Anna Rose O'Sullivan

Join Clara at a delightful Christmas Eve party that becomes a magical adventure once everyone else is tucked up in bed. Marvel at the brilliance of Tchaikovsky’s score, as Clara and her enchanted Nutcracker fight the Mouse King and visit the Sugar Plum Fairy in the glittering Kingdom of Sweets. Peter Wright’s much-loved production for The Royal Ballet, with gorgeous period designs by Julia Trevelyan Oman, keeps true to the spirit of this festive ballet classic, combining the thrill of the fairy tale with spectacular dancing.

Open details →

A part of "Body Limits II," a series of video works that use dance video recordings selected from the Internet. The multiplication of bodies and the transformations made to colors and speed turn these recordings into video art works that question the boundary between figuration and abstraction. The original soundtracks have been preserved. Slowed down to the same speed as the image and enriched with various effects, they contribute to the aesthetics of these détournements. The body, pushed to its limits, transcends itself to give life to new representations of physical activity.

Open details →

Clara is given an enchanted Nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve. As midnight strikes, she creeps downstairs to find a magical adventure awaiting her and her Nutcracker. The magician Drosselmeyer transforms the drawing room into a battle between mice and toy soldiers. During the battle, Clara saves the Nutcracker’s life – so breaking a magical spell that turned him from a boy to a toy – and the Mouse King is defeated. In celebration, Drosselmeyer sweeps Clara and the Nutcracker off to the Kingdom of Sweets, where they meet the Sugar Plum Fairy and take part in a wonderful display of dances. The next morning, Clara’s adventures seem to have been more than just a dream.

Open details →

Royal Ballet Founder Choreographer Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella celebrates its 75th anniversary this Season. The ballet’s opening night in 1948, featuring Moira Shearer and Michael Somes in the lead roles, was received rapturously. After over a decade away from the Royal Opera House stage, Ashton’s timeless reworking of Charles Perrault’s famous rags-to-riches story returns, showcasing the choreographer’s deft musicality and the beauty of Prokofiev’s transcendent score. A creative team steeped in the magic of theatre, film, dance and opera brings new atmosphere to Cinderella’s ethereal world of fairy godmothers and pumpkin carriages, handsome princes and finding true love.

Open details →

Ashton gracefully reimagines Turgenev's play A Month in the country as a one-act ballet where all the drama unfolds in the family's living room upon the arrival of dashing young tutor. Characters come in and out, their feelings for one another displayed through solos and pas de deux, highlighting Ashton's talent for playing out complex drama through detailed and intricate choreography.

Open details →

Anna Rose O'Sullivan and Marcelino Sambé star in this 20th-century ballet masterpiece, brought to life by Prokofiev’s ravishing score and Kenneth MacMillan's evocative and detailed choreography.

Open details →

The rich history of American ballet is celebrated in classic works by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, two choreographic giants of the 20th century. Apollo brought Balanchine together for the first time with composer Igor Stravinsky. Their creation for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1928 remains a masterpiece of neoclassicism in its striking depiction of the young god of music and his three muses. Balanchine’s effervescent Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux breathes life into a long-lost movement from Tchaikovsky’s original score for Swan Lake. Created in 1960 for virtuoso New York City Ballet dancers Violette Verdy and Conrad Ludlow, its thrilling technical challenges are still relished by performers today.

Open details →

Cathy Marston's first work for the Royal Opera House Main Stage is a lyrical memoir of the momentous life of the cellist Jacqueline du Pré, from her discovery of the cello through her celebrity as one of the most extraordinary players of the instrument to her frustration and struggle with multiple sclerosis. Rich and poignant, joyous and tragic, The Cellist draws on the talents of The Royal Ballet's Principals, Character Artists, Soloists and Corps to tell the moving story of the cellist's life. Composer Philip Feeney incorporates some of the most moving and powerful cello music of Elgar, Beethoven, Fauré, Mendelssohn, Piatti, Rachmaninoff and Schubert into an exquisite score that is itself an homage to the cello.

