La Bohème with Calleja and Giannattasio, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, May 2012

This production by John Copley, first staged in 1974, has been revived twenty-four times so far — not surprising since it just gets everything right. So indeed did Joseph Calleja as Rodolfo, bringing real depth and lyricism to the role.

From the very start Calleja exhibited a catching youthful energy, and after taking Mimi’s cold hand in his and launching into Che gelida manina he hit a wonderful high point when he sings of her pretty eyes as two thieves stealing his jewels (Talor dal mio forzieri …). Suddenly this is no longer some bohemian inhabitant of Paris but Rodolfo the poet, a thaumaturge of romantic invention whose soft notes floated like birds on the wing.

At the Café Momus, all images ROH/Hoban

In Acts I and II, Calleja sang everyone else off the stage, but following the first interval, Carmen Giannattasio as Mimi warmed up after a nervous start. She was making her debut in the role at Covent Garden, and finally hit the mark in her Act III duet with Marcello when she seeks him out at the inn. By Act IV she had become a fine match for Calleja, and in her curtain call she bent down to kiss the stage.

The other bohemians all did well, with Fabio Capitanucci engaging as Marcello the painter, Thomas Oliemans attractive as Schaunard the musician, and Matthew Rose singing a fine bass as Colline the philosopher, who sells his coat to help poor consumptive Mimi. Nuccia Focile sang Musetta with rather heavy vibrato, and her stage presence failed to match the sparkle needed for her big role in Act II. Conducting by Semyon Bychkov was restrained at the start, but things warmed up musically later, and I loved the drawn-out silence just before Mimi dies in Act IV.

Act III: early morning outside the inn

That final act pitches merriment against tragedy as the four bohemians clown around before Musetta and Mimi arrive, and when Matthew Rose used a bat to hit the bread rolls for six, the audience applauded spontaneously. All great fun, but when Colline goes off to sell his coat, and Rodolfo and Mimi are left alone, Calleja and Giannattasio sang beautifully together, recalling the time they first met. When Colline returns, and Rodolfo suddenly realises something is amiss, Calleja’s distraught cries brought the house down. This is a Rodolfo not to be missed.

Finally after the curtain calls, Tony Hall came on stage with a fiftieth birthday cake for the director John Copley, celebrating a half century of brilliant work with the Royal Opera.

Performances with this cast continue until May 17 when it will be shown live on Big Screens throughout the country — for performance details click here.

The Flying Dutchman, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, April 2012

Sudden darkness in the auditorium … the orchestra struck up, and we were treated to great power and sensitivity from the baton of Edward Gardner. The silences were silent, the quiet passages quiet, and the loud passages with the chorus came over with huge force.

All images by Robert Workman

This new production by Jonathan Kent starts in the overture with a little girl being put to bed by her father Daland the sea captain. She dreams of the sea … the wild, windy sea, shown in video projections designed by Nina Dunn. Then as the opera gets underway we see huge designs by Paul Brown filling the stage from top to bottom, with lighting by Mark Henderson embracing the video effects and giving beautiful colour changes during Daland’s lyrical dialogue with his daughter, when salvation beckons.

Clive Bayley as Daland

In the end when the Dutchman chides his would-be saviour, Senta for her apparent unfaithfulness he silently vanishes from the party throng, she smashes a bottle . . . and it’s all over. She dies and he is redeemed.

Entrance of the Dutchman

James Creswell as the Dutchman exhibited superb restraint and nobility, both in voice and stage presence, and with Clive Bayley portraying Daland as an engagingly earnest father to Senta, this was a cast rich in wonderful bass tones. At the higher register, Stuart Skelton was a brilliant Erik, the young man in love with Senta. He is a star in the ENO firmament. As Senta herself, Orla Boylan gave a somewhat uneven vocal performance with some strong moments but a flaccid stage-presence.

Senta at the party

The Dutchman has been wandering the planet for countless years, and in Jonathan Kent’s production we see him dressed in a costume from two hundred years ago, contrasting with the girls working in a modern assembly shop where a costume party turns wild, threatening a gang rape of Senta . . . but suddenly the Dutchman’s ghostly crew sing powerfully from off-stage, scaring the living daylights out of the revellers. This is the same director who has produced Sweeney Todd now playing in the West End, so perhaps a bit of the Sweeney darkness has invaded Wagner, but that’s no bad thing, and the chorus carried it off superbly. They were wonderful.

