Firebird/ In the Night/ Raymonda Act III, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, 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 partnership with Kristin McNally worked like a charm, the two of them looking like dolls together in perfect time to the music. The dancers in the female variations, the same as before, were even better if that is possible. Hikaru Kobayashi showed beautiful control and musicality, Yuhui Choe’s arabesques en pointe with a bending of the leg were extraordinary, Itziar Mendizabal was lovely in the slow variation, and Helen Crawford’s jumps in the fourth variation were a thrill to watch.

Raymonda Act III, all images ROH/ Tristram Kenton

As a ballet Raymonda has a rather silly story, but the Act III wedding of its eponymous heroine with Jean de Brienne, recently returned from the crusades, is a feast of dancing, and Yanowsky and Hirano were outstanding in these roles. I can’t resist a quick mention of Fumi Kaneko, Emma Maguire and Yasmine Nagdhi who were brilliantly on the music in the pas-de-trois. Raymonda Act III makes a glorious finale, and as the curtain opened Barry Kay’s ravishing set once again elicited spontaneous applause.

Galeazzi and Watson as Firebird and Prince

Firebird, so often the finale itself, is the starter here, with Mara Galeazzi showing beautiful arm movements as the Firebird. Edward Watson gave a well-nuanced performance as Ivan Tsarevich, Alastair Marriott was suitably dramatic as the wicked Kostcheï, and Christina Arestis was a gorgeous princess. The story is the reverse of Swan Lake, the prince abandoning his passion for an exotic female to accept a royal and more appropriate partner, but Stravinsky’s music is, or should be, hugely dramatic, though Barry Wordsworth’s conducting with its elegantly rounded corners lacked energy and bite.

No problem on that score with the second item, In the Night, where Robert Clark gave an excellent performance of Chopin’s nocturnes to accompany some glorious choreography by Jerome Robbins.

In the Night, Campbell and Maguire

Against a starlit background, Alexander Campbell and Emma Maguire made a wonderful first couple, he so full of energy, she showing a gentle gracefulness. And in the third variation, Carlos Acosta and Roberta Marquez made a dramatic entrance on their shaft of light, moving apart and together with great passion. It was a super partnership, but in the second movement Zenaida Yanowsky and Nehemiah Kish did not manage the same success as a week ago. She seemed far less comfortable than with Hirano in Raymonda, and a couple of the lifts went slightly awry. In the Night ends with a delightful waltz, and interactions between the six dancers — it is a superb vehicle for the individual brilliance that this Company has in spades, and they should dance it more often.

In the Night, Yanowsky and Kish

Unfortunately all three later performances are sold out, but click here for details and possible returns.

La Fille mal gardée, with McRae and Marquez, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, May 2012

La Fille mal gardée is one of Frederick Ashton’s most delightful ballets, and this review covers the same cast as for the live cinema relay on May 16.

McRae and Marquez, all images ROH/ Tristram Kenton

The story is simple. Widow Simone wants to marry off her very pretty daughter Lise to the son of a wealthy landowner, thereby assuring her and her daughter’s financial future. There are just two problems. Lise is in love with a local farmhand named Colas, and the landowner’s son, Alain is a simpleton, easily outwitted by the lovers.

Alain and Widow Simone

The ballet was first created in the year of the French Revolution, and nearly thirty years later in 1828 a new score was written by Ferdinand Hérold. In 1960 Ashton asked John Lanchbery to revitalise Herold’s music, which he did by re-orchestrating it and inserting new music by himself and other composers such as Rossini. The result is simply wonderful.

The sheer joy of the music, the clarity of the story, and the subtlety of the choreography combine to form a glorious whole, but be in no doubt, the choreography, particularly for the leading male dancer, Colas is not easy. Fortunately this cast had the superb Steven McRae as Colas, performing beautifully as well as looking and acting the part. McRae is one of the finest dancers in the Company, and his lover was Roberta Marquez, who portrayed Lise with delightful charm. Good chemistry, and fine pas-de-deux work, the bum lift in Act I effortlessly accomplished, unlike with the previous cast I saw, where it turned into a shoulder lift.

It all starts in the early morning with the cockerel and four hens, and Michael Stojko was a brilliant cockerel, showing excellent control. Widow Simone was Philip Mosley, who plays this role very well, without overdoing the comedy, and the interplay between widow and daughter was beautifully done. The wealthy landowner Thomas was brought to life by Gary Avis, portraying this charmless man to perfection, particularly after the lovers are discovered together near the end, and his son Alain very well danced by Ludovic Ondiviela, displaying more jest than pathos, though pathos should be the key here.

Widow and daughter

Altogether a fine cast and a lovely performance, well supported by Barry Wordsworth in the orchestra pit. Unfortunately there is only one performance left this season — the live relay on May 16 — and nothing next season.

The Dream with Marquez and McRae, Song of the Earth with Watson, Benjamin and Hristov, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, February 2012

When Frederick Ashton choreographed Dream in 1964 to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, he created a magical evocation of the play with Oberon and Titania danced by a very young Anthony Dowell and Antoinette Sibley, and every time I see this ballet I recall Dowell’s performances. But Steven McRae rose to the challenge of this fiendishly difficult role, and his slow pirouettes near the sleeping body of Demetrius were beautifully executed. His pas-de-deux work with Roberta Marquez was wonderful, and she made a lovely Titania, though her performance would have been even better if she had felt the music rather than treat it as background. Laura McCulloch, Thomas Whitehead, Melissa Hamilton and Ryoichi Hirano were all excellent as the lovers, Michael Stojko was an acrobatic but ineffective Puck, and Bennett Gartside was superb as Bottom. His head movements allowed him to infuse the character with a charming wonder at what was happening to him.

