Review: Jewels with the Royal Ballet
When booking the tickets for this performance, I knew that the last day at work before holidays were always dicey, but I figured it gave a good incentive to stay focused to ensure I got out on time. Fortunately, this is exactly what happened; had I Bern wrong I would have missed one of the best ballet performances I've ever seen. Jewels is one of my favourite works and a supurb example of plotless ballet.
Emeralds is usually my least favourite, and it was so here, but not due to amy fault of its own. Lovely, light and lyrical and they played on a pastoral aspect that I had never really appreciated before.
Rubies was more mixed. For starters it is hella hard, brisk tempo'd and very idiosyncratic choreography that really pushes the extreme range of what the dancers can do. For this reason, it has a rather horrible tendency to injure the dancers. Unfortunately this performance was no exception with both Tamara Rojo and Sarah Lamb replaced at the last minute for just that reason. It also calls for a certain fiesty on stage temprement, which is rare in classical dancers. The replacements gave an admirable performance, but it lacked a lit of the spark I was hoping for. Not bad, just not phenominal.
Diamonds on the otherhand was sublime. Technically perfect and with such tenderness and joy that made my heart soar. Even raayat, who is not usually a huge fan of ballet, was entranced. An absolutely magnificent note for the performance to end on and a delightful one for our holiday to start on.