Happy 2012! As usual, the end of the year was filled with Sugarplums and Snow Queens. It was a great run this year and the response was wonderful.
We started back on the 5th of January after a well deserved and much needed break for the dancers, and are going full bore in order to be ready for our opening on January 27th. We start off with our premiere of John Cranko's stunning Onegin which is based on Alexander Pushkin's classic novel "Eugene Onegin." I am helping out with some of the ensemble pieces and am also in charge of one of the casts of principal dancers. Choreographically, the ballet is devilish and the partnering is unbelievably hard! The biggest challenge though, is to master the choreography while transcending the difficulty of the steps to tell the story. It is an intensely dramatic ballet and it is the emotional story which must come through. Tricky, when on top of the choreography there are numerous timing issues with the music and the placement of certain moments within the music. A lot to have to manage all while never losing character! It will be a wonderful experience for some of our younger dancers to get the chance to step into these roles, and I am thoroughly enjoying myself as I help them and watch them grow and learn. Onegin is a tale of lost innocence, love and tragedy and each of our dancers brings a unique interpretation to their roles. There will be eight performances of Program 1 and I guarantee it will never be the same ballet twice!
While we prepare Onegin, we can't neglect the rest of the season. Programs 2 and 3 will open a little under two weeks after Onegin ends, which gives us little time to get ready. They will include reprises of works from last season by Christopher Wheeldon, Wayne McGregor, Helgi Tomasson and the return of Alexei Ratmansky' s cheerful Carnival of the Animals. There will also be two premieres, one from Mark Morris, and one from Yuri Possokhov.