Fairies in Dream, ROH photo/ Dee Conway

Mendelssohn’s incidental music for the play, originally turned into a ballet score by John Lanchbery, was conducted here by Barry Wordsworth, but the musical performance lacked sparkle and conviction. Pity.

Kenneth MacMillan originally created Song of the Earth for the Stuttgart Ballet in 1965 after the board at Covent Garden had initially turned it down, considering Mahler’s composition a masterpiece that should not be touched. It was a huge success and Ashton immediately invited MacMillan to bring it from Stuttgart to London where it was also received to great acclaim.

Edward Watson, ROH photo/ Bill Cooper

The three main roles on February 8 were danced here by Edward Watson as the Messenger of Death, with Valeri Hristov and Leanne Benjamin as the Man and Woman who are attached to one another and the transient things of this life. The dancing was superb, and Watson was gloriously powerful. Both he and Benjamin were supremely musical, but Hristov who has danced this role before seemed oddly uncomfortable, his body language lacking conviction. This was a pity because the nineteen-strong cast otherwise performed to perfection, with wonderful leading roles by Ricardo Cervera, Sarah Lamb and Lauren Cuthbertson.

Musically, Mahler’s composition to Tang dynasty songs translated into German has a sense of mystery that is beautifully encapsulated by MacMillan’s choreography, with simple costumes and excellent lighting design by John B. Read. Fine singing by Katharine Goeldner, and Tom Randle replacing Toby Spence.

There are now just two further performances, on February 9 and March 5 — for details click here.

Royal Ballet Triple: Asphodel Meadows, Enigma Variations, Gloria, Covent Garden, November 2011

The first and last items on this excellent programme are to music by Poulenc, and both these two ballets — though not the music — deal with death. In an announcement at the start of the evening, a request was made for no applause during Gloria. As a result the audience seemed hesitant about applauding the first item, Asphodel Meadows, though several people applauded, more than once, during the third item, Gloria, before being shushed by others. How much better if the Royal Opera House had saved the announcement until just before Gloria!

Laura Morera and Ricardo Cervera, photo Johan Persson

The revival of Liam Scarlett’s Asphodel Meadows, which had its premiere in May 2010, is most welcome. The music is Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra, danced by an ensemble of fourteen plus three principal couples, one for each movement of the concerto. The first pair of principals, Rupert Pennefather and Marianela Nunez in brown, showed immense emotion in their movements, and their pas-de-deux in the slow middle section of the first movement was beautifully done. Tamara Rojo and Bennett Gartside in charcoal danced the Larghetto, and Laura Morera and Ricardo Cervera in burgundy the Allegro of the third movement. Flawless dancing of great musicality, and Tamara Rojo in particular was striking in her superb control. The ensemble work was excellent, and this was a perfect start to an evening ending with the bleak World War I retrospective of Gloria, as the meadows of asphodel appear in Homer’s Odyssey (Book XI, line 539), where Odysseus travels to Hades and encounters the shades of dead heroes.

Carlos Acosta in Gloria, Dee Conway

Poulenc’s Gloria in G, in praise of God, was used by Kenneth MacMillan for this elegy to those whose lives were lost or blighted by the Great War. Andy Klunder’s fine designs show the men with helmets, though their uniforms and flesh have been torn off, and the metal-frame ruin over a trench is a stark reminder of a wasteland of death where ghostly men and women emerge from the horizon. Sarah Lamb was beautifully moving as the woman in mourning, well partnered by Thiago Soares, and Laura Morera was the fearless girl, tossed about by Valeri Hristov, Kenta Kura and Johannes Stepanek. The ballet is based on Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, and the female soloists both reflect aspects of her personality. She lost her lover and her brother during the war, and Carlos Acosta was superb in his solo role, showing a fierce intensity in his portrayal. His solos were gripping, and as the sole figure on stage at the end he pauses, and suddenly drops out of sight behind the abyss.

Enigma Variations, photo Dee Conway

Sandwiched between these two memorials to the victims of war, performed less than two weeks after Armistice Day, was Ashton’s brilliant ballet to Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Christopher Saunders portrayed Elgar himself, with Christina Arestis as his wife. Her fluidity of body language was pure Ashton, and a joy to watch. Nehemiah Kish and Lara Turk were well cast as the contemplative scholar subduing his emotions, and the young romantic girl with whom he’s in love, and this genteel pas-de-deux is followed by a complete contrast with Edward Watson giving a remarkable performance of the difficult and demanding Troyte variation. One contrast follows another, and Bennet Gartside was a finely understated Jaeger in the Nimrod variation, followed by Roberta Marquez as Dorabella. Her body and arm movements were beautiful in this fiendishly difficult solo, though some musicality was lacking, and José Martín was enormous fun in the bulldog solo. In the end it was Christopher Saunders and Christina Arestis who framed this ballet so beautifully, and the evening was well conducted by Barry Wordsworth.

This is a triple bill not to miss. Performances continue until November 30 — for details click here.