Yasmine Naghdi

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.

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.

The Sleeping Beauty holds a special place in The Royal Ballet’s repertory. It was the ballet with which the Company reopened the Royal Opera House in 1946 after World War II, its first production at its new home in Covent Garden. Margot Fonteyn danced the role of the beautiful Princess Aurora in the first performance, with Robert Helpmann as Prince Florimund. Sixty years later, in 2006, the original 1946 staging was revived by then Director of The Royal Ballet Monica Mason and Christopher Newton, returning Oliver Messel’s wonderful designs and glittering costumes to the stage.

The peasant girl Giselle discovers the true identity of her lover Albrecht – and that he is promised to another. Giselle kills herself. Her soul enters the ranks of the Wilis – shades of young women who died before their wedding day. All men that come across their path are compelled to dance themselves to death, and Albrecht falls into their trap. Giselle’s intercession saves Albrecht and releases her soul from the Wilis’ power.

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.

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.

Now celebrating its 50th year, George Balanchine’s sparkling ballet still shines with all the brilliance of the gemstones that inspired it.

King Florestan XXIV and his Queen have invited all the fairies to the christening of their daughter, Princess Aurora. The celebration is interrupted by the arrival of Carabosse, the Wicked Fairy. In her anger at not being invited she gives Aurora a spindle, saying that one day the Princess will prick her finger on it and die. The Lilac Fairy promises that Aurora will not die but fall into a deep sleep, from which she will be woken by a prince’s kiss.