Rupert Christiansen

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Royal Ballet’s MacMillan triple bill reviewed

Plus: a madly ingenious, bizarrely funny, surprisingly beautiful new work at Sadler's Wells

Bordering on the sublime: Kenneth MacMillan's Requiem at the Royal Opera House. Image: @2024 Tristram Kenton  
issue 30 March 2024

My feelings about the genius of Kenneth MacMillan have always been volatile, but in the course of the Royal Ballet’s current triple bill, they veered even more wildly than usual between uncomplicated delight, awed reverence and embarrassment.

A revival of his early Danses Concertantes, firing off Stravinsky at his most effervescent and designed with exuberantly colourful Festival-of-Britain jazziness by Nicholas Georgiadis, provided half an hour of pure joy.

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