Friday, May 24

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Classic FM offers a list of the top ten ballets of all time.

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Many great composers and choreographers have got involved and gone down in history for their ballets alone. Here are some of the greatest ever conceived.

 

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Interviews in brief with the finalists of English National Ballet’s annual Emerging Dancer award.

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This year’s award celebrates six artists of the company, with a live performance event enabling them to showcase their technique and artistry. Nominated by their peers, the finalists – Anna Ciriano, Breanna Foad, Shunhei Fuchiyama, Jose María Lorca Menchón, Thiago Pereira, and Anna-Babette Winkler – will perform both classical and contemporary choreography. Breanna and Thiago dance a pas de deux from Satanella (1772), and a new work by Ching-Ying Chien; Anna and Shunhei present a pas de deux from Don Quixote and a new work by Rentaro Nakaaki and Fabian Reimair; and Anna-Babette and Jose perform an excerpt from La Bayadère (1871) and the final duet from Akram Khan’s Dust.

 

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A review of the Houston Ballet in "Mayerling" by Natalie De La Garza for Houston Press.

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[Connor] Walsh’s evolution from seemingly discontent to degenerate prince – violent-prone, gonorrhea-infected, drug-addicted, and death-obsessed – is played with wild-eyed intensity. Incredibly well-acted and superbly nuanced, Walsh’s performance also wows for his ability to utilize his impressive athleticism and strength (put to use, for example, in a serious of increasingly dramatic lifts during Rudolf’s final pas de deux with Mary), without ever distracting from the prince’s weakened, deteriorated state.

Molly Glentzer reviews the production for The Houston Chronicle.

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No other American company performs “Mayerling.” Houston first presented MacMillan’s ballet in 2017, a few weeks after Hurricane Harvey, at the Hobby Center. Only now is the production getting the space and staging it deserves at the Wortham Theater Center.