tale by E.T.A. Hoffmann himself. This ballet was created in Paris in 1870 less than two months before the …
Read more >
Posted on 14 March 2012
Essential for first rate ballet are music and choreography, and this double bill provides them in spades, along with some very fine dancing. Both ballets involve young lovers splitting apart, yet reunited at the end, and both are choreographed by one of the great masters of the twentieth century, Frederick Ashton. His creations were entirely new, the …
Read more >
Posted on 30 March 2011
… the nasty stepmother [was] brilliantly portrayed by Marion Tait. Her ball dress was stunning, and when the prince brings the slipper to the house she follows her awful daughters in trying it on . . . before Cinderella herself comes forward.
Read more >
Posted on 16 January 2011
Giselle is a jewel in the Royal Ballet’s repertoire, and this production by Peter Wright carefully preserves the nineteenth century mime sequences in Act I, where Giselle’s mother warns about the legend of the wilis who will capture some carefree young fellow and make him dance to his death. The young Count Albrecht, sowing his wild …
Read more >