The Dream / New Marriott / The Concert, Royal Opera House

The first is a classic – Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a comedy of misunderstandings and mistaken identities retitled simply as The Dream in Frederick Ashton’s new version. Ashton has trimmed away much of the story, leaving us with a one-act production that covers the central story of true love ne’er running smoothy with little superfluous decoration. The Royal Ballet’s new golden couple, Natalia Osipova and Matthew Golding, will be dancing the lead as Titania and Oberon – roles created by none other than Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell.   

The second laughter-inducing feature is Jerome Robbins’s The Concert. A delightfully tongue-in-cheek account of a Chopin piano concert, in which the dancers play an audience that filled with all kinds of loving caricatures of the traditional classical music spectators or classical music – and indeed ballet.

As always with Robbins, the sets and costumes are wonderfully clean and minimalist, giving each dancer just one or two accessories that reveals something about their character. This is one of Robbins’ best-loved pieces, and is quite simply timeless.

The bill is rounded off by a new creation from Royal Ballet Principal Character Artist Alastair Marriott. Marriott’s most recent creation was part of the ambitious Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 programme, which was a collaboration with the National Gallery. Not much is known about this new creation yet, but new choreography for the Royal Ballet’s main stage is always an exciting event – let’s see if it’s a good omen that this one is programmed together with two classics.