A tantalising evening in a £50m drawing room
Trio Concert Dance Royal Opera House, Linbury Theatre ★★★★★
By the time they reach 55, ballet dancers’ careers are usually at least 10 years behind them – their physically punishing profession demands it. Not so Alessandra Ferri. True, she retired from ballet in 2007, but that turned out to be a false exit worthy of Lieutenant Columbo: just six years later, she returned to ballet.
Inevitably, Ferri is not as nimble as she was in her Eighties and Nineties heyday – as a star principal with the Royal Ballet, then American Ballet Theatre (ABT) and finally La Scala, in her native Milan. But, throughout this remarkable comeback, she has demonstrated an entirely undimmed poetry and charisma, never more so than in the tragic romance Chéri in the Royal Opera House’s below-stairs, traditionally more experimental Linbury Studio Theatre, in 2015.
It is small wonder, then, that the Royal Ballet chose Ferri for last night’s inaugural dance show in the completely rebuilt Linbury – or that they also invited her Chéri co-star, the marvellous ABT principal Herman Cornejo, 37, back alongside her. They once again proved a mesmerising couple, and were beautifully accompanied throughout by pianist Bruce Levingston. But what of the other, bricks-and-mortar star of the evening, the Linbury itself?
Three years in the making, the new Linbury Theatre (as it is now) – designed by architects Stanton Williams, and costing £50.7million – proves a very appealing place to be. Capacity has gone up from 358 seats to 372, with attractive, walnut-clad curves and subtle, tasteful lighting. My sightline was perfect, the seat comfy, added to which you no longer feel as if you need crampons to make it down to the stalls. All in all, it is a far more charming venue than the gloomy old pit that used to be the Linbury.
Although first seen in New York in 2016, the pretentiously titled TRIO
Concert Dance might have been designed to capitalise on this fresh feeling of cosiness: two dancers and one musician, serving up an alternation of dance pieces and solo piano excerpts over just 65 intervalfree minutes. What’s more, in embracing modern ballet and contemporary dance alike, and composers from Bach and Mozart to Satie and Glass, it also feels like a mission statement for the theatre.
If the evening has a fault, it’s the almost ceaselessly sombre tone: some more chiaroscuro of mood wouldn’t have hurt. Oh, but how many pleasures there are here. Taken together, the four duets feel like very different but identically personal conversations between long-standing lovers. There’s a strong sense of ideas being exchanged in Wayne Mcgregor’s Witness, while Russell Maliphant’s (as always) luxuriantly lit Entwine is a gorgeous study of mutual dependency and shared, weightless bliss that unfolds as if underwater. Ferri and Cornejo (37) are just superb. As in Chéri, they melt seductively into one when together, but also beguile when solo.
Certainly, up-close intimacy is the order of the evening, with every sinew visible, breath audible and emotion palpable, and the piano swelling the sense of almost drawing-room closeness. Whether this new theatre was worth that whopping £50million, only time will tell. But it’s a fine room, and it could hardly have received a more lovingly delivered christening.
Until Jan 27. Tickets: 020 7304 4000; roh.org.uk