Royal Opera House, London
July 6, 2024
This year’s Royal Ballet School’s Summer Performance at the Royal Opera House marked the departure of artistic director, Christopher Powney, who is being succeeded by former Birmingham Royal Ballet principal, Iain Mackay; and new chief executive officer, Patrick Harrison. The performance was dedicated to Barbara Fewster, the formidable former associate director of the School, who sadly died just two days earlier at the age of 97.
As always, the programme consisted of classical and contemporary offerings, the former this year including two ballets from the vast collection that is The Royal Ballet’s heritage: Sir Frederick Ashton’s La Valse and Jerome Robbins’ The Concert. It was a hugely enjoyable two-and-a-half hours that showed the versatility of the young dancers, a quality much needed today. The standard was uniformly high although, as in the past couple of years, it was the men, who got two pieces all to themselves, who thrilled rather than the women.
Paquita seems rather to have fallen out of favour, save for the Trocks, but here it provided the opportunity to involve students from White Lodge Year 8 right through to the Upper School’s Pre-professional Year.
After the Years 8 and 9 had given us a very accurate children’s take on the Polonaise and Mazurka, the older students took over for the pas de deux, variations and further ensemble work. The dancing was cooly precise, but only occasionally did it excite or give us a glimpse of Spanish flair.
Among those who did just that was Rebecca Stewart, who danced the second female variation with elegance and élan. She lit up the stage. Her grand jetés positively soared.
Of the men, Alejandro Muñoz and especially Emile Gooding (who stood out in everything he did and the dancer of the performance) showed an easy confidence, while Ravi Cannonier-Watson, clearly an excellent partner, oozed calm assurance in the pas de deux. All four will be joining The Royal Ballet’s Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme next season.
TooT is a hoot. My only complaint is that we didn’t get to see the whole of Didy Veldman’s amusing, sort of white-faced, clown creation. Adam Pearce was the leader with the megaphone, but the joy comes in watching the personalities of the others, and their increasing disobedience, emerge. Emma Lucano and Noah Campbell danced the duet.
Assemblage, a new classical work to music by Leó Weiner by Gemma Bond for the men of the Upper School is predictably full of leaps and turns. While it showed off the talent at the top of the school, I found it overly busy, often with too much happening at once.
For once, I really enjoyed the White Lodge students’ folk dance number. Royal Remix, for Years 7 to 10, created by Iva Lešić, was great fun and a total delight. The fast, complex and playful choreography was performed with aplomb, smiles on faces indicating the children were enjoying it as much as we were.
Frederick Ashton’s La Valse, which opened the second half, is difficult for most dancers, but extra tricky for students not accustomed to the choreographer’s style, especially his use of épaulement. But as Ravel’s score swept them along, they gave a pretty good account. And design-wise, it’s just delicious.
Ashley Page’s Fieldwork, a new creation for the White Lodge Year 11s is another intricate piece with lots of changes of direction.
As anyone who has seen his work at the Ballet Nights series of evenings at the Lanterns Studio Theatre, Joshua Junker, who started off studying breakdance and contemporary, is a choreographer to watch. His Remembrance, originally created for the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company and which won him the prestigious Incentive Award from the Dansersfonds ’79 Foundation (the oldest of Dutch dance awards) is fabulous. The 2nd Year students of the Upper School were riveting in his choreography that mixes classical ballet technique with organic and street elements.
It was good to see the ‘Mistake Waltz’ from Jerome Robbins’ The Concert, but was it a mistake to show it out of context. It certainly seemed to lose something, including some of the humour.
It fell to five men from the Pre-professional Year to round the dancing off. Helgi Tómasson’s Concerto Grosso, a ballet of solos and group numbers that mixes fast allegro with more considered lyrical moments, is a delight. The construction worked well in highlighting the skills of Gooding, Cannonier-Watson, Joseph Birtles Clarke (joining Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company), Edoardo Savini (joining Ballett Zürich Junior Company) and Taira Watanabe (pursuing further studies at university), who put on a fine display
As is the tradition, the performance closed with the Grand Défilé, which sees the whole school on stage. It was a marvellous, uplifting finale to show that suggested British ballet is in rude health, and has some exciting dancers coming through.