Tuesday, February 18

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A review of the Royal Ballet by Lyndsey Winship in The Guardian.

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The Cellist comes in a double bill with Jerome Robbins’ 1969 Dances at a Gathering – Chopin piano, dreamy pastels, choreography of conversational nuance and lovely, subtle dancing – but it’s Marston’s ingenuity we’re all here to see. She is bold in having a dancer (Marcelino Sambé) embody the cello itself, kneeling in front of Du Pré (a radiant Lauren Cuthbertson), arm raised like the neck of the instrument as the cellist draws her hand across the air holding an invisible bow.

Louise Levene's review in The Financial Times.

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Never shy of tackling complex stories, Cathy Marston has attempted to tell the life and tragically short career of Jacqueline du Pré in The Cellist, which premiered on Monday in a double bill with Jerome Robbins’s delicious Dances at a Gathering. The concept was fraught with risks — the dancer cast as the cello spends half the ballet between the heroine’s knees — but Marston’s duets and pas de trois for the cellist, her husband Daniel Barenboim and her instrument are utterly persuasive, and the gradual disintegration of du Pré’s health is sketched with subtlety and tenderness. Unfortunately this is not enough to rescue this overlong, overpopulated and deeply disappointing ballet.

 

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Miami City Ballet presents "The Firebird."

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The Chagall designs are the reason why only New York City Ballet has performed the piece. New York City Ballet doesn’t want to risk damaging them by letting other companies use them, Lopez said. “They’re works of art,” she said.

Miami City Ballet got around that problem by creating a $700,000 new production featuring sets and costumes by Anya Klepikov and projections by Wendall Harrington.

 

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James Sewell Ballet celebrates its thirtieth anniversary.

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He had touring in mind when he co-founded the company with Rousse in New York City. He noticed that many regional ballet companies at the time had 25 to 30 members and didn’t tour very much because of the expense.

“So I looked at the smaller modern companies that were six to eight people and noticed how they could go out on the road in one vehicle,” Sewell said. “I thought, ‘Well, what if there was a contemporary ballet company offering a balletic rep?’ ”

 

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The Joffrey Ballet announces the lineup for its 2020-21 season.

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The season will open with the Joffrey premiere of “Manon” (Oct. 14-25) with choreography by Sir Kenneth MacMillan. This three-act story ballet is based on the 18th-century French novel by Abbé Prévost, “L’Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut," and follows Manon who is caught between a life of luxury and a chance of love.

 

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A review of the Royal Ballet by Vikki Jane Vile for Broadway World.

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It may be too busy for some people's taste, but Marston's use of additional chorus dancers to add depth to the story is effective and original. Whether to depict a moment of tension, such as a performance, or du Pré's first meeting with conductor (Matthew Ball), where the ensemble behave as the instruments of the orchestra who rise and fall, it makes for a powerful moment. Ball is confident and charismatic, in stark contrast to Sambé's tender cello, but in a piece that requires a little editing, not enough time is spent on their relationship to convey the heartache.

 

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A review of New York City Ballet by Robert Greskovic in The Wall Street Journal (behind subscriber wall).

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Peter Martins’s staging of the classic is an exercise in too-muchness; Alexei Ratmansky’s premiere offers dancers and dancing in a fresh, oddball light.