Requiem. The Royal Ballet (2024)

Via the ROH streaming platform

After watching, and being blown away by the film Cranko, I was inspired to look further in an effort to expand my understanding of the background to John Cranko’s career with Stuttgart Ballet. I found on the Royal Opera House streaming platform a 2024 production of Requiem, a ballet created for Stuttgart Ballet in 1976 as ‘a portrait of a ballet company coming to terms with the loss of its beloved leader’. That leader was, of course, John Cranko and the work, which first reached the stage three years after Cranko’s death in 1973, was choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan and set to Gabriel Fauré’s choral work Requiem.

The work has an interesting early history. MacMillan intended it for the Royal Ballet but his choice of music was vetoed by the Royal Opera House board of governors. Some board members did not approve of the use of the Fauré’s music, There was a feeling that its use might offend the religious sensibilities of some patrons. Marcia Haydée, then artistic director of Stuttgart Ballet, had no issues with MacMillan’s choice of music and the work was created in Stuttgart. It eventually entered the repertoire of the Royal Ballet in 1983.

I was incredibly moved by the opening moments when the cast entered from upstage, Prompt side, as a tightly knit group, moving with tiny steps while clenching their hands in what appeared to be frustration then opening their hands and arms expansively, while at the same time opening their mouths as if screaming. There before us was a group represented as one but with each and every person uttering their sorrow.

Then followed several separate sections according to the various movements of the Fauré composition, which Fauré himself described (apparently) as ‘dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest’. The choral input to the production came from the Royal Opera Extra Chorus. Other creative input included design from Yolanda Sonnabend (with later input from Peter Farley) and lighting by John B. Read.

Groupings of dancers featured throughout and, media tells us, many of the images created were inspired by the art work of William Blake.

An image from the sixth movement of *Requiem*. Image from the ROH stream page. Photographer not identified (a still?)

But beyond the stunning group work there were sections where the soloists on this occasion— Sarah Lamb, Melissa Hamilton, William Bracewell, Josef Sissens and Lukas Brændsrød—performed alone or together in pas de deux and other small combinations. Exceptionally enthralling was a solo by a sparingly costumed William Bracewell in the second movement. It was pretty much a perfect display both of his amazing technical skill and his ability to project emotion through that technique. It also showed just beautifully MacMillan’s choreographic emphasis on filling the space around the body.

William Bracewell in *Requiem*. From a Facebook page.

Sarah Lamb and Melissa Hamilton had some engrossing solos in the fourth and fifth movements and it was moving to watch the choreography so often changing from tightly held, almost crumpled poses to expansive movements. Thus did MacMillan’s choreography show changing emotions from despair to acceptance. The finale was yet another moving part of the work with the stage space showing a circle of light mid stage with the dancers moving into the light and showing some kind of acceptance, perhaps of a new stage in their and Cranko’s existence.

A masterly production from Macmillan and so beautifully performed by the Royal Ballet.

Michelle Potter, 10 June 2025

Featured image: An image from the ROH stream webpage for Requiem. Photographer not identified (a still?)

Francesca Hayward as Manon and Federico Bonelli as Des Grieux. The Royal Ballet © ROH, 2018. Photo: Bill Cooper

Manon. The Royal Ballet

19 April 2018 (matinee), Royal Opera House, London

The first thing that struck me as the curtain went up on the Royal Ballet’s Manon, and as the action began, was how full of life the crowd scenes were. No matter which character one watched there was always strong acting. And having been brought up, as it were, on the Australian Ballet’s production of Manon, which has designs by Peter Farmer, it was a delightful change to see Nicholas Georgiadis’ work. His set is so functional and yet so evocative and his range of costumes for the variety of folk who inhabit the opening scene is eye-catching to say the least.

As the action proceeded, however, there were ups and downs. Bennet Gartside as Monsieur G.M, and Nehemiah Kish as Des Grieux were both strong performers, technically and as actors, and their strengths continued beyond Act I. I didn’t get quite the same feeling, however, from Melissa Hamilton as Manon. I couldn’t quite figure out whether she was stringing Des Grieux along. Had she really fallen for him as he had for her? I wanted to feel a few goose bumps in their various pas de deux but didn’t. Hamilton was better at being distant with Monsieur G.M than intimate with Des Grieux.

There were times, however, when I admired Hamilton’s beautifully fluid arms, especially in her Act II solo and dance with the men at the party given by Monsieur G. M. Then she brought an attractive Eastern look and feel to her dancing. It was also in Act II that Georgiadis’ costumes really shone with their range of russet colours set off by black highlights. Valentino Zucchetti as Lescaut, Manon’s brother, also stood out across the acts in which he was involved. His drunken solo and dance with his friends deserved applause. Act III continued the strength of the first two acts in terms of acting with Gary Avis a cold and nasty gaoler.

I left the theatre after this performance having been swept along by the clarity of the storyline. I wish, however, that Manon had made it a little easier for me to have been swept along by her plight. It would have made the show much more powerful.