The Flying Dutchman is the first of Wagner’s operas in the regular canon of ten, and this was the first time Edward Gardner has conducted any of them. I look forward to more!

Performances continue until May 23 — for details click here.

La Bohème, Opera Australia live cinema relay, April 2012

Transferring the action from late nineteenth century Paris to early 1930s Berlin allowed director Gale Edwards some extra scope with Act II. The Café Momus has become a cabaret venue, replete with scantily dressed girls in stockings and corsets, including one topless, and hints of bisexuality. With a superb performance by Taryn Fiebig as a very glamorous Musetta, this was a lot of fun. She sang beautifully and her wonderful stage presence reminded me of Deborah Voigt.

Alcindoro with Musetta in Act II, all images Jeff Busby

Yet Ms. Fiebig was not the only one with panache, as Shane Lowrencev’s tall and very camp Schaunard made a great entrance in Act I at the same time as the two errand boys with provisions.  Mimi was charmingly portrayed by Takesha Meshé Kizart, and the painter Marcello was very strongly sung and acted by José Carbo. I liked the touches of paint on his clothes, and his genial disposition, allied with a firmness that Musetta could find very attractive, was ideal for the role. After all she doesn’t think much of the wealthy Alcindoro in Act II and apparently far prefers the impecunious artist.

Mimi and Rodolfo

The bohemians’ garret is a huge room with a very high ceiling, light entering from windows at the top, and plenty of room for clowning around in Acts I and IV. But in Act I it is supposed to be very cold, yet Rodolfo was in shirt-sleeves and Mimi wore an elegant crochet shawl that would not have kept her very warm. It’s also supposed to be rather dark, yet in the cinema screening I saw — which was not the live relay that will be broadcast on April 24 — the lighting was over-bright, rendering the key all too visible. And in the close-ups Ji-Min Park as Rodolfo was covered in perspiration, which made him look ill. This was particularly odd in Act IV when it’s Mimi who is dying, and I wondered why he was laughing at some points. Very strange.

All in all, however, this staging gives a fine insight into the opera, with the four bohemians interacting very well together, and David Parkin as Colline giving a fine account of his beloved coat. In the cinema I was in the sound was too dry and bright, and Rodolfo’s voice did not show enough depth, but the other voices came over more successfully and the orchestra under the direction of Shao-Chia Lü gave a fine rendering of Puccini’s score, bringing out the emotive power of the music.

The cinema screening dates for Opera Australia’s season are: La Bohème 24th April; Lakmé 29th May; Don Giovanni 26th June; La Traviata 31st July; Turandot 28th August; Die tote Stadt 27th November; and then in 2013 The Pearl Fishers 29th January; and Madama Butterfly 26th March. For further information, including a list of cinema venues in the UK, click here.

Jakob Lenz, English National Opera, ENO, Hampstead Theatre, April 2012

It’s not often you see the main performer in an opera fall into deep water on stage. In fact I’m sure I’ve never seen such a thing before, and this was not metaphorical water. It was the real thing, and Andrew Shore gave a remarkable performance as the eponymous character.

Lenz and Friederike

Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz was a German dramatist, writer and poet, born in what is now Latvia in 1751. After being banished from Weimar in 1776 for writing a scurrilous poem poking fun at various members of the court, his life gradually became dominated by mental instability, sympathetically portrayed in a prose study by Georg Büchner — known to opera lovers as the author of a play on which Berg’s Wozzeck is based. Büchner’s work inspired this chamber opera by Wolfgang Rihm, written in 1977–78.

It is in thirteen scenes, which are carried through without a break, the whole thing lasting just 75 minutes. But what an experience this is of a man descending into madness, or is he sane and the world around him is going gradually crazy? The water is ever present. He falls into it again, and again, and in scene 5 after preaching in the church he baptises a girl by submersion. Later the child is drowned by Friederike Brion, an ex-lover of Goethe about whom Lenz felt passionately. She lies dead even after Lenz commands her, “Arise and walk”, … but then later Friederike escorts her from the stage. It was all in Lenz’s mind, and it was an inspiration by director Sam Brown to bring in an actress to portray Friederike in a full eighteenth hair-do and finery.

The other singing roles here are taken by Jonathan Best as the Lutheran pastor, building a new church whose roof is finally fitted in the last scene, and Richard Roberts as Kaufmann, a friend of Lenz who comes to visit him in the village in Alsace. He too is dressed in eighteenth century finery with rouged cheeks, serving to contrast the urban world that Lenz has left with the natural world he now inhabits.

