La Fille Mal Gardee, The Royal Ballet, 09/03/2010, 18/03/2010, 21/04/2010

It is a sign of just how good this production is, that at my third performance, I was still laughing just as hard as at my first, and clapping just as enthusiastically until the very end of the curtain calls.

The perfect concoction of witty choreography, pantomime and warm-hearted delectably twee romance. Frederick Ashton tells us the story of Lise, the only daughter of a wealthy widow, who is in love, against her mother's wishes, with a young farmer Colas. Her mother would rather see her married to Alain, the idiot son of a rich landowner. We watch the fun and games unfold as Lise and Colas cheekily defy her mother, enjoy the gaiety of harvest-time and, and finally we see them united as we know they inevitably will be from the moment the curtain goes up.

Ashton's choreography is genius, timed perfectly with the nuances in the music; OTT yet tongue-in-cheek, this really is charming. The whole production is full of humourous surprises. Certainly you don't come to the Royal Ballet with the expectation of seeing dancing chickens and a real horse on stage! While the treatment of the character of Alain is perhaps ever so slightly un-P.C, on the whole the right balance is struck between sympathy and humour, and Jose Martin and Liam Scarlett both danced and acted very well. The comedy star of the show is the Widow Twanky of the pantomime, Widow Simone, played by Will Tuckett and Alastair Marriott, both to great effect. Her clog dance in Scene 2 is absolutely hilarious, with Will Tuckett going completely all out, slides, heel clicks, buckling ankles. Brilliant.

I am priveliged enough to have seen three different casts, Marianela Nunez with Carlos Acosta, and both Laura Morera and Alina Cojocaru with Stephen McRae. Nunez and Acosta were the most consumate  and confident performers. Not a partnership that we see often, they dance this piece very well together; the wittiest of the three couples by quite some margin. Also, Colas is a perfectly smug role for Acostas. Nunez and Morera dance very similar interpretations - youthful, cheeky, but not completely naive - whereas Cojocaru plays a far more childish, innocent (although not without a touch of stubbornness) Lise. McRae was on top form both performances, although he seemed to have better chemistry as Colas with Laura Morera than for Cojocaru; this pair getting an extremely enthusiastic response from the normally quiet Tuesday night audience.

This is a ballet of many props, and Lise and Colas certainly have some tricky props to contend with throughout the ballet, most notably a veritable cats cradle with ribbons in Act 1. This was met with varying degrees of success, and only Nunez and Acosta pulled all the ribbon antics off seamlessly right through to Nunez rock solid en attitude as the rotating centre of the may pole in scene 2. Cojocaru and McRae more or less got there, although wobbled at the may pole in scene 2, but McRae and Morera got the ribbon so tangled in scene 1 that in the they had to ditch it all together! However, it's all part of the fun, and when it goes wrong, it certainly doesn't detract from the rest of the evening.

La Fille Mal Gardee provides unabated fun and games, with lovely dancing, clever antics and charming humour from start to finish. Really one of the best things I've seen at the ROH for a long time, and certainly my favourite Ashton. As the friend I went with said, and quite rightly - "you just come out bouncing!"

Concerto/The Judas Tree/Elite Syncopations - The Royal Ballet 31/03/2010

A trio of MacMillan. And all works I've not seen before. A highly anticipated evening!

Concerto, danced to Shostakovich's beautiful 2nd piano concerto, started things off. This is possibly one of my favourite pieces of music, which was both a good and a bad thing. It was fantastic to see it visualised, made flesh (!), but at the same time, the tempos were all a bit rigid, and too slow for my liking in the first and third movements. The first movement should be garish and circus like, yet with militaristic overtones - puppetry is probably the most obvious theme that comes to mind. Certainly, the orange, yellow and red leatards met the garish criterion, but it still felt too understated. I wanted more angularity, harsher more abrupt movements than were evident. Laura Morera was fab as usual, although Brian Maloney, partnering her, was a little clumsy. The second movement, a pas de deux inspired by a ballerina warming up at the barre, is a stark contrast to the first and third. Dim lights rather than harsh lights, and slow lingering movements. The male dancer is a support, taking the part of the barre, and Ryoichi Hirano was solid, and symmetrical, beautiful echoing Sarah Lamb's sublime movements. This movement was peaceful and really did feel like music in motion. In the third however, Laura McCulloch had a hard task. Following two duos, she really needed to set the stage on fire, particularly after the slow 2nd movement. However, she felt cumbersome and heavy, and this is not the first time I've used those words to describe her dancing. She is a lot taller than her fellow female dancers, and in general bigger built. Which is fine, and sometimes works really well. But this whole dance felt strained - she overreached in her grand jetes, and lacked the radiance she sometimes exudes. However, despite ending on a down note, Concerto was definitely a hit for me.

The Judas Tree, MacMillan's last ballet, packs a punch and that's for sure. MacMillan at his grittiest, it is set in the Isle of Dogs during the regeneration period. Dealing with the concepts of collective guilt and betrayal, the choreography is rough and ready, and this work ends chillingly with a graphic representation of gang rape. Mara Galeazzi and Thiago Soares danced fantastically as the Woman and The Foreman, with Soares probably giving the best performance I've ever seen him give. I'll admit to finding this a pretty shocking ballet - I'm glad I've seen it, but I'm not sure I would be in a hurry to see it again.

Elite Syncopations couldn't be more different to The Judas Tree if it tried. And what a fun way to end the night. If Concerto's costumes were not garish enough, these may have gone too far. They are almost blinding! The band (ragtime music not being exactly orchestral) is on stage, creating a nicely informal atmosphere, even though the stripped down numbers and added distance from the auditorium compromises on volume. I felt like this got off to an unexpectedly slow start - the Sunflower Slow Drag felt a bit scrappy and a bit lacking in energy. Laura Morera was the star of this show as far as I'm concerned - perfect musicality and characterful dancing in the Calliope Rag. Yuhui Choe lacked pizazz and while Marianela Nunez was her usual seamless self (and that definition also extents to her stars-and-stripes catsuit!) she wasn't a patch on Laura. The Alaskan Rag, which turn the normal ballet partnership on it's head (short MALE dancer, tall female) was absolutely hilarious - Nathalie Harrison and Michael Stojko had their timing down to a tee. An extremely enjoyable end to the night, even if I felt it could have had just slightly more energy!

The Cunning Little Vixen, The Royal Opera, 29/03/2010

A charming production, and the least pretentious opera I've seen. Beautiful, yet highly stylised, ethereal set and costumes make Janáček's opera a visual feast. A large rotating wheel, gigantic mosquitos, a chain-saw-come-clock and more. Wow.

What it lacks in big sweeping songs, it more than makes up for in gorgeous, warm, dense orchestration and light floating melodies. The cast was strong, and were clearly (like the audience watching) having a whale of a time. Emma Matthews (Vixen Sharp-Ears) has a lovely light tone; a joy to listen to, even if she did struggle occasionally to cut through the orchestra. Elisabeth Meister replaced Emma Bell as The Fox, and acted the part well, although her voice has a shrill quality that jars on the some of the higher notes.

The plot is neither here nor there (or perhaps I just didn't get it) but this opera is witty, whimsical and wholesome fun. It's not all fun and games of course - gun shots in the second act bring us crashing back to earth - but overall an uplifting and unpretentious production. No melodrama here.