The Royal Ballet review, Beauty Mixed Programme, Royal Opera House: Assured re-stitching rises above Covid struggles

London’s ROH plays host to a programme that bears the marks of the pandemic but finds tenderness and joy nonetheless, writes Zoe Anderson

Mariko Sasaki and Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød in Anemoi (Alice Pennefather/ROH)

Covid-19 sent last-minute changes rippling through The Royal Ballet’s new mixed bill. With several dancers self-isolating, choreographer Valentino Zucchetti was reworking his new Anemoi right before curtain up, keeping the show on the road.

It was a very assured re-stitching, with no obvious trailing threads. Anemoi is a brisk, plotless work, danced to Rachmaninoff. Soloists spin in and out of a larger cast, with Mariko Sasaki standing out for her speed and attack. In the strongest image, two lines of dancers meet – so when the central couple reach out, their friends ripple around them, amplifying the embrace.

But Zucchetti adds too many dithery changes of direction. There’s an impression of clogged speed, where dancers keep having to turn back on themselves. Though Jean-Marc Puissant’s costumes nod to contemporary streetwear, the steps remain neatly conventional: ballet people doing ballet things.

There’s more character in a series of divertissements, with each short work creating a distinctive mood. Wayne McGregor’s Morgen is set to a Richard Strauss song, sung with rich vocal tone by Sarah-Jane Lewis. Francesca Hayward, a dancer of airy delicacy, finds a monumental quality here: when she plants herself in a pose, she looks as strong as an oak tree. McGregor gives Cesar Corrales more exaggerated steps and plenty of bare-chested undulation.

Emotion pours through Laura Morera and Ryoichi Hirano in the duet from Kenneth MacMillan’s Winter Dreams. In Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain, Beatriz Stix-Brunell and Reece Clarke create a hushed, tender mood, wrapped up in the moment.

In Mats Ek’s woman with water, Mayara Magri confronts a table and a glass. The steps are all squared elbows and seething inner drama: there’s something controlling in the way Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød pours the water. When she lands with a splat in a puddle, he comes to mop both water and dancer away.

Frederick Ashton’s Voices of Spring is a flurry of Johann Strauss II and rose petals. Marcelino Sambé and Anna Rose O’Sullivan could have more of a waltz lilt, but bring fizzing chemistry in the flirty partnering.

The Sleeping Beauty Act III is a wedding celebration, though, as in so many real-life ceremonies, with a smaller guest list. Self-isolation had reduced the number of courtiers, but you could still see the swoop and the patterns in the slimmed-down court dances. As Aurora, Marianela Nuñez danced with joyful, expansive phrasing, partnered with the princely Vadim Muntagirov. Together, they ended the evening with a fairytale glow.

Performances of Beauty Mixed Programme are running until 11 July. The event will also be live-streamed on 9 July