By Imogen
Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000qry2
Available until: 16th May 2021
Sir Matthew Bourne is one of the greatest ballet choreographers and directors alive today. He has adapted many well-known stories, some ballet some not, like The Nutcracker, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Carmen (as The Car Man) and most famously of all Swan Lake to give them a more modern twist and greater relevance to the 21st century.
By Megan
Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/products/the-dream-2017
Available until: 18th April 2021
The Dream is based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it’s a beautiful ballet. It doesn’t tell the full story, there’s no Theseus and Hippolyta, and the Mechanicals (apart from Bottom) only have a very short appearance but you do get to see the Lovers and the Fairies.
By Megan
Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/marguerite-and-armand-2017/videos/marguerite-and-armand-2017 £3
Available until: Sunday 14th
February 2021
Marguerite and
Armand tells the same story as the opera La
traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. The ballet and the operas are both based on
Alexander Dumas’ play La Dame aux camélias which means The Lady with
the Camelias. Marguerite and Armand are the names given to the characters
in the play and the names have been kept for the ballet.
By Emma
Link:
https://www.stream.theatre/season/11 £23
Available
until: Livestreams at 5pm every day until 1st January 2021.
I
did enjoy this really. There are lots of things about this production which are
really great.
Firstly,
the music. How could you not love the music? There are so many great tunes and
the orchestra plays them brilliantly, it’s a really full sound and it’s like
the music swells with emotion.
By Louise
Link: https://www.brb.org.uk/whats-on/event/the-nutcracker-at-the-rep-online#dates-and-times
Available until: 24th December,
11.59pm.
The Birmingham Royal Ballet’s
production of The Nutcracker is really beautiful. It follows the story I
know, but it makes many dramatic decisions which I wasn’t expecting but which
work really well.
First of all Clara is centre stage as
the main female character. This seems right as it is more her story than the Sugar
Plum Fairy’s. The rivalry between the Nutcracker and the Rat King becomes a
running theme which gives the story more continuity. When Clara is given the
Nutcracker doll, Fritz is given a Rat King doll. The two toys have a play fight
as one of Clara and Fritz’s games. That sets the scene for the fight later and
it’s possible that isn’t the last we see of the Rat King.
By Louise
Available until: Sunday 8th November. The
performance starts half an hour into the video.
We’ve watched a lot of videos of the Royal Ballet recently,
but this was different. This wasn’t a recording. It was live onstage with real
dancers touching each other. There was even an audience of students, nurses and
their families. It wasn’t a full house because of social distancing (and
because the orchestra were spaced out around the whole of the Stalls), but they
sounded like a big audience.
By Louise
Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/dancers-at-a-gathering-2020/videos/dances-at-a-gathering-2020
Available until: 25th October 2020
I don’t know if I’ll be any good at reviewing ballet. I
enjoy ballet a lot, but if I’m seeing a ballet for the first time, it is
sometimes difficult for me to pick out the story unless it’s already familiar
to me. In order to understand Dances at a Gathering properly, I would have to
watch it several times. I did think about doing that, but then (and maybe this
is lazy of me) I was thinking this isn’t a well-known ballet and most people
who watch it will be in the same position as me and won’t have seen it before.
And I think everyone’s thoughts are valid really so mine should be too.
