Royal Ballet’s Like Water for Chocolate is richly imaginative

Like Water for Chocolate, Christopher Wheeldon’s balletic adaptation of Laura Esquivel’s fantastical novel, makes a remarkably satisfying meal. It takes a magical realist story of a woman whose feelings of love and loss are expressed through the food she cooks, and transforms it into vibrant dance, shaping its moods with expressive choreography that flows like an undulating ribbon through many contrasting scenes, beginning in Mexico in 1910 and spanning more than 20 years and two countries. It incorporates a revolution, three weddings, a bucking horse and a duet where the central couple are literally consumed by passion. And yet it never loses its way.

There is a lot of plot, but it is clearly delivered. The central image of the family table where emotions are cooked up is a constant reminder of the roots of the trouble: namely that Pedro, who has loved Tita, the youngest daughter of the De la Garza household, since childhood, is forced by her dominating mother to marry her older sister Rosaura.

From that spiteful moment, a story of misplaced and destructive desire unfolds. The imaginative power of Wheeldon’s steps and Bob Crowley’s designs result in a succession of memorable images: the corpse brides who line the back of the stage before turning into black-clad widows, who knit impassively like so many ferocious fates; the heavy lace curtains that divide the scenes; the terrifying ghost of Mama Elena rising from the tomb, shock-haired and huge, towering over her cowering family.

Both dance and design are seamlessly blended with Joby Talbot’s Mexican-inflected score, powerfully played by an orchestra that seems to be enjoying itself under the conductor Jonathan Lo. There’s a tremendous energy about the entire affair, perhaps because the three-act narrative gives the Royal Ballet’s dramatic dancers so much to get their teeth into.

Successive casts reveal different aspects of its vast panoply of characters. Returning to the roles they created, Marcelino Sambé as Pedro and Francesca Hayward as Tita seem to pulse and quiver with feeling, their every emotion showing beneath the skin of steps that they shape with ardent simplicity. In another cast, Mayara Magri brings great warmth to Tita while Leo Dixon lends Pedro’s soaring jumps expressive power.

As Dr Brown, the man who loves Tita but understands he will not hold her, William Bracewell shows extraordinary clarity of thought and movement, while Matthew Ball brings great tenderness to the role in the duet for him and Tita, which is perhaps the most beautiful single section in the piece. Melissa Hamilton is a truly vengeful Mama Elena, lending her sharp, angular, repressive movement great weight; Fumi Kaneko, in the same role, looks terrific but has less emotional heft.

All around them, a distinctive world of action unfolds powerfully in the contrasts between swirling group scenes and quieter moments of reflection. It’s richly imaginative and fulfilling.

Like Water for Chocolate, Royal Ballet, is at the Royal Opera House until Friday

Photographs by Foteini Christofilopoulou