Designs by Annemarie Woods with excellent lighting by Guy Hoare help give an almost supernatural sense of impending insanity, very apposite to Lenz’s condition which many have considered to be a case of schizophrenia. This is a fascinating work and the programme notes help illuminate the background to Lenz himself.

Musically the rhythms keep changing, and the small orchestra of eleven players, including three cellos but no other stringed instruments, was very ably conducted by Alex Ingram. He seemed effortlessly to keep the singers in phase with the music, which can’t be easy. Sam Brown’s production is not to be missed, but what really made this such a remarkable performance was Andrew Shore in the title role.

Performances continue until April 27 — for details click here.

Long Day’s Journey into Night, Apollo Theatre, London West End, April 2012

Had Eugene O’Neill’s written wishes been respected this autobiographical play would not be staged: “[It] is to be published twenty five years after my death — but never produced as a play”. As it was, unforeseen circumstances persuaded his widow to have the play published and performed, knowing the anguish he had gone through in writing it.

Suchet and Metcalf as father and mother, all images Johan Persson

The essentials involve a father, mother and two sons, the younger one appearing likely to die of tuberculosis. Yet despite this grim set-up, where the father and sons drink liberal amounts of whiskey, and the mother is a neurotic addicted to drugs, there is hope. And amidst the arguments, the shouting, the put-downs, and the face slapping there is truth. At the start of part two when evening has drawn in, David Suchet as the father James Tyrone, is alone in the sitting room. He is joined by his younger son Edmund, whose criticism of his miserliness gets the response, “You’re no great shakes as a son”. This is mild compared to some of the invective, but then there is the glorious moment when Edmund talks about his time at sea, being at one with the forces of nature, and Kyle Soller handles it beautifully. As his father tells him facts from long ago, there is something more than just anger and argument. There is sympathy, and understanding that our problems stem from the depths of experiences long past.

White, Suchet, Soller as father and sons

Eugene O’Neill’s own father, the model for James Tyrone, was a matinee idol, and though devoted to Shakespeare he became typecast in a stage version of The Count of Monte Cristo. Despite the financial success and security this brought him he had reason to feel dissatisfied with himself, yet seems to be surrounded by wastrel sons and a morphine addicted wife, who’s eventually away with the fairies. She was beautifully played by American actress Laurie Metcalf as a gentle, yet neurotic and self-pitying woman. It was a remarkable performance, and her eldest son James Jr was robustly portrayed by Trevor White, whose drunkenness in part two was pitch perfect. Very high quality acting from the whole cast, led by David Suchet’s sympathetic and convincing portrayal of the father, and with a lovely cameo by Rosie Sansom as the maid.

It may not be a comfortable evening in the theatre for those of us who have seen family problems at first hand, but I left with a sense of optimism knowing that Eugene O’Neill as the younger son survived the tuberculosis. He then went on to survive the other three who all died within three years of one another.  Direction by Anthony Page brought this disturbing drama to life, helped by the excellent designs and lighting of Lez Brotherston and Mark Henderson.

This is theatre at its best, and performances continue until August 18 — for details click here.

Uncle Vanya, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, April 2012

For mockery and a self-deprecating sense of humour, Roger Allam’s Vanya is hard to beat.

Roger Allam as Vanya, all images Johan Persson

From his first clumsy entrance onto stage, to his bumbled expostulation, “I could have been a Dostoevsky”, and his failure to shoot the brother-in-law he’s learned to detest, this was a Vanya fated to manage the estate as an also-ran. The brother-in-law, Professor Serebryakov is a clever narcissist, attractive to the ladies, and as portrayed by Timothy West an endearingly frail old fool.

Timothy West as Serebryakov

Both Vanya and Dr. Astrov, very engagingly portrayed here by Alexander Hanson, are enamoured of Serebryakov’s young (second) wife Yelena, played by Lara Pulver, but she lacked allure, and seemed overly neurotic. By contrast, Vanya’s niece, Sonya is supposed to be very plain, and Dervla Kirwan managed to make herself a rather dull fish, without being tiresome like Yelena. Maggie McCarthy and Anthony O’Donnell were a delight as the homely consciences of the house, providing earthy background against which Vanya could lose his head and his heart, and Astrov and Sonya just their hearts. But in this production by Jeremy Herrin, in a colloquial translation by Michael Frayn, the youthful anima of Yelena never gave them a reason to become so besotted.

