Birmingham Royal Ballet: Swan Lake – Sadler’s Wells, London

Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Choreography: Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, and Peter Wright Director: Carlos Acosta Music Director: Paul Murphy Principal Guest Conductor: Thomas Jung Orchestra: Royal Ballet Sinfonia It begins and ends in mourning, but it’s the in-between that leaves the audience wrecked and totally thrilled about it.

The Birmingham Royal Ballet’s latest rendition of Swan Lake refuses to accept anything but total anguish and awe with their incredible display of onstage and musical talent and direction. While the story is nearly 150 years old, the quality of the performance makes the audience feel like it’s the first time they’ve seen it.

Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake originally first landed on the stage in Moscow in 1877, but the modern version of the classical ballet is based on the updated production by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov as part of the 1895 revival. The current version presented by the Birmingham Royal Ballet is the acclaimed production by Sir Peter Wright and Galina Samsova, whose interpretation hit the stage with the world-renowned dance company back in 1981 and has been their signature rendition for over 40 years.

And for good reason. Led by director Carlos Acosta, the overall presentation is breathtaking, with the audience oohing, ahhing, and gasping regularly throughout the show. There are many points of worthy praise throughout the 160-minute run time, but there are also a few challenges that present immediately within the performance that hold it back.

The ballet opens with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, led by music director Paul Murphy and principal guest conductor Thomas Jung. Throughout the entire performance, not a note is missed or a string out of tune. The exceptionally talented orchestra sets the mood of the stage and drives the story forward.

When the curtain rises, a funeral procession quickly transforms into a castle courtyard where the entertainment highlights one of the only challenges in the entire production: uniformity. During Act I, the smaller ensembles struggle to stay in alignment, with three of the four dancers appearing to perfectly sync up while one struggles to keep up, regularly dragging on the tempo.

Unfortunately, this is an occurrence that repeats throughout the production during these pas de quatre features, and as they’re front and centre, it pulls the audience’s attention and serves as a distraction from the otherwise perfect performance. Yasiel Hodelín as Prince Siegfried is a shining light during the first act, moving with great control and never missing a beat.

The dancer’s facial expressions are emotive and powerful, conveying the storyline without a spoken word. But Act II takes the production to the next level with 18 perfectly synched swans and a principal dancer who steals the whole show. The corps de ballet move fluidly, with much of their time spent en pointe, all 18 dancers maintaining full control and flawlessly moving across the stage.

But no one can touch the powerhouse that is Yu Kurihara as Odette. The second the lead dancer steps on stage as the White Swan, everyone else is forgotten. Kurihara projects the full emotion of a dramatic monologue just with her facial expressions, all while en pointe, moving steadily and gracefully with instinctive jerkiness that perfectly projects her avian-based second form.

Every move is so unbelievably connected to the live music that it appears as if the sound is flowing through the dancer; she is the music, the music is her. As if her Odette performance wasn’t powerful enough on its own, Kurihara further enchants the audience with her mesmerising embodiment as Odile.

Her visual projection of deception seems to ooze out of every pore as each move is approached and is presented so differently than the lighter counterpart that it’s easy to forget they’re the same dancer. The five-star presentation is further elevated by the perfectly performed 32 fouettés involving back-to-back revolutions on a single leg.

Visually, the opening of the final act of the ballet may be the most impactful in the entire production. As the curtain rises, roughly two feet of opaque, low-lying fog rolls off the front of the stage into the pit, immediately followed by a theatre full of gasps for the unveiling of the swan corps de ballet as the dancers pop up out of the haze where they lay completely hidden moments before.

The big reveal is breathtaking, with credit going to designer Philip Prowse for the exceptional cascade of fog as well as Peter Teigen for the low, twilight lighting that helps keep the dancers concealed until the right moment. The final scenes of Swan Lake aren’t a surprise, but the crowd is kept on the edge of its seat just the same as the music and dancers maintain full composure throughout Act IV.

And after mourning at the final drop of the curtain comes a deafening round of much-deserved cheers and applause from a crowd more than elated to have had their heart broken with a story as old as time, or at least the Romanov period. Runs until 31 October 2026 Total Anguish and Awe 90 % 90%