'The Unknown Soldier', 'Infra' & 'Symphony in C' at the Royal Opera House

The Royal Ballet prepared a triple bill of one-act ballets to commemorate the centenary of the ending of the First World War, including a ballet especially produced for the event, 'The Unknown Soldier'. That was the first ballet to be performed, followed by Wayne MacGregor's 'Infra' and then Balanchine's 'Symphony in C'. Essentially, we had an evening of a narrative ballet, an abstract ballet and a traditional ballet. I really like the Royal Ballet's triple bill evenings because there's always something to fall in love with  as well as appreciating the skills and athleticism of those dancers across the range of pieces. It also gives us the opportunity to see a broad range of dancers.

'The Unknown Soldier' was commissioned especially for eh centenary of the First World War and included narration through video sequences by Florence Billington, who told her story of falling for a British soldier marching off to war, and of Wally Patch, the last surviving British soldier from that war. We also get various video sequences projected onto the stage as the dancers do their thing.

There were some lovely sequences in this ballet as our protagonists meet and fall in love before war intervenes and we learn that they'll marry when the war is over at Christmas. Of course, that's not what happens and tragedy intervenes in so many lives. While I really enjoyed the dancing I think I was more affected by the testimony of the video contributions than by the young people on the stage before me. The dance didn't really live up to the power of the stories of the old folks.

The second ballet was Wayne MacGregor's 'Infra', a far more abstract piece  with eh dancers on stage reflected above by animated characters walking back and forth, always busy.  There were small groups of dancers and couples performing while the endless trudging of the animated characters continued, over and over again, until the stage was almost invaded by hordes of dancers walking across the stage, flooding the place like a rush hour train station.

It was very different to the first ballet but seemed linked somehow, with individual stories playing out against a background of the mass of humanity. It was a different experience to the first narrative ballet but felt in place rather than different for the sake of it.

The third ballet was, for me, the glory of the evening. Balanchine's 'Symphony in C' was what I think of as a traditional ballet, with the ballerinas up on tippy in white tutus and the lads in black doublets and white tights, forming groups and separating to do their own thing before coming back to together again. I loved it. And their were hundreds of them on stage - or at least that's how it seemed as more ballerinas joined those on stage to create complex patterns of synchronised dancing. How do they do it? How on earth can they stay in place and position while everything around them is changing? I was most impressed and loved this performance.

The three ballets fitted together very well, I thought, building on each other and taking us in slightly different directions and experiencing different emotions. My favourite was 'Symphony in C' which just crystallised the ballet experience for me and I'd happily see it again.

Just for the sake of completeness, 'The Unknown Soldier' was the second ever performance by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, 'Infra' was the 18th performance and 'Symphony in C' was the  61st performance. Don't you just love the detail in the Royal Opera House's cast lists?