WORLD PREMIERE OF CONNECTOME, A NEW ONE ACT BALLET BY

ALASTAIR MARRIOTT,

ALONGSIDE TWO CLASSICS BY FREDERICK ASHTON AND JEROME ROBBINS

Saturday 31 May – Friday 13 June

 

LONDON/ GREAT BRITAIN: Alastair Marriott’s new work Connectome receives its world premiere as the centrepiece of this final programme of the Royal Ballet Season surrounded by two light-hearted classics; Frederick Ashton’s The Dream, his celebrated interpretation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Jerome Robbin’s gloriously funny The Concert.

 

Connectome is Marriott’s first commission for The Royal Ballet since Trespass for Metamorphsis: Titian 2012, a collaboration with Christopher Wheeldon.  This new ballet offers another exciting opportunity to see Marriott’s distinctive and classically inspired choreography
. The name of the work describes the comprehensive map of the neural connections in the brain – a ‘wiring diagram’.

 

With music by the outstanding Estonian composer Arvo Pärt including his ‘Lord’s Prayer’ sung by a boy soprano, the creative talents of award winning designer Es Devlin in her first set design for The Royal Ballet, and an immersive installation by lighting designer Bruno Poet, this new work is much anticipated. Principal dancers Natalia Osipova, Steven McRae and Edward Watson lead the cast and Music Director Barry Wordsworth conducts.

 

 

Frederick Ashton’s The Dream premiered in 1964 and this 50th anniversary revival also coincides with the 450^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth
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The Dream captures all the comic confusion of Shakespeare’s play in inventive choreography with the tempestuous Oberon and Titania, the high-spirited misadventures of the two pairs of mortal lovers combining with the humorous cavorting of Bottom, a role famous for putting a male dancer en pointe
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Felix Mendelssohn’s much loved incidental music including the well-known Overture, Scherzo, Nocturne and Wedding March provides a perfect partner to Ashton’s choreography.

 

 

 

The final work in the programme is Jerome Robbins’s The Concert.  A brilliantly funny piece exposing the wandering thoughts and desires of an audience at a Chopin piano recital, the result is a beautifully crafted spoof of a classical music concert and even of classical ballet itself.

The Concert had its premiere in New York in 1956 and entered the repertory of The Royal Ballet in 1975. Robbins, famous for his Oscar-winning choreography of the original West Side Story, brings his unique and imaginative choreographic flair to this humorous piece.

– – – – – – – – – –

THE DREAM – FREDERICK ASHTON

CONNECTOME – ALASTAIR MARRIOTT

THE CONCERT – JEROME ROBBINS

Saturday 31 May – Friday 13 June, Royal Opera House

 

Evening Performance at 7.00pm

Saturday 31 May

 

Evening Performances at 7.30pm

Thursday 5, Friday 6, Tuesday 10, Thursday 12, Friday 13 June at 7.30pm

 

 

BOX OFFICE

0207 304 4000

www.roh.org.uk

 

Generous philanthropic support from Lindsay and Sarah Tomlinson, Celia Blakey and Kristina Rogge (The Dream); Sarah and Lloyd Dorfman and Marina Hobson OBE (Connectome); and The Fonteyn Circle (The Concert)

 

 

CASTING

THE DREAM

31 May at 7pm, 5 June at 7.30pm

Titania                                     Roberta Marquez       

Oberon                                    Steven McRae

 

6 and 12 June at 7.30pm

Titania                                     Natalia Osipova*        

Oberon                                    Matthew Golding*

 

10 and 13 June at 7.30pm

Titania                                     Laura Morera*                       

Oberon                                    Federico Bonelli*

CONNECTOME

31 May at 7pm, 5, 10, 13 June at 7.30pm

Natalia Osipova*

Steven McRae*

Edward Watson*

6 and 12 June at 7.30pm

Sarah Lamb*

Alexander Campbell*

Ricardo Cervera*

 

 

 

 

THE CONCERT

All performances

Ballerina                                  Lauren Cuthbertson *

Wife                                        Laura Morera*

Husband                                  Bennet Gartside*

Shy Boy                                   James Wilkie*

 

*Debut performance