Page 1056 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

Lauren Cuthbertson as Hermione in Christopher Wheeldon’s The Winter’s Tale. Photograph:
Johan Persson/Royal Opera House/ArenaPAL

The Royal Ballet spends 2024 honouring its own. Its celebration of the work of Kenneth
MacMillan begins with an epic run of his dramatic 1974 narrative ballet Manon (Royal
Opera House, London, 17 January to 8 March). A range of dancers will have the chance
to get inside the tragic story of a courtesan torn between her love for a poor student and
a rich patron. Later, there’s a triple bill (20 March to 13 April) of the airily
abstract Danses Concertantes, the gruelling Different Drummer, based on
Büchner’s Woyzeck, and the moving Requiem, to Fauré.

The Royal’s founder choreographer, Frederick Ashton, has his own moment in the sun
with two programmes (6 to 19 June and 7 to 22 June), both including The
Dream and Rhapsody. There’s also a major 10th anniversary revival of artistic associate
Christopher Wheeldon’s The Winter’s Tale (3 May to 1 June) and a premiere in the
autumn of resident choreographer Wayne McGregor’s MaddAddam, a three-act ballet
based on the Margaret Atwood trilogy.

Meanwhile at English National Ballet, incoming director Aaron Watkin begins to put
his own mark on the company by staging the UK premiere of Swedish choreographer
Johan Inger’s Carmen (Sadler’s Wells, London, 26 March to 6 April). Northern Ballet is
staging a welcome revival of its own version of Romeo and Juliet (Leeds Grand theatre,
8-16 March, then touring). Directed by the late and great Christopher Gable and
choreographed by Massimo Moricone, it was once the most popular production in its
repertory.

Major new work is thin on the ground, but the terrific Boy Blue launch Cycles, which
celebrates the tenacity of the natural world (Barbican, London, 30 April to 4 May). The
most intriguing premiere comes, almost inevitably, from thoughtful Canadian creator