‘Nose over toes.’ ‘Index fingers in.’ ‘Hands at cheekbone width.’ Watching morning classes at the Royal Ballet School in Richmond Park is a revelation. If you’ve ever sat in the stalls at Covent Garden and wondered what it takes to be Giselle, Odette or the Sugar Plum Fairy, here is your answer: devotion, dedication, concentration and several hundred pairs of worn-through slippers. And if you’ve ever wondered why the dancers of the Royal Ballet look so at home among fairytale castles, kingdoms of sweets and enchanted woods… Well, they grew up with it.
White Lodge, built as a royal hunting retreat for George II in 1730, would make an enchanting backcloth to a performance of Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia. At any moment you expect a nymph to leap from behind the science block. George II’s Consort, Caroline of Ansbach, used to canter the length of the Queen’s Ride and dismount in the loggia.
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