© Camilla Greenwell In January of this year we saw Erina Takahashi dance her final performance of Giselle in English National Ballet’s wonderful Mary Skeaping production.  It was quite an occasion.  Erina joined ENB in 1996, almost three decades ago, and attained the rank of Lead Principal in 2007.  So she has been an integral ..read more

Gender Fluidity Now The Sleeping Beauty now When the curtains rises on Marius Petipa’s 1890 The Sleeping Beauty, we are left in no doubt that we are entering a world of rigid codes in terms of clothing, etiquette, and hierarchy.  And as the ballet progresses, we quickly become aware of its binary nature, with clear-cut distinctions between good ..read more

Akram Khan’s Giselle Revisited If Tamara Rojo’s sole achievement during her years as Artistic Director of English National Ballet (2012-2022) had been the commissioning of Akram Khan’s Giselle, she would have made a tremendous contribution to the ballet repertoire.  Such are our thoughts both before and after the Sadler’s Wells opening night of the production in September 2024. Of ..read more

We are a tad nervous.  Northern Ballet is one of our favourite companies: we’ve travelled out of London to watch them perform Cathy Marston’s Jane Eyre and Victoria, as well as David Nixon’s Cinderella and The Great Gatsby.  But this is Romeo and Juliet, and over the years there has been such a plethora of productions to see in this country, and even a cluster of celebrated versions created for, or ..read more

Why does Lescaut’s Mistress not have a name? Katja Khaniukova and Jeffrey Cirio in Manon. Photo: Laurent Liotardo Since we first started watching Kenneth MacMillan’s 1974 Manon in the late ’70s we have found the role of Lescaut’s Mistress to be an increasingly engaging and fascinating character.     As you will likely know, the Mistress is one of four protagonists, the other three being Manon herself, her Lover Des Grieux, and her Brother Lescaut.  Famously, to aid her preparation for creating the role of the Mistress, Monica Mason read the whole of Abb ..read more

The 19th Century Canon Now Last summer Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) brought their new production of Marius Petipa’s 1869 Don Quixote to London, after it had premiered four months earlier at the Birmingham Hippodrome.  With the exception of The Nutcracker, which is pretty much obligatory fare for any major ballet company (as discussed in our very first British Ballet Now & Then post, this was the first work from the 19th century ballet canon to have been performed by BRB since Carlos Acosta took over as Artistic Director in January 2020.  The premiere had originally been planned ..read more

In September 2021 we attended a gala at Sadler’s Wells organised by Putrov Productions to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence and its country’s “rich cultural heritage” (“7 SEP: Ukrainian Ballet Gala”).  Despite the fact that the National Company dates back to the 19th century, this was their very first appearance in the UK, and a spirit of comradeship reigned over the evening as dancers from British ballet companies, international Ukrainian stars, and the Kyiv company shared the stage.  Integral to the notion of independence was the eagerness to innovate: so in ..read more

Like many of you, no doubt, we were perplexed when the BBC announced at the start of this year that the Royal Ballet would be staging a brand-new production of Romeo and Juliet. For one thing, we had already booked tickets for what we understood to be Kenneth MacMillan’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s 1597 play; for another, why on earth would the Company want to stage a different production? At the premiere in 1965, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev evidently received forty-three curtain calls (“The Royal Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet”).  Since then the work has been staged regularly, f ..read more

At British Ballet Now & Then we have been writing posts on English National Ballet’s annual Emerging Dancer Competition since 2018.  To us it seems a really important event.  So often we have enjoyed watching the contestants participate in the competition and then seen them develop into versatile artists.  Winners that come to mind are Aitor Arieta, Dani Mccormick and Julia Conway.  But even participants who do not win any prize seem to gain from the experience.  One dancer who fits this description and shines in so many roles is ..read more

Despite its sumptuous score by Alexander Glazunov, and Marius Petipa’s glorious choreography, the 1898 Raymonda is one of the 19th century classics that has rarely been performed in its entirety by British ballet companies.  Although there is a tradition of staging excerpts from the ballet, generally from the final act wedding celebrations of the eponymous Raymonda, English National Ballet’s announcement of a new full-length production of the ballet came as a surprise to us.   RAYMONDA ( Act III ) ; Donald MacLeary and Svetlana Beriosova ( as Jean de Brienne ..read more