Michelle Potter, 22 April 2018

Featured image: Francesca Hayward as Manon and Federico Bonelli as Des Grieux. The Royal Ballet © ROH, 2018. Photo: Bill Cooper

Note: There are no media images available of the cast I saw.

Ballo della regina, Live fire exercise, DGV. The Royal Ballet

10 May 2011, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Every time I visit London and am lucky enough to see a performance by the Royal Ballet I am bowled over. The recent mixed bill of Balanchine’s Ballo della regina, Wayne McGregor’s brand-new Live fire exercise and Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV (Danse à grande vitesse) simply reinforced my view that the Royal is at a high point in its career—so many dancers of star quality or star potential, a coaching team that appears to work on developing a clear understanding of what lies behind each work and great programming.

Balanchine’s Ballo della regina opened this program. On the night I went, leading roles were danced by Lauren Cuthbertson and Sergei Polunin. It was especially rewarding to see Cuthbertson take command of a role so closely associated with that great American ballerina Merrill Ashley, who created the leading female role in 1978. On stage Ashley always looked as American as apple pie, you might say, with her glowingly healthy face, her forthright (and fabulous) technique, and a kind of no holds barred, no nonsense approach. Cuthbertson, however, had a different approach. Ashley showed the steps, and how she showed them. Cuthbertson, with a lighter frame than Ashley, seemed to emphasis not so much individual moments but an overall fluidity. This is not to say that her dancing lacked highlights. Her ability to alter direction suddenly and to move with unexpected changes of speed was a real delight. And there was not a moment when she faltered. It was a great performance.

As for Polunin he had nothing to live up to as Robert Weiss, who partnered Ashley in 1978, never in my opinion really made the role his own. Polunin knocked me for six with his ability to cover space—the extension of the front leg in movements like grands jetés en avant was like an arrow speeding forward on a perfect course. And then there was the clarity of his beats and the perfection of his turns.

Four soloists—Melissa Hamilton stood out in particular—and a beautifully rehearsed corps de ballet made this Ballo a special treat.

Wayne McGregor’s Live fire exercise, made in collaboration with artist John Gerrard, on the surface could hardly have been more different. The starting point was a US army exercise in the Djibouti desert, a detonation designed to prepare troops for the physical effects of the mortar rounds or road side bombings they may encounter. A screen occupied a large part of the upstage area. On it was a projection of a desert scene and over time we saw the arrival of trucks and other machinery, a blast and the subsequent plume of fire and its smoky aftermath. In front of this video installation three men and three women performed McGregor’s demanding, highly physical choreography. In the background Michael Tippet’s Fantasia concertante on a theme of Corelli provided, almost as a juxtaposition, a kind of pastoral accompaniment.

McGregor’s choreography in Live fire exercise, showed his signature extensions with the dancers’ legs pushed high into positions that destroy the usual line of classical ballet, along with his approach to partnering with its emphasis on curved, twisted and folded bodies, and with his use of extreme falls. At one point Sarah Lamb performed a promenade in attitude on a bent supporting leg. She was supported in this by Eric Underwood who, once the circle of the promenade had been completed, swiftly lifted her and with a swirl threw her through the air. She travelled through the air, looking light as a feather with a perfectly held body, into the arms of another dancer. For me this moment put McGregor in a new light and his ability to use the classical vocabulary, and then to manipulate it became clear.

Overall, and almost unbelievably, the choreography seemed quite calm and considered. Throughout the piece single dancers occasionally stood quietly beside the video installation. They were lit so as to appear shadowy, isolated human beings figures against the plume of fire or smoke. They drew our attention from the choreography back to the footage and also served to remind us of the content of this footage and its underlying political message. Live fire exercise is the most personal of the works of McGregor that I have seen to date

In addition to Lamb and Underwood the cast comprised Cuthbertson, Polunin, Akane Takada, Federico Bonelli and Ricardo Cervera.

Closing the evening, Wheeldon’s DGV was something of a letdown. DGV is set to a score by Michael Nyman, MGV (Musique à grande vitesse), and draws inspiration from the idea of a journey with the French very fast train (TGV) the source of both Nyman’s and Wheeldon’s title. The work is essentially a series of four pas de deux with a corps to ballet of another eighteen dancers who often also work in pairs. It shows Wheeldon’s exceptional ability to create mesmerisng duets and his capacity to move large groups of people around the stage to create strong visual imagery. It was beautifully danced, especially by the corps and without a perfect corps the patterns falls apart, which they certainly didn’t on this occasion.

But I found the work a little repetitive and somewhat soporific. Maybe it was simply that it came after the McGregor with its underlying message of the politics of war? McGregor pushes his audience, Wheeldon doesn’t, or didn’t with DGV. Nevertheless DGV completed a wonderfully diverse and fabulously performed evening of dance.

Michelle Potter, 27 May 2011