Migrating from the stage of the Royal Opera House to Covent Garden and freed from the overseeing eye of the Royal Ballet, these dancers seem as though they’re on a school outing, such is their unbridled delight at performing this bill of familiar classics and modern treats, under ballet superstar Carlos Acosta’s direction.
An action packed evening sees the best ballerinas of our time sauntering blissfully through a chocolate box performance of carefully wrapped bite sized ballet chunks, which they unwrap to delicious effect.
It is an embarrassment of riches, ranging from the luminously beautiful Zenaida Yanowsky fluttering and preening as The Dying Swan, to RB newcomer Liam Scarlett’s abstract new work, Margot and Rudy performed by Mara Galeazzi and Rupert Pennefather.
The delectable Acosta himself launches a charm offensive in his role of bare chested, torso-rippling mortal hunter Actaeon in Petipa’s Diana and Actaeon pas de deux, which he dances with power and aplomb; and later as the saucy, swaggering drunk of Van Cauwenbergh’s Les Bourgeois. His jaw-dropping leaps and scintillating spins are topped off by a bewitching stage presence.
Sarah Lamb and Rupert Pennefather compliment each other in the La Sylphide Act II pas de deux - she, a delicate and ethereal romantic dream of soft steps, pretty flicks and light, springing jumps, whilst he, earnest faced, is high leaping and strong.
Mara Galeazzi and Thiago Soares’ pas de deux of Chekhovian angst is heartbreaking, powerful and heartfelt.
Thrown in to mark Acosta’s signature, energy and spirit are Mollajoli’s A Buenos Aires and Ballet National de Cuba’s Majisimo created by Georges Garcia. They are passionate, hot-blooded and Hispanic, decorated with Acostian frills and sparkles.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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