Royal Ballet, Symphonic Dances mixed bill

The Royal Ballet’s summer season begins with a diverse mixed bill featuring the much anticipated world premiere of Liam Scarlett’s new one-act ballet, Symphonic Dances. Last season, Scarlett’s Frankenstein received conflicting reviews from the critics, but many noted his flair for lucid storytelling. Here, however, a more abstract work is promised set to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s orchestral suite of 1940 from which the new piece takes its name.

The remaining three works featured are all revivals of popular pieces from George Balanchine, Christopher Wheeldon and William Forsythe.

Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude is a dizzying masterclass in precision and speed, last performed by the Royal Ballet 15 years ago. It is danced to the commanding score of the final movement of Franz Schubert’s Symphony No 9.

Forsythe says he made the work because dancers like to be challenged, with one San Francisco Ballet dancer going so far to say that she would rather give birth again that dance The Vertiginous Thrill…

Also returning after its debut in 2016 is Christopher Wheeldon’s Strapless. This work from the Royal Ballet’s associate choreographer draws inspiration from the scandal surrounding John Singer Sargent’s highly sensual Portrait of Madame X in 1880s Paris.

On its first outing Strapless had mixed reviews, but on the whole critics applauded the Royal's Russian principal Natalia Osipova's interpretation of the Parisian socialite who was the subject of the painting, Virginie Amélie Gautreau. This run will see Osipova alternate the role with Lauren Cuthbertson.

Completing the line-up is Balanchine’s Tarantella, an exuberant showpiece not yet attempted by the Royal Ballet. Balanchine first created the Tarantella dance in 1964 and, like Forsythe’s work, it serves as a masterclass in speed, technique and athleticism – and promises to be a challenge for all who dance it.