The London Royal Ballet

The Royal Ballet’s first ever trip to Cuba marked many milestones and ticked many boxes but above all it was a triumphant homecoming for the magnificent Carlos Acosta (the Cuban lorry drivers son now a star with the Royal Ballet in London) and a tribute to the legendary Alicia Alonso (iconic Cuban legend and current artistic director of the principal Cuban Ballet). Above all perhaps it was simply a magnificent treat for the Cuban ballet aficionados.

Jitterbug with the dancers of de Santa Amalia

15th July, the gala night marked exactly 63 years since Alicia Alonso danced Giselle together with André Eglevsky at Covent Garden when she was a principal star with the American Ballet Theater and was conceived as a tribute to her, as Dame Monica Mason, director of the Royal Ballet since 2002 explained:

“Ever since I saw her dance in London, I became her admirer. She was technically exceptional and this is why George Balanchine created his Theme and Variations for her. Besides, she deserves this recognition for a lifetime dedicated to the splendor of ballet. It is also marvelous to be able to pay this tribute to a country that has produced such a fine a dancer as Carlos Acosta.”
The London Royal Ballet is now very much a melting pot --19 nationalities are represented amongst its nearly 100 dancers. Their performance is elegant, smooth and connected; positions and movements precise, expressive mime devoid of excessiveness, yet no less notable for that.

The originality of this gala at the Gran Teatro de La Habana lied in the divertissements--inserted between Wayne McGregor’s contemporary ballet Chroma and Frederick Ashton’s neoclassical A Month in the Countryside--in which dancers from both troupes shared the stage. Ms Mason also dispelled the journalists’ doubts regarding the potential difficulty posed by the different choreographic versions and schools of ballet. “The rehearsers of both companies,” she said, “will work with the dancers and adjust the final product. Dance is a melting pot of art; therefore, it cannot be divided. There are only two types of ballets in the world--good ballets and bad ballets.”

We were able to witness the excellent performance of the fragments selected from Theme and Variations by Federico Bonelli (Italy) and Cubans Anette Delgado and Yolanda Correa, the latter in the Variation, to music by Tchaikovsky. Especially meritorious was English rehearser Christopher Saunders’s performance of Mr. GM in MacMillan’s Manon, where he corroborated his rank as a leading character dancer.

Next came two well-known and regular pieces in any international arena--the pas de deux from Act III of Don Quixote (Petipa/Minkus with arrangements by John Lanchbery and costume design by Barry Kay), performed by two experts: the Spanish ballerina Tamara Rojo (impressive acceleration in her turns and magnificent extensions) and the Cuban Joel Carreño, a gallant and graceful partner, performer of a spectacular coda of jetés manéges.

With the preceding ovations still echoing in our heads came a splendid Viengsay Valdés (National Cuban Ballet) in the role of Odile of the pas de deux from Act III of Swan Lake, together with the prestigious danseur, the Brazilian Thiago Soares (Royal Ballet), as the attentive prince. Both pieces were rehearsed with the customary rigor of the Cuban dancer and teacher Loipa Araújo, together with Alexander Agadzhanov and Roland Price.

Acting as a catalyst for the emotions caused by the previous performances, the Royal Ballet presented us with their most recent ballet, Les Lutins, choreographed by the Danish Johan Kobborg, and performed by a trio of inspired dancer-actors: Alina Cojocaru, Steven McRae and Sergei Polunin. The violin virtuoso Charlie Siem on stage and Henry Roche at the piano in the pit played the beautiful and difficult music of Henryk Wieniawski.

Alicia Alonso’s emblematic ballet, Giselle, could not be absent from this tribute to the great ballerina. The famous pas de deux from the second act, based on the choreography by Coralli-Perrot and Petipa, and to music by Adolphe Adam revised by Joseph Horovitz was chosen for the occasion. The experienced English rehearsers Lesley Collier and Roland Price contributed to the supreme lightness and vulnerability of Leanne Benjamin’s performance joined by the elegant and attentive Carreño in his second performance of the evening.

Finally, it was pandemonium in the packed theatre when two idols of Cuban ballet lovers came on the stage: Tamara Rojo (in her second performance of the evening) and the exceptional Carlos Acosta in the pas de deux of Le Corsaire, choreographed by Petipa, to music by R. Drigo and original costumes by André Levasseur. Their performance was a dazzling display of technique, with coherence in every gesture and incomparable skill in every movement, including Acosta’s amazing exit with his elevated saut de chat, or cat’s leap.
The ovation granted by the audience for this last performance merged with the closing ceremony of the Royal Ballet’s tribute to Alicia Alonso, who elegantly dressed and escorted by Rojo and Acosta, joined the rest of the dancers on stage. There, Dame Monica Mason greeted Alicia with a great bouquet of roses and a low royal bow.

Although discerning music lovers were not entirely satisfied, the performance of the two Cuban orchestras under the direction of two Englishmen was commendable. Daniel Crapps conducted the Gran Teatro de La Habana’s own symphony orchestra during the first three nights at the Grand Theatre, while Martin Yates conducted the National Symphony Orchestra during the last two nights at the Karl Marx Theatre. The latter played the difficult compositions by Massenet chosen by MacMillan for his Manon (a sublime Tamara Rojo and a grand Alina Cojocaru shared the main role).

The night was not quite yet finished. Carlos Acosta led some members of the troupe out to the square (Parque Central) where Cubans not lucky enough to get tickets for the performance had been watching the ballet on large screens erected for the occasion. The sight was incongruous and compelling as Havana welcomed back a favorite son.