RB 'La Bayadere' reviews 'La Bayadere' reviews Bussell in reviews Tapper in reviews Putrov in reviews recent RB reviews

Last night we saw Darcey Bussell, Carlos Acosta and Marianela Nunez. (There was no explanation in the programme as to why Marianela took over from Zenaida. I assume this to be a matter of insufficient rehearsal time.) Darcey was super throughout. The basket-of-flowers solo, in particular, was a revelation with its intense emotion and fluidity of movement. Writing about Darcey makes me reach for my Thesaurus and then throw it away in disgust; well, I can only say that she was flexible, more flexible, and then a lot more flexible than that. Darcey doesn't just stretch...she s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s! (Unfortunate, then, that the snake seemed to have disappeared from the flower basket.) And she was terrific, too, in the Kingdom of the Shades. A beautiful job. (She and Carlos did have a problem, however, with the conductor, who was going too fast. Why are there ballet conductors around who STILL haven't learned to LOOK at the dancers??!?)

Carlos did a wonderful job too. What a partner he is! (Yes, he and Darcey did have the odd problem - how could they not with so little time to rehearse? But you would never have guessed that he hadn't ever partnered her before.) And his solos....WOW. That last one was amazing - and included a jump I've never seen before - when are we going to get a slow motion replay to study in the intervals! (Just kidding.) This was an emotional partnership - lots of chemistry - and he and Darcey looked very well together.

I thought Marianela did a great job, too - her third act solo was particularly fine - and her characterization is well developed (I was impressed with the maturity of her mime scene).

The corps de ballet deserves special mention. Their work in act 1 was very good indeed - much better, I thought, than the standard produced 10 years ago. And the Shades scene was close to being excellent (not a word I use very often). Friends told me they'd glimpsed a few wobbles, but I didn't see any wobbles at all, myself.

Other soloists deserving praise were Jaimie Tapper and Ivan Putrov.

The applause at the end was ecstatic, with tons of bravos and some big bouquets of flowers.

At the stage door, we asked Ivan Putrov about his Bronze Idol make-up (bet he gets asked that a lot) and he said it takes them half an hour to spray it on (and then he can't warm up before he goes on stage) but it only takes about 10 minutes to remove. So now you know.

A beautiful and fascinating evening. What did everyone else think?