Party atmosphere at the Royal Ballet and Opera’s spring gala

There’s been a celebratory air in dance this spring. At the Royal Opera House, the arrival of some new red curtains with the personal cipher of HM King Charles III embroidered upon them by the Royal School of Needlework and theatrical textile manufacturer Gerriets prompted a Spring Gala of bounce and bite.

This event, in the presence of said monarch, combined traditional gala fare from the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera, including the Rose Adagio from Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty danced by a radiant Marianela Nuñez, and the Anvil chorus from Verdi’s Il Trovatore sung by the Royal Opera Chorus. There were also more adventurous choices: an aria from Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans sung with high drama by Aigul Akhmetshina; and the trio from Wayne McGregor’s Chroma danced with jazzy precision by Joseph Sissens, Caspar Lench and Francisco Serrano.

It also, in the case of the Royal Ballet, boldly featured two new works and one fascinating revival. Valentino Zucchetti’s As One, to music by Karl Jenkins, is easy on the eye, setting six male dancers soaring and springing across an empty stage. Akram Khan’s Hunting a Whisper in the Wind is more challenging. It is the first piece he has made for the Royal Ballet, full of portent and hidden meaning, suspending Francesca Hayward and guest artist Jeffrey Cirio in a mysterious white landscape, where they wrap their limbs around one another in gestures of support. It feels both too much for a gala and too little for a ballet; you long to see a more expanded version of the work. 

But the convention of using a celebratory setting to explore an idea is reinforced by the Poulenc Pas De Deux, sumptuously performed by Marianna Tsembenhoi and Harris Bell, having been created by Kenneth MacMillan for a similar event in 1984. Thought lost, it has been reconstituted by the original performer Alessandra Ferri, now 63, and stands as a gentle reminder of the sheer inventiveness of MacMillan’s choreography, full of surprising poses and grace notes.

The BalletBoyz also have cause for celebration. Still Pointless, a touring programme, marks 25 years since William Trevitt and Michael Nunn first set up the company. It’s fitting that they open this greatest hits bill of extracts with a glimpse of one of the first pieces they danced in 2001 – Russell Maliphant’s Critical Mass.

They may have less hair than they used to, but the sharpness of their movements, their snap and pulse as gestures repeat in slightly altered variations, is just as compelling. That same charismatic precision is on view in the 10 male-presenting dancers of the current company, as they work their way through a wide range of work, from Xie Xin’s transfixing, fluid Ripple to Javier de Frutos’s witty Fiction to the serene beauty of Us, a duet performed by Paris Fitzpatrick and Dylan Jones and created by Christopher Wheeldon for the company in 2017.

The new piece on a programme that celebrates the past is Motor Cortex, by company dancer Seirian Griffiths, a choreographer of immense promise. Built on the contrast between geometric lines of movement and the softness of bodies rising and falling as they push and manoeuvre one another into position, it’s sure to be a greatest hit of the future.

Photograph by Tristram Kenton