Details

Frederick Ashton described Sc?nes de ballet as 'just an exercise in pure dancing'. This one-act ballet set to Stravinsky's score of the same title is a complex and lively piece. Choreographed to the geometric studies of Euclid, Ashton intended that this ballet could be viewed from any angle and still 'work'. A homage to 19th-century classicism. Yearnings for escape and fulfilment turn to resignation in Winter Dreams, the second of five ballets by Kenneth MacMillan in the Season that marks the 10th anniversary of his death. Completed in 1991 and set to Tchaikovsky and traditional Russian music, the ballet is an evocation of Chekhov's The Three Sisters, in which the hope that Lt Colonel Vershinin seems to offer becomes bitter melancholy as Masha, Olga and Irina realize the inevitability of their isolation, exiled from the Moscow of their youth. Sinfonietta has become one of the best-known works of its Czech choreographer, Jir? Kyli?n, since its premiere at the Spoleto Festival in 1978, and now becomes an uplifting addition to The Royal Ballet repertory. Set to the resonant music of his fellow countryman Leos Jan?cek, Kyli?n's modern classic is a virtuoso display which matches the score's dramatic contours with choreography that is truly exhilarating in its celebration of the joyousness of life.

Creatives/Company

Conductor: Charles Barker
Choreographer(s): Frederick Ashton (Scenes de Ballet), Kenneth MacMillan (Winter Dreams), Jiri Kylian (Sinfonietta)
Music(s): Stravinsky (Scenes de Ballet), Tchaikovsky (Winter Dreams), Janacek (Sinfonietta)
Design(s): Andre Beaurepaire (Scenes de Ballet), Peter Farmer (Winter Dreams), Walter Nobbe (Sinfonietta)
Lighting: John B Read (Winter Dreams)