2 hours and 45 minutes (including one interval).
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.
Courtyard Theatre
£16
225 minutes (including one interval).
Sung in Czech with English subtitles.
This poetic, contemporary new staging of Dvořák’s lyric fairy tale reveals our uneasy relationship with the natural world and humanity’s attempts to own and tame it.
Rusalka, a water spirit, lives with her family in the pure waters of the forest lake. When she falls in love with a Prince, she sacrifices her voice and leaves her home in the hope of finding true love in a new world – a world that does not love her back.
Natalie Abrahami and Ann Yee create a poetic, contemporary new staging of Dvořák’s lyric fairy tale, revealing our uneasy relationship with the natural world and humanity’s attempts to own and tame it. Semyon Bychkov conducts an all-star cast featuring Asmik Grigorian (Jenůfa) in the title role.
Courtyard Theatre
£16
195 minutes (including two intervals).
Torn between her desire of a life of splendour and riches and her devotion to her true love Des Grieux, the feckless and capricious Manon pays the ultimate price.
This adaptation of Abbé Prévost’s novel embodies Kenneth MacMillan at his best, his acute insight into human psychology and his mastery of narrative choreography finding full expression in the impassioned duets of the central couple, visceral and urgent in their desire. The heroine’s struggle to escape poverty make Manon one of the most dramatic and devastating of ballets, emphasized by Nicholas Georgiadis’ evocative designs that reflect the juxtaposition between Manon’s impoverished origins and the lavish world she longs to inhabit. The 2023/24 Season celebrates the centenary of Nicholas Georgiadis.
Courtyard Theatre
£16