I liked the sets by Peter McKintosh with the windows at the rear of the stage through which we see the outside world as in a mist, with rain dripping down when the storm comes exactly on cue with Vanya’s prediction. I liked the lighting by Chahine Yavroyan that gave that mistiness to the outer world, and I loved the two musicians setting the scene by playing wind and strings behind the windows.

Sonya and Uncle Vanya

This Chekhov play is a wonderful vehicle for taking an irreverent sweep at those nit-picking academics, in their fake-ivory hovels, who dissect the work of other more creative people. And Vanya’s pamphlet-reading mother, trying to understand the work of second-rate minds, is a harbinger of the later nonsense that was to engulf Russia, less than two decades after the author’s death. Yet the irritating narcissism of Vanya’s mother and the Professor were subdued in this production, and I wonder whether some of her lines were cut. The most irritating presence was the young wife Yelena, but in the end as she and her husband leave, Roger Allam’s Vanya is the focus of our attention in the slow dénouement. Will he blow his brains out, or accept his niece’s emotional support in doing the numbers and seeing that the point of life is life itself, as Dr. Chekhov well knew.

Performances continue until May 5 — for details click here.

Royal Ballet Triple: Polyphonia/ Sweet Violets/ Carbon Life, Covent Garden, April 2012

This was an entirely twenty-first century triple bill.

Polyphonia, all images by Bill Cooper

The first work, Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia, set to ten piano pieces by Ligeti, was first shown in New York at the start of the century, January 2001. The large Covent Garden stage gave space to the spare minimalism of Wheeldon’s choreography, with darkness sometimes surrounding a spot for the dancers. It has the sense of a sequence of études created for four couples, and along with the pas-de-deux work there is a section for three female dancers and another for two males in contest with one another. The silences between the ten sections and the purity of the piano sound give it a contemplative feel, and it was beautifully danced. It was only spoilt by some handkerchief-less members of the audience who couldn’t control their tousserie.

Leanne Cope and Thiago Soares

Sweet Violets is such a pretty title, quite in contrast to the content of this brilliant new work by Liam Scarlett. It starts with an incident on September 11^th, 1907 when a part-time prostitute named Emily Dimmock was murdered in her own home. Her partner returned the next day to find her throat slit from ear to ear. Nothing had been taken, the motive was a mystery, and this infamous Camden Town Murder was never solved. What inspired Scarlett was a series of paintings and drawings by Walter Sickert, who specialised in portraying the deep, dark underworld of London. His role was performed with admirable understatement by Johan Kobborg, whose friend was the murderer in this take on the story. Sickert’s friend, very well portrayed by Thiago Soares, obviously has two sides to his nature, and the fight with the prostitute was wonderfully realistic as he grappled with Leanne Cope, superb as the unfortunate Emily Dimmock. But that is only the start. This is a full-length story in one act, intense, brutal, and with ramifications at the highest level.

Kobborg as Sickert and McRae as Jack

The story has been set in the late 1880s when Queen Victoria’s grandson Eddy was still alive, and Lord Salisbury was prime minister. Both or them appear here, portrayed by Federico Bonelli and Christopher Saunders, to say nothing of Jack the Ripper, played as a very sinister character by Steven McRae. Laura Morera, Alina Cojocaru and Tamara Rojo danced beautifully, the first two as historical characters, and Rojo as an alluring artist’s model. This was a fabulous performance by an all-power cast, and a senior member of the Company told me the other cast is equally terrific.

Rachmaninov’s music for piano, violin and cello was beautifully played, and John Macfarlane’s designs, with David Finn’s lighting, gave a sombre, threatening atmosphere to the whole business. The clever use at one point of a stage and audience within the stage allows us to see the backs of the performers, making it feel as if we are looking in at things we should not really see. I shall go again, and again. Scarlett’s inspired new work is worth the whole triple bill.

Carbon Life

The third item, Carbon Life was a new creation by Wayne McGregor. Like his other work it involved unusual lighting design, this time by Lucy Carter, and I loved the clever way in which the dancers at the start appeared to glow in the dark. The whole thing was in several parts, with rock music and rap performed by musicians behind the dancers. Costumes ranged from simple swimming trunks to elaborate black outfits having pointed hoods, with cross-dressing allowed. The overall impression was of a very high quality music and dance video. Fun, balletic, and full of frivolity.

Performances of this triple bill continue until April 23 — for details click here.

