A star-studded anniversary gala that delivered moments of brilliance, but lacked the cohesion and polish the occasion deserved.
Anniversary galas should invite reflection, or at least a vague sense of what has come before. The 20th anniversary Ballet Icons Gala, however, felt curiously unstructured: a sequence of celebrated pas de deux and contemporary fragments assembled without a clear thematic thread. The highs were undeniable, the lows were harder to ignore.
When the programme worked, it was spectacular. The first half closed with Black Swan, danced by Fumi Kaneko and Vadim Muntagirov. For me it was, without a doubt, the highlight of the evening. Kaneko’s Odile was sharp yet sumptuous, her arms gorgeous and expansive, her line immaculate, her face wily and alive. She looked as though she could perform that fouetté sequence in her sleep. Her partner Muntagirov was a lesson in understated elegance (his grand jeté sequence, in turn, was smooth, controlled and breezy). The chemistry between them — heightened, perhaps, by the knowledge that they were married 4 days before this performance (swoon) — lent the duet an added charge, and I could not pull my eyes away from them.
Don Quixote, delivered by Marianela Núñez and Patricio