Tag Archives: Meaghan Grace Hinkis

Nutcracker, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, 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.

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Nutcracker, Royal Ballet, ROH, 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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Swan Lake, Royal Ballet, ROH, Covent Garden, 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 …

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Nutcracker, Royal Ballet, ROH, Covent Garden, December 2017

In this beautiful and perennially popular Peter Wright production, Drosselmeyer appears in his workshop at the start, gazing at a portrait of his nephew Hans-Peter, now maliciously trapped inside the Nutcracker Doll. To escape he must slay the Mouse King, which becomes a turning point when Clara clobbers the monster with her shoe, and in …

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Royal Ballet Triple: Serenade/ Sweet Violets/ DGV, Covent Garden, May 2014

Liam Scarlett’s dark narrative ballet Sweet Violets was beautifully framed here by Balanchine’s Serenade and Wheeldon’s Danse à grande vitesse. The Balanchine work, his first in America, originated from a series of evening classes he gave in New York, the seventeen girls at the start being the number who attended the first class. Among sixteen …

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Royal Ballet Triple: Rhapsody/ Tetractys—The Art of Fugue/ Gloria, Covent Garden, February 2014

When Frederick Ashton choreographed Rhapsody to Rachmaninov’s Variations on a theme by Paganini he created the principal male role on Mikhail Baryshnikov, and the quick darting steps were sublimely performed here by Steven McRae. He has the power, he has the leaps, and his fast chainés towards the end were stunning. It was an extraordinary …

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Mayerling, with Acosta and Benjamin, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, May 2013

Retiring from the Royal Ballet this season is Leanne Benjamin, who made her debut with the Company as Mary Vetsera in Mayerling in 1992. She rounds off an immensely varied career by including the same role, and what a performance she gave last night. With Carlos Acosta in the dark role of Crown Prince Rudolf, …

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