Rigoletto, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, March 2012

In Act III of this opera, Rigoletto takes his daughter Gilda to Sparafucile’s tavern to show her the Duke’s real nature. She hears him singing La donna è mobile, sees him having fun with Maddalena, and is shocked and heartbroken. Her father takes her home, sends her off to Verona, but … being too busy arranging the murder of the Duke, he fails to accompany her. Revenge is his fatal flaw, and the result is tragedy.

Observing from outside the tavern, all images Johan Persson

As Rigoletto’s satisfaction turns to grief at finding his daughter’s body in the sack where the Duke’s should be, John Eliot Gardiner’s conducting had a lightness of touch that made the final thump from the orchestra so much stronger. Gilda’s head falls back as she finally expires, and her father cries out Ah, la maledizione!, recalling the curse laid on him by Monterone. It’s such a strong ending by Verdi, compared to Victor Hugo’s original play Le roi s’amuse, where the jester laments J’ai tué mon enfant, and falls to the ground. But of course in opera they can sing, and Ekaterina Siurina sang beautifully as Gilda, with Dimitri Platanias an outstanding Rigoletto. His lovely tone in Act I elicited my sympathy, and in Act II his heartfelt la mia figlia, followed by his condemnation of the courtiers came over with huge power. Revival director Leah Hausman staged it beautifully, and as the sneering courtier Marullo gives Rigoletto his stick back, it clatters uselessly to the ground.

But of course it is more than just Rigoletto and his daughter. Vittorio Grigolo as the Duke sang gloriously, showing just the right air of casual hedonism. Matthew Rose was a strong Sparafucile, and Christine Rice as his sister Maddalena was superb — seductive and charming in her interactions with the Duke.

Among the smaller roles, Zhengzhong Zhou showed fine vocal and stage presence as Marullo, Gianfranco Montresor came over very well as Monterone, and Elizabeth Sikora gave a fine portrayal of Gilda’s nurse. This was a team effort held together beautifully by John Eliot Gardiner, and my only complaint in this David McVicar production is the first scene of Act I.

Father and daughter at home

Gilda has only been in town for three months, she wants to have some fun, and the Duke, disguised as a student, has been following her to church. Yes, he’s a serial philanderer, but is he really a person to preside over dissolute orgies, which if you look closely — at the homosexual and heterosexual engagements going on — no-one is really doing anything. Yes, it’s impressionistic, but it’s not the right impression. The main point is that Gilda believes the Duke (albeit disguised as a student) to be in love with her, and the court should be a rather glamorous place. This is why her father needs to show her what the Duke is really like, by taking her to Sparafucile’s tavern.

The first scene makes it look as if the director is out to shock us, but the rest of the production is excellent, and the singing and conducting at the dress rehearsal was absolutely terrific. This is a cast very well worth seeing and performances continue until April 21 — for details click here.

Apollo/ Jeux/ Le Train Bleu/ Suite en Blanc, English National Ballet, ENB, London Coliseum, March 2012

The second part of ENB’s spring programme Beyond Ballets Russes has a charming middle section comprising Jeux and a solo from Le train bleu, sandwiched between two glorious works in white: Apollo and Suite en Blanc.

Apollo, image Annabel Moeller

Apollo was choreographed by the 24-year old Balanchine in 1928, though he later revised it, cutting out the birth of Apollo at the start. Even without that prologue the backdrop is the deep blue of the night at the beginning, quickly changing to the lighter blue of the day. Against this background, Zdenek Konvalina was a fine Apollo, with his three muses dancing perfectly together. Daria Klimentova in particular as Terpiscore showed huge musicality, and Gavin Sutherland drew clean musical lines from the orchestra suiting the clean physical lines of the dancers. A wonderful performance making a serene start to the evening.

In the second part came the premiere of Wayne Eagling’s clever new take on Jeux, originally a 1912 creation by Nijinsky to music composed by Debussy in the late summer of that year. Eagling’s staging was fun, with wonderful performances by the seven dancers, and great lighting design by David Richardson. Then from sporting games to solo endeavour came a brief scene from the 1924 ballet Le train bleu. The blue train was the Calais-Mediterranean express, so named for its dark blue sleeping cars, and this was a piece of brilliant solo dancing by Vadim Muntagirov as le beau gosse in his swimming suit.

