'Manon' at the Royal Opera House

'Manon' is one of the great romantic modern ballets by Kenneth MacMillan and has been in the Royal Ballet's repertoire for a long time (I saw the 274th performance according to the cast list). The tale is worthy and sad - there are no happy endings in this ballet. But there is some great dancing, particularly the group dances and the various pas de deux of the lovers.

'Manon' is a simple tale of greed, lust and power and, of course, love. Isn't every ballet? Our heroine is Manon, a young girl who travels to Paris with her guardian to meet her brother and change coaches to take her to a convent. By the time she appears we've already met her brother, Lescaut, who pimps his mistress and is friends with the Beggar Chief and other thieves. He welcomes the grand folks from Paris in the hopes of getting money out of them. When his sister arrives, beautiful and young, he realises he can get money for her virtue and he deals with both her guardian and the rich Monsieur G.M. While the deals are being made, Manon meets Des Grieux, a handsome young student and they fall in love and flee back to his apartment where they dance their love. Unfortunately, they're followed by Lescaut and Monsieur G.M. who then woos her with furs and a diamond necklace and she succumbs. Her lover is, of course, distraught.

Some time later the scene changes to a society party with courtesans and lusty old men, young energetic men showing off and all gentlemen handing in their swords to avoid any trouble. Lescaut and Des Grieux arrive in their finery and Lescaut is already drunk and gives the best drunk dancing I've ever seen as he and his mistress cavort across the stage. Then Monsieur and Manon arrive and she's bedecked in all her finery but, inside, she's still the little girl who fell in love and she and Des Grieux plan to run away together.  Monsieur returns and swords are drawn as the couple try to escape and Lescaut help them. They make it back to Des Grief's apartment, followed by Monsieur and the local police - he shoots and kills Lescaut and prosecutes Manon as a prostitute.

Manon is deported to a penal colony in the colonies in America and Des Grieux follows to protect her. She is still a beauty and the local Gaoler takes a fancy to his new charge and rapes her at which point Des Grieux finally grows a pair and stabs him to death. The lovers escape into the swamps around the colony where Manon finally dies and we leave Des Grieux to his mourning. Clap! Clap! Clap!

So there you have it kids, don't give up your virtue for worldly goods because you'll probably die in a swamp. And you don't want that.

It's a fab ballet and there's some astonishing dancing. The best solo dances all seem to go to that rascal Lescaut in the first act, leaping all over the place, and he gets the opportunity to do great dancing and falling over in the drunken party scene. Our lovers of Manon and Des Grieux dance some lovely and tender pas de deux, sharing moments of passion and love. One segment I really enjoyed was when the ladies arrived in the colony dressed in rags and hair cut scandalously short and their ensemble dance with their hands behind their backs one moment and covering their heads in shame the next before passing out with the heat and their weariness. I was most impressed with that simple and heart-felt story telling, the restrained movements and innate sadness. It was most fab indeed.

Our dancers were Akane Takada as Manon, Alexander Campbell as Des Grieux, James Hay as the very bouncy Lescaut, and Thomas Whitehead as the nasty Monsieur G.M. Thank you for the magic.

'Romeo & Juliet' at the Royal Opera House

I've been to the ballet a few times and enjoyed it but I've never seen a full length, tradional ballet so last night was the chance put that right when we went to see 'Romeo & Juliet' at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. It's always exciting to go into the plush Royal Opera House and this is the Royal Ballet's 50th anniversary production of the Kenneth Macmillan interpretation of the Shakespeare play. It was wonderful to see - why didn't I see this 30 years ago? It's danced to Prokofiev's marvellous score with some wonderful themes swirling round the theatre, drifting off only to reappear again later. A colourful production full of dashing movement set to that music and with a classic story, what more could you want?

It opens in the busy market-place of Verona with our hero, Romeo, being a Jack-the-lad with the local girls and, when his friends arrive, start taunting the enemy house of Capulet. This results in a full-on battle with sword-fencers darting here and there across the stage including a great synchronised sword-fencing section where they were all in time with each other. It was all terribly energetic and skilfully done, I was most impressed! The Montague's in white tights and Capulet's in red tights so it was easy to see who was who. You could easily hear those swords clashing and scraping - this was realistic stuff.

It's a while before we meet Juliet but the dancing makes it plain that she is a young girl with her bouncing around the stage and into her nurse's lap - she's 13 after all. Her parents have lined her up to marry and introduce her to 'society' at a ball in her honour at which the Montague lads sneak in and Romeo is smitten. Hard. They dance. And fall in love. When they sneak off to a church to marry I couldn't help but think, 'That's it, you've sealed your fates now…'. They were lovely together, dancing the dawning of their love, expressing their feelings and their need to be one. It was delightful.

Of course, we all know it goes wrong with Juliet faking suicide to avoid another marriage, Romeo believing she's dead and taking his own life just as Juliet wakes up. Such a cruel ending that ramps up the tension. So sad.

This was a great production and I'm so pleased I saw it. It struck me in the first half that I should have seen this 30 years ago and then I would've seen so many great productions over those 30 years rather than seeing it for the first time now.  If only. Telling the story through dance worked so well and it was easy to follow and get wound up in the tale of love and sadness. Some of the dances were particularly touching like when Romeo and Juliet dance after waking up on the morning after their first (and only) night together. Their love is so strong but Romeo must leave, a very tender scene.

It was nice to meet a range of characters who aren't in the play but who add some fun and another angle to the ballet, such as the Happy Strumpets as I named them ('Three Harlots' in the cast list but I prefer strumpets, thank you). They were great fun and fearless and everyone should know a strumpet. I'm pleased that Romeo knew the Happy Strumpets.

Our Juliet was Iana Salenko and Romeo was Steven McRae, a joyous coupling. Alexander Campbell was Mercutio and Thomas Whitehead was Tybalt, the warring enemies that set Romeo on the track to killing Tybalt. It's all so sad and so unnecessary. They were all great, energetic dancing and acting, the cockiness of the lads, making it all come alive in front of us. The set, the costumes, the lighting all came together to provide a very special experience - I loved it.