United Kingdom Ballet Icons Gala 2025: Soloists, English Nationwide Ballet Philharmonic / Maria Seletskaja (conductor). London Coliseum, 9.3.2024. (JPr)
Within the shiny memento – and really informative – programme there was a large ranging and interesting essay ‘The sensual and narrative legacies of Romantic ballet’ by Graham Watts. Starting by highlighting the issues of diminishing state funding, he continues ‘The inevitable final result of this financial actuality has been to depend upon the staple classical repertoire, albeit augmented occasionally by the duty to make one thing new, the truth being that it’s the classic ballets that rake it in on the field workplace.’ Watts goes on to debate ballet’s Romantic period which started within the late-eighteenth century with works that ‘had been extra involved with materials points in the true world than within the supernatural’. That fascination with the supernatural advanced throughout the early-nineteenth century. Later there was a ‘rising emphasis on nationalism … with an rising fascination for the exoticism (even maybe, the eroticism) of faraway cultures’. This affected the ‘design, costume and gesture’ of what was offered in addition to resulting in ‘reworking the ballerina’s artwork’ and to essential developments in approach, femininity and storytelling.
Watts concludes how ‘ballet continues to be largely centred on the main position of the ballerina.’ Absolutely that’s not the case in 2025? What I do agree with him is that there’s a reliance on classic ballets, typically with classic choreography and in classic productions. Evenings like this magnificent Ballet Icons Gala – among the best in my reminiscence – are the place the ‘legacies of Romantic Ballet’ will be celebrated while there might be rather more reinvention elsewhere; it might not all the time succeed, however – significantly – how lengthy can we watch the identical steps, in the identical costumes, and towards the identical units. Additionally, as for the pre-eminence of the ballerina, this excellent assemblage of dancers from a few of the world’s main firms solid a highlight – because it typically does – on our well-schooled, barely nameless, homegrown male dancers in comparison with the charisma and gravity-defying virtuosity of these with the ‘wow issue’ from overseas.
There have been fifteen duets (and one trio) from 30 dancers that the outstanding Olga Balakleets, the gala’s inventive director, had gathered on the London Coliseum for an enterprising mix of (often-repeated) classics and new work. The costumes – equivalent to they had been with, as common, a number of naked male torsos on present – had been acquainted from the ballets we noticed and an try was typically made to range what was projected on the rear of the stage: this included a grand staircase, the silhouette of a galleon, a Spanish village, a powerful ballroom and a misty glade. There was typically particular lighting for the up to date works and Rafael Porzycki was credited as artistic director, with Nina Kobiashvili as set director and Andrew Ellis as lighting designer. When the music was performed reside, it sounded splendid – and loud – from the English Nationwide Ballet Philharmonic who had been regularly whipped alongside by their music director Maria Seletskaja.
The usual of dancing was excessive proper from the beginning with the crystalline purity and radiance of Marianela Núñez, this nation’s main ballerina, within the pas de deux from Act II of The Sleeping Magnificence, ably supported, if little extra, by William Bracewell, additionally from The Royal Ballet. Jose Martinéz’s 2003 Delibes Suite pas de deux was a playful affair to Delibes’s expansive music and there was a fizzing coda from Berlin State Ballet principals Iana Salenko and David Motta Soares earlier than they walked in the direction of the blue on the rear of the stage. The primary UK premiere was Sebastian Kloborg’s 2021 As soon as I had a Love with music by Blondie and Philip Glass: a duet, like many of the new works had been for me, of romantic attraction, break-up and reconnection for Maria Kochetkova and Kloborg himself. It had some attention-grabbing lifts earlier than they too simply walked off. What would these galas be with out the Black Swan pas de deux? It was effectively danced by Madison Younger (Bavarian State Ballet) and Victor Caixeta (Dutch Nationwide Ballet) who didn’t look as in the event that they danced collectively as typically as some within the programme, although in a night of fouettés galore Younger’s had been spot-on. A second UK premiere, the deeply shifting Toujours from former Royal Ballet principal Mara Galeazzi and Jason Kittelberger to Domenico Clapasson’s unhappy music was concerning the love and lack of Galeazzi’s father and the quite a few lifts mirrored the help he gave her. A spotlight of all the night was Paris Opera Ballet’s Inès McIntosh and Shale Wagman dancing the Le Corsaire pas de deux. Wagman had the pantherine assault and effortlessness this showcase calls for while there have been safer fouettés from McIntosh. A world premiere was A Stranding from Marie-Agnès Gillot, and its choreographers Travis Clausen-Knight and James Pett about ‘a girl standing and watching the tide’ although the motion of the three starting in a highlight had an inherent disappointment about it which completely mirrored Max Richter’s music. Ending the primary half was a pas de deux from Laurencia, that was Mikhail Messerer’s 2010 recreation of Vakhtang Chabukiani’s 1939 Kirov unique. Giorgi Potskhishvili (Dutch Nationwide Ballet) was let off the leash and leapt thrillingly across the stage with the spirited Mayara Magri (The Royal Ballet) not disappointing along with her fouettés.
