Distressingly vulgar: Royal Ballet’s Cinderella reviewed
Despite its widespread rating as one of his masterpieces, Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella is chock full of knots, gaps and stumbling…
Generous, boundless, turbo-charged: Turn It Out with Tiler Peck and Friends, at Sadler’s Wells, reviewed
The death last week at the age of 83 of the sublime Lynn Seymour – muse to Ashton and MacMillan,…
Best in show
Civilisation has never nurtured more than a handful of front-rank choreographers within any one generation, with the undesirable result that…
Mel C’s debut as a contemporary dancer is impressive: How did we get here?, at Sadler’s Wells, reviewed
‘We hope you enjoy the performance,’ announced the Tannoy before the lights went down for How did we get here?…
A short history of applause – and booing
A dank Tuesday evening in a West End theatre. The auditorium is barely two thirds full. The play is nothing…
Like bingeing on cheap chocolate: Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty, at Sadler’s Wells, reviewed
A Christmas revival of New Adventures’ ten-year-old production of Sleeping Beauty stirs up all my nagging ambivalence about Matthew Bourne’s…
The highlight was a dazzling duet from Pam Tanowitz: The Royal Ballet – A Diamond Celebration reviewed
The Koh-i-Noor in this Diamond Celebration of 60 years of the Friends of the Royal Opera House garnered the least…
Exhilarating: English National Ballet triple bill, at Sadler’s Wells, reviewed
Headed for San Francisco, Tamara Rojo bows out of her directorship of English National Ballet with an exhilarating triple bill…
Arts Council England and the war on opera
Instructed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to move money away from London and reassign it to…
One long moan of woe: Crystal Pite's Light of Passage, at the Royal Opera, reviewed
I was moved and shaken by Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern when I first saw it in 2017. In richly visualised…
A solid evening’s entertainment: Rambert's Peaky Blinders ballet reviewed
Being of a squeamish sensibility and prejudiced by a low opinion of recent BBC drama, I can claim only a…
Why the Arts Council should kill off ENO and ENB
It is high time the Arts Council put ENO and ENB out of their misery, says Rupert Christiansen
Exhilarating, frightening and hilarious: Made in Leeds – Three Short Ballets reviewed
Good, better, best was the satisfying trajectory of Northern Ballet’s terrific programme of three original short works, which moves south…
Nureyev deserves better: Nureyev – Legend and Legacy, at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, reviewed
I was never Rudolf Nureyev’s greatest fan. I must have seen him dance 30 or 40 times, starting with a…
The company has a hit on their hands: Scottish Ballet's Coppélia reviewed
With the major companies largely on their summer breaks, the Edinburgh International Festival struggles to programme a high standard of…
I feel sorry for those stupid enough to believe that ballet is racist or transphobic
Sick though one may be of the way that the poison dart of ‘woke’ is lazily flung at what is…
Paris's glittering new museums
The refurbishment of Paris’s galleries and museums continues apace, with money no object, finds Rupert Christiansen
Leave Bizet’s Carmen alone
I’ve always felt uncomfortably ambivalent about the work of Matthew Bourne. Of course, there is no disputing its infectious exuberance…
I suspect this was a rush job: Like Water for Chocolate reviewed
How much weight of plot can dance carry? Balanchine famously insisted that there are no mothers-in-law in ballet, and masters…
Touching, eclectic and exhilarating: Rambert Dance is in great shape
Rambert ages elegantly: it might just rank as the world’s oldest company devoted to modern dance (whatever that term might…
Impressive interpretations marred by cuts: Scottish Ballet's The Scandal at Mayerling reviewed
Sneer all you like at its prolixities and vulgarities but Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling remains a ballet that packs an exceptionally…
A fitting swansong from Tamara Rojo: The Forsythe Evening reviewed
One wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of Tamara Rojo. The most fearsome figure on the British dance…
Why is dance so butch these days?
For an art form that once boldly set out to question conventional divisions of gender, ballet now seems to be…
Liam Scarlett's enduring legacy: Royal Ballet's Swan Lake reviewed
Without fanfare or apology, the Royal Ballet appears to have rehabilitated Liam Scarlett, but what a tragic balls-up it has…
The first patrons of Modernism deserve much sympathy and respect
If Modernism is a jungle, how do you navigate a path through its thickets? Some explorers — Peter Gay and…
