What’s Showing

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 and her Prince 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 classical dancing.

A modern Mexican classic of magic realism provides the basis for The Royal Ballet’s new full-length work, reuniting Artistic Associate Christopher Wheeldon with the creative team who transformed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale into dance, composer Joby Talbot and designer Bob Crowley.

The ballet is inspired by Laura Esquivel’s novel – a captivating family saga where the central character’s emotions spill out through cooking to influence everyone around her in startling and dramatic ways. In this co-production with American Ballet Theatre, Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra also acts as musical consultant for Talbot’s newly commissioned score, and Wheeldon has worked closely with Esquivel to reshape her richly layered story into an entertaining and engrossing new ballet.

In the court of Princess Turandot, suitors who fail to solve her riddles are brutally killed. But when a mysterious Prince answers one correctly, suddenly he holds all the power – and a glorious secret. When life hangs in the balance, can love conquer all?

Puccini’s score is rich in musical marvels (featuring the famous aria ‘Nessun dorma’), while Andrei Serban’s production draws on Chinese theatrical traditions to evoke a colourful fantasy tableau of ancient Peking. Antonio Pappano conducts Anna Pirozzi in the title role and Yonghoon Lee as Calaf.

Royal Ballet Founder Choreographer Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella celebrates its 75^th 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.

Servants Figaro and Susanna are filled with excitement on their wedding day, but there’s a hitch: their employer, the Count Almaviva, has dishonourable intentions of his own towards the bride-to-be.

With more twists than a page boy’s stockings, the story of Mozart’s comic opera will surprise and delight you at every turn. Come for the music and stay for the cross-dressing hilarity, all unfolding over the course of one crazy, topsy-turvy day in the Almaviva household. Royal Opera Music Director Antonio Pappano conducts a truly international cast in David McVicar’s timeless production.

The Sleeping Beauty holds a very special place in The Royal Ballet’s heart and history. It was the first performance given by the Company when the Royal Opera House reopened at Covent Garden in 1946 after World War II. In 2006, this original staging was revived and has been delighting audiences ever since. Frederick Ashton famously cited the pure classicism of Marius Petipa’s 19^th-century ballet as a private lesson in the atmospheric art and craft of choreography. Be swept away by Tchaikovsky’s ravishing music and Oliver Messel’s sumptuous fairytale designs with this true gem from the classical ballet repertory.

Passions run high as Manrico and the Count di Luna compete for the affections of Leonora. Little do they know, Manrico’s mother Azucena has been keeping a terrible secret for decades. Soon a curse from the past will rise up from the ashes with devastating implications for them all.

Starring Ludovic Tézier and Jamie Barton, Adele Thomas’s energetic staging sets Verdi’s tale in a Hieronymus Bosch-inspired universe of medieval superstition. Antonio Pappano conducts Verdi’s dramatic score, which features the famous ‘Anvil’ chorus.