ROH Live: The Nutcracker

Tita, who lives on a ranch in Mexico, falls in love with a boy, Pedro, who lives nearby; but when they want to get married, Tita's family prevents it, because she must remain single to take care of her mother.

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.

Marius Petipa’s exotic ballet set in legendary India is a story of love, death and vengeful judgement. Natalia Makarova’s sumptuous recreation of Petipa’s choreography, with atmospheric sets by Pier Luigi Samaritini and beautiful costumes by Yolanda Sonnabend, stars Tamara Rojo as the Bayadère (temple dancer) Nikiya, Carlos Acosta as Solor, and Marianela Nuñez as Gamzatti, whose alluring presence challenges Solor’s love for Nikiya. Live performance recorded in 2009.

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.

Coppélia, a mechanical doll made by the toy-maker Dr. Coppelius, is so life-like that some believe she is his daughter. The mistake leads to intrigue and jealousy in love. Directed by Ross MacGibbon, with Leanne Benjamin and Carlos Acosta.

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.

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.

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.

Birmingham Royal Ballet perform Don Quixote in a production by Carlos Acosta. Based on Spain’s most famous novel, the classic ballet follows Don Quixote’s extraordinary adventures as he helps young lovers Kitri and Basilio find happiness. Filmed at the Birmingham Hippodrome, Don Quixote features some of ballet’s most iconic and virtuosic dance moments. Starring Momoko Hirata as Kitri, Mathias Dingman as Basilio and Tom Rogers as Don Quixote.

Kenneth MacMillan’s passionate choreography for Romeo and Juliet shows The Royal Ballet at its dramatic finest. Sergey Prokofiev’s famously evocative score is the driver for some of the most ardent pas de deux and powerful set pieces in ballet history. The vibrant crowd scenes with magnificent designs by Nicholas Georgiadis vividly recreate the color and bustle of 16th-century Verona in this Royal Ballet classic. “Yasmine Naghdi and Matthew Ball will hug their first Romeo and Juliet their whole lives. What a dream debut for these two youngsters…” (The Spectator) “Kenneth MacMillan was a consummate storyteller, and in Romeo and Juliet he came as close to perfection as it’s possible to get.” (Culture Whisper) “From the quarrelling townsfolk to the stately ball guests, this is a Romeo packed with life, the whole company caught up in the ballet’s unfolding tragedy.” (The Independent)

At a garden party on a sunny afternoon, Alice is surprised to see her parents’ friend Lewis Carroll transform into a white rabbit. When she follows him down a rabbit hole events become curiouser and curiouser.

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

Don Quixote and his servant Sancho Panza set out to have a chivalrous adventure. They meet Kitri and Basilio, a young couple who cannot marry because Kitri's father is determined to marry her off to the wealthy Gamache. Don Quixote decides to intervene. It was on stage 15 February—4 April 2019 as part of the Winter 2018/19 season.

Tamara Rojo, dancer and artistic director of English National Ballet, explores Giselle - the first great Romantic ballet, and a defining role for any ballerina. Through two radically contrasting 2016 productions - a traditional 19th-century recreation, and a gritty reimagining of the work by celebrated Anglo-Bangladeshi choreographer Akram Khan - Rojo examines the cultural and social background to the ballet’s genesis in 1840s Paris, and the spiritual themes that have fuelled its success over the last 175 years. Giselle is the story of a young peasant girl who personifies all that is good in life, and ultimately forgives the aristocrat who has seduced and betrayed her. With Giselle, the look and emotional heart of ballet was transformed forever, from mime-based storytelling to a fusion of emotion, music and movement, formulating a tradition that has inspired audiences, dancers and choreographers ever since.

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.

The Dream: Frederick Ashton’s delightful interpretation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a classic of The Royal Ballet’s repertory. Symphonic Variations: Ashton was inspired to create a ballet on the four seasons – but as he began to choreograph he refined and purified until the ballet shook off its original meaning, emerging as an abstract celebration of movement and physicality. Marguerite and Armand: Marguerite, a Parisian courtesan, lies on her deathbed. She recalls her tragic love affair with Armand in a series of feverish flashbacks.

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. This is one of The Royal Ballet’s most loved and admired productions, faithful to the spirit of the 1841 original yet always fresh at each revival. This performance features former Bolshoi star and now Royal Ballet Principal Natalia Osipova in a breath-taking interpretation of the title role.

A full-length ballet created by choreographer Christopher Wheeldon for the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The ballet is based on Lewis Carroll's famous story of Alice, an ordinary girl who one summer afternoon falls down a rabbit hole and finds herself on an extraordinary adventure. The music is by Joby Talbot, with designs by the internationally acclaimed Bob Crowley. Alice is danced by the Royal Ballet's Lauren Cuthbertson, and actor Simon Russell-Beale plays the cameo role of the Duchess.

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.

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 (appropriations). The body, pushed to its limits, transcends itself to give life to new representations of physical activity.

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.

Shakespeare's heartbreaking tale, Nureyev's blazing ballet. Sumptuous costumes and sets transport you to Renaissance Verona, its piazza bustling with market traders, street entertainers and the restless factions of the Capulet and Montague families. Amidst the grandeur of the Capulet’s ball, our star-crossed lovers – Alina Cojocaru and Isaac Hernández – meet, unleashing a fateful sequence of events, from the romantic bedroom scene to their tragic final embrace.

The Royal Ballet’s dazzling Principals lead an evening not to be missed, their sparkling talents a perfect fit for a diamond anniversary. Celebrating the 60th anniversary of The Friends of Covent Garden, this programme recognises the amazing support of all ROH Friends past and present. The showcase will demonstrate the breadth and diversity of The Royal Ballet’s repertory in classical, contemporary and heritage works. It will also include world premieres by Pam Tanowitz, Joseph Toonga and Valentino Zucchetti plus the Company’s first performance of For Four by Artistic Associate Christopher Wheeldon and a performance of George Balanchine’s Diamonds.

The Royal Ballet brings their annual presentation of The Nutcracker to life, streamed in cinemas throughout the world.

Don Quixote, based on Miguel de Cervantes’ epic novel of the same name, regales the adventures of the eccentric nobleman Don Quixote and his faithful squire Sancho Panza, as they help to bring a vivacious young couple, Kitri and Basilio, together. This energetic 19th-century ballet is enlivened by Ludwig Minkus’ spirited score, and is a wonderful showcase for the virtuosity of The Royal Ballet's Principal dancers. Created for The Royal Ballet a decade ago, Carlos Acosta’s exuberant production brings the sunshine and charm of Spain to the Main Stage with Tim Hatley’s characterful designs.

Magic and misadventure abound in this reimagining of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Christopher Wheeldon draws on ancient Greece and reflects on love in Bernstein’s Serenade, after Plato’s ‘Symposium’.