Open details →

The Royal Ballet presents the world premiere of Cathy Marston's first work for the Company on the Main Stage alongside a revival of Jerome Robbins’s timeless classic of pure dance. The Cellist is a one-act ballet about British cellist Jacqueline du Pré, from her discovery of the cello through her celebrity as one of the most extraordinary players of the instrument to her frustration and struggle with multiple sclerosis. Jerome Robbins's Dances at a Gathering is a fluid exercise in pure dance for five couples, set to piano music by Fryderyk Chopin.

Open details →

The wicked fairy Carabosse is furious she wasn’t invited to Princess Aurora’s christening. She gives the baby a spindle, saying that one day the Princess will prick her finger on it and die. The Lilac Fairy makes her own christening gift a softening of Carabosse’s curse: Aurora will not die, but will fall into a deep sleep, which only a prince’s kiss will break. The masterful 19th-century choreography of Marius Petipa is combined with sections created for The Royal Ballet by Frederick Ashton, Anthony Dowell and Christopher Wheeldon. Recorded live as part of the Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season 2019/20 with encore screenings broadcast online during the #OurHousetoYourHouse programme.

Open details →

From The Royal Ballet’s classical origins in the works of Petipa, to the home-grown choreographers who put British ballet on the world stage, this mixed programme highlights the versatility of the Company. Petipa’s Raymonda Act III is Russian classical ballet summarized in one act, full of sparkle and precise technique, while Ashton’s Enigma Variations is quintessentially British in every way – from its score by Elgar and period designs by Julia Trevelyan Oman, to Ashton’s signature style, the essence of British ballet. Concerto, MacMillan’s fusion of classical technique with a contemporary mind, completes a programme that shows the breadth of the Company’s heritage.

Open details →

Kenneth MacMillan's passionate choreography for Romeo and Juliet shows The Royal Ballet at its dramatic finest. Sergey Prokofiev's iconic score provides the basis for the ballet's romantic pas de deux and vibrant crowd scenes, while 16th-century Verona is created by Nicholas Georgiadis's magnificent designs. In 1965, MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet was given its premiere at Covent Garden by The Royal Ballet and was an immediate success: the first night was met with rapturous applause, which lasted for 40 minutes, and an incredible 43 curtain calls. The title roles were danced by Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, although the ballet had been created on Christopher Gable and Lynn Seymour. It has been performed by The Royal Ballet more than four hundred times since, as well as touring the world, and has become a true classic of the 20th-century ballet repertory.

Open details →

Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour is based around seven couples separating and intermingling, to music by Vivaldi and Ezio Bosso and lit with the rich colours suggested by sunset. In Flight Pattern, Crystal Pite combines Górecki's haunting “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” with a large dance ensemble to create a poignant and passionate reflection on migration. Between them, Medusa is new work inspired by the Greek myth, created for The Royal Ballet by the acclaimed choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, which juxtaposes Purcell arias with an electronic score by Olga Wojciechowska.

Open details →

Clara is given an enchanted Nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve. As midnight strikes, she creeps downstairs to find a magical adventure awaiting her and her Nutcracker. Recorded on stage 3 December 2018—15 January 2019 as part of the Autumn 2018/19 season.

Open details →

Set in the Royal India of the past, La Bayadère is a story of eternal love, mystery, fate, vengeance, and justice. The ballet relates the drama of a temple dancer (bayadère), Nikiya, who is loved by Solor, a noble warrior. She is also loved by the High Brahmin, but does not love him in return, as she does Solor.

Open details →

The first revival of Wayne McGregor’s critically acclaimed ballet triptych to music by Max Richter, inspired by the works of Virginia Woolf.

Open details →

Romeo and Juliet fall passionately in love, but their families are caught up in a deadly feud. They marry in secret, but tragic circumstances lead Romeo to fight and kill Juliet’s cousin Tybalt. As punishment, he is banished from the city. When Juliet’s parents force her to marry Paris, she takes drastic action by drinking a potion to make her appear dead so she can escape to join Romeo. News of the plan fails to reach him and he returns to visit her tomb grief stricken. Presuming Juliet lifeless, he drinks a phial of poison. Juliet wakes to find Romeo dead. Devastated, she stabs herself.

Open details →