The second half opened with an extra UK premiere, Juango Arqués’s 2020 Fordländia, danced by Lucia Lacarra and Matthew Golding to Jóhann Johansson’s insistent music. Extra compelled separation and coming collectively once more however intriguingly staged with an enormous piece of silky cloth representing the rippling sea that we see (!) in some projected video. There are extra uncommon lifts and a chair Golding sits on (onstage and on movie) virtually making an attempt to carry the tide again Canute-like. Subsequent one other gala favorite Victor Gsovsky’s 1949 Grand Pas Classique – with its bravura cut up jumps, pirouettes and fouettés – was splendidly danced by La Scala Ballet’s Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko. Maria Kochetkova and Bavarian State Ballet’s Osiel Gouneo in a lowkey Rubies (from Jewels) did justice to Balanchine’s prancing steps. That got here earlier than António Casalinho asserting himself as the very best male dancer of the night together with his exhilarating barrel turns and quick spins within the pas de deux from Agrippina Vaganova and Vakhtang Chabukiani’s 1935 Diana and Acteon and he overshadowed his Bavarian State Ballet – and Portuguese – colleague Margarita Fernandes who admirably overcame a short fall to the stage. To & Fro to music by Respighi was created by Matthew Ball in 2024 and was danced by Ball and fellow Royal Ballet principal Mayara Magri. The title ‘represents the swing of a pendulum’ and the ballet is one among motion this manner and that, balances and counterbalances, and in the end deeply romantic. The second act pas de deux from Giselle was carried out with a deliberate and focussed method by the ethereal Chloe Misseldine, principal with American Ballet Theatre (who appears to be like one to be careful for in future) and The Royal Ballet’s Reece Clarke. Clarke disenchanted and I by no means obtained the impression his character was being danced to loss of life. The ultimate UK premiere was Mthuthuzeli November’s 2024 Thando and he additionally composed the music. To quick, percussive African sounds of drums, handclapping and chanting there was slower motion from Dutch Nationwide Ballet’s Anna Tsygankova and Giorgi Potskhishvili with some standing about, although it gave the impression to be exhibiting – because the programme instructed – ‘the qualities of affection, loving, being liked and the romantic preferrred of affection’. Lastly, the grand pas de deux from Don Quixote was the showstopper you’ll anticipate it to be for one thing stopping the present! From Dutch Nationwide Ballet we had the pleasant Maia Makhateli, (but extra) fouettés and fluttering fan, and the thrilling Timothy van Poucke, one hand lifts, explosive energy and spectacular elevation and all.
Roll on Ballet Icons Gala 2026!
Jim Pritchard
Featured Picture: Curtain name for dancers who carried out in Ballet Icons Gala 2025
The Sleeping Magnificence
Music – Tchaikovsky
Choreographer – Marius Petipa
Marianela Núñez and William Bracewell
Delibes Suite
Music – Leo Delibes
Choreographer – Jose Martinéz
Iana Salenko and David Motta Soares
As soon as I had a Love (UK premiere)
Music – Blondie and Philip Glass
Choreography – Sebastian Kloborg
Maria Kochetkova and Sebastian Kloborg
Swan Lake (Black Swan pas de deux)
Music – Tchaikovsky
Choreography – Marius Petipa
Madison Younger and Victor Caixeta
Toujours (UK premiere)
Music – Domenico Clapasson
Choreography – Mara Galeazzi
Mara Galeazzi and Jason Kittelberger
Le Corsaire
Music – Adolphe Adam, Riccardo Drigo, Ludwig Minkus
Choreography – Marius Petipa and Joseph Mazilier
Inès McIntosh and Shale Wagman
A Stranding (world premiere)
Music – Max Richter
Choreography – Travis Clausen-Knight and James Pett
Marie-Agnès Gillot, Travis Clausen-Knight and James Pett
Laurencia
Music – Alexander Krein
Choreography – Vakhtang Chabukiani and Mikhail Messerer
Mayara Magri and Giorgi Potskhishvili
Fordländia (UK premiere)
Music – Jóhann Johansson
Choreography – Juango Arqués
Lucia Lacarra and Matthew Golding
Grand Pas Classique
Music – Daniel Auber
Choreography – Victor Gsovsky
Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko
Rubies (from Jewels)
Music – Tchaikovsky
Choreography – George Balanchine
Maria Kochetkova and Osiel Gouneo
Diana and Acteon
Music – Cesare Pugni
Choreography – Agrippina Vaganova and Vakhtang Chabukiani
Margarita Fernandes and António Casalinho
To & Fro
Music – Ottorino Respighi
Choreography – Matthew Ball
Mayara Magri and Matthew Ball
Giselle
Music – Adolphe Adam
Choreography – Marius Petipa (after Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot)
Chloe Misseldine and Reece Clarke
Thando (UK premiere)
Music and Choreography – Mthuthuzeli November
Anna Tsygankova and Giorgi Potskhishvili
Don Quixote
Music – Ludwig Minkus
Choreography – Alexander Gorsky after Marius Petipa
Maia Makhateli and Timothy van Poucke
