Thrilling debuts, starry guests and a tear-stained farewell at Covent Garden this week as the Royal Ballet closed the season with a triple bill of works by Sir Frederick Ashton. The company’s founder choreographer could often be spotted lurking at the back of the house during Marius Petipa’s Sleeping Beauty enjoying ‘a private lesson’. Today’s would-be narrative dancemakers could gain similar benefits from The Dream, which distils Shakespeare’s five acts into 55 minutes of witty, characterful dance.
Steven McRae’s Oberon made short work of Mendelssohn’s Scherzo with icy pirouettes melting into deep penchées and turns chained so tight and fast he should wear asbestos slippers. Marcelino Sambé added a spicy dash of sadism to the fairy king’s revenge, which made the final duet with ‘proud Titania’ all the sweeter. Nuptial pas de deux are two a penny in classical ballet but happy ever after is far harder to capture. John Cranko managed it in Onegin and Ashton achieves it here: a long, erotically-charged dialogue of reconciliation.
Francesca Hayward was a pin-sharp Titania despite her slightly me-and-my-first-pony take on Bottom’s seduction. Laura Morera was raunchier and more wayward and Akane Takada, a last-minute substitution, rode the breeze with each jump and relished the sexy shoulderplay, arms trailing in her wake like mist. David Yudes made an impressive first sketch of Puck with vari-speed pirouettes and leaps that hung in the air with impressive ballon (remember ballon?). The four lovers played out their farce like a lost scene from Pickwick and the corps de ballet, fairy-soft in their well-prepared shoes, floated through the fuzzy geometry of the ensembles.
The evening’s centrepiece was 1946’s Symphonic Variations set to César Franck and designed by Sophie Fedorovitch who conjured a minimalist Elysium with a few swirling isobars on a shimmering lime-green ground.
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