Royal Ballet’s Ashton Celebrated review: A loving tribute to the company’s founder choreographer

This all-star triple bill shows off the warmth and wit found in the work of Frederick Ashton

Francesca Hayward (Titania) in ‘The Dream’, The Royal Ballet (Tristram Kenton)

There’s a lot of love in The Royal Ballet’s celebration of Frederick Ashton, its founder choreographer. The short season brings new designs, guest appearances from the Sarasota Ballet, and the promise of more Ashton in a five-year, international programme. This evening showed off the choreographer’s wit and warmth, with a luscious performance of The Dream at its heart.

Les Rendezvous, an early hit, is a sociable delight. It’s almost plotless – couples meet and dance in a park – but it’s full of little meetings and friendly pleasures. As soloists bound in, they take a moment to greet each other with handshakes or air kisses. 

With a misty park setting and full, romantic skirts, Jasper Conran’s new designs nod to William Chappell’s 1933 originals. The women’s dresses are in rich but muted colours: soft grey, gentle purple, glowing cream for ballerina Marianela Nuñez.

And Nuñez glows, too. Her dancing is both sumptuous and playful: her glances back to the audience, fluttering gestures, the way movement ripples right through her body. Reece Clarke partners handsomely. Shaking her hips in the pas de trois, Isabella Gasparini looks delighted by the flutter of her skirts: this ballet is both brilliant and very human.

Created in 1964, The Dream shapes Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream into an hour of fluent storytelling and ravishing dance. Francesca Hayward is a marvellous Titania, windblown and airy in her solos, with a lavish abandon in her duet with Marcelino Sambé’s Oberon. 

They have bright chemistry and a shared sense of otherworldliness: there’s real power to these fairies. Sambé leans into Ashton’s curling, swooping shapes: whirling turns unfold into the steadiest, most elegant of balances.

With coaching by Anthony Dowell, the first Oberon, it’s a gorgeous revival, bringing out the depth and colour of both steps and storytelling. (Dowell’s curtain call with Antoinette Sibley, his original Titania, was greeted with a roar of affection: the love and sense of theatre are both very Ashton.) Joshua Junker is a sweet-tempered Bottom, with Daichi Ikarashi a long-limbed, angular Puck. Olivia Cowley was a witty Helena, with a “don’t bother me now” air of distraction as yet more magic turns her life upside down. Barry Wordsworth conducted a glowing account of the Mendelssohn score.

Nadia Mullova-Barley as part of the Artists of The Royal Ballet in ‘Les Rendezvous’ (Tristram Kenton)

Rhapsody, created in 1980, is a showcase for a male virtuoso. Taisuke Nakao has clean technique, but misses the daredevil panache. Anna Rose O’Sullivan brings fine musicality to the ballerina role, with witty precision in her stop-start solos. The ballet has an airy Fred-and-Ginger quality, ending the evening with a light touch of fantasy.

Until 22 June. www.roh.org.uk