Finally the pièce de résistance was Maina Gielgud’s re-staging of Serge Lifar’s Suite en Blanc, to music by that remarkable nineteenth century French composer Edouard Lalo. This neo-classical showpiece, performed by Festival Ballet in the 1970s, was revived by the ENB in 2011 and it really is super. Most of the dancing was outstanding, and Elena Glurdjidze was incredible in the cigarette variation, which Ms. Gielgud originally learned from the choreographer himself. Ms. Glurdjidze showed glorious control, and those very fast entrechats six were a wonder to see.

Suite en blanc, image Annabel Moeller

From the three girls in the Sieste at the beginning to the excellent pas-de-deux between Erina Takehashi and Zdenek Konvalina, followed by her solo and the ensemble at the end, it was a feast of fine dancing. Yonah Acosta in the mazurka showed huge control and panache, the three girls at the start were fascinating to watch — the one in the middle in particular being supremely musical — and thepas-de-trois was performed with great classical style.

All praise to Wayne Eagling again for his artistic leadership, and how strange that the board of trustees care so little that they want to replace him. Great pity, but these performances of Beyond Ballets Russes II are worth every penny, and continue until April 1 — for details click here.

Firebird/ Faune/ Rite of Spring, English National Ballet, ENB, London Coliseum, March 2012

Beyond Ballets Russes celebrates the legacy of Diaghilev’s famous dance company, and is the title of two programmes the ENB are putting on. This first one was very cleverly put together, placing The Afternoon of a Faune, with its gentle music by Debussy, between two longer works to intensely dramatic music by Stravinsky.

In fact there are four ballets here, not three, because Faune is given in two versions. One uses Nijinsky’s original choreography with designs by Leon Bakst, performed to music played by the orchestra; the other is an abstract work choreographed by David Dawson, with Debussy’s music played on two pianos. They have separate titles: L’Après-midi d’un faune being the original, and Faun(e) the abstract version. The first, with its very stylised movements for the nymphs, featured Anton Lukovkin as the faune and Begoña Cao as the lead nymph. His portrayal of a youthful faune, oozing immense yet scarcely suppressed desire, was very effective.

The abstract version of Faune

The second version by David Dawson, first shown at Sadler’s Wells in 2009, was beautifully performed by principal dancer Raphaël Coumes-Marquet, and Jan Casier a brilliant young member of the corps at the Royal Ballet of Flanders, making his debut with the ENB. The power of their movements captures the awakening desires inherent in Debussy’s music, and they are still moving as the front drop comes down.

After the second interval came the Rite of Spring, with Kenneth MacMillan’s 1962 choreography adapted and re-staged by Yuri Uchiumi. New costumes by fashion designer Kinder Aggugini are the same for both girls and boys, except for the three shamans, and along with John B. Read’s lighting give an air of dark mystery to this springtime ritual with its sacrificial victim. The company danced it well with Tamarin Stott excellent as the victim.

Rite of Spring

Oddly enough the newly choreographed Firebird that started the evening had a very Rite of Spring feel at some points. Diaghilev gave the original commission for this ballet to Fokine, with music commissioned from Stravinsky. The idea was to tell an old Russian folk tale about a maiden trapped in the realm of a deathless magician, discovered by a prince who himself is trapped, before the firebird comes to his rescue. Here the idea by choreographer George Williamson was quite different.

Ksenia Ovsyanick as the firebird

There was a firebird, brilliantly portrayed by Ksenia Ovsyanick, but there the similarities seem to end. Among solo roles was a peacock, an ‘army captain’, a celebrity in a red dress, ‘purity’ in a white dress, and three muses in maroon costumes. All were superbly danced, and I thought Junor Souza as the captain was outstanding. But what reminded me of the Rite of Spring was the way the firebird was treated like a sacrificial victim. As she was stripped of feathers, headdress and jewellery, it reminded me of the ancient Mesopotamian legend of the descent of Ishtar to the underworld. Ishtar returns after first being stripped of her clothes and adornments, yet returns intact to the world above, and this is a death and rebirth story, like the vegetation that returns to life in spring. If the title of this ballet had been Ishtar’s Descent I would not have been the least surprised, and I thought the costumes by David Bamber, and the set design by Bamber and choreographer George Williamson wonderfully apt to the story that rose into my mind, as well as to the choreography and music.

The company are dancing brilliantly, and this whole mixed bill has to be seen, particularly the extraordinary Firebird. Performances continue at the London Coliseum until March 27 — for details click here. After that comes the second part of Beyond Ballets Russes, starting on Wednesday, March 28^th. All praise to Wayne Eagling on his artistic direction of the company, and why on earth are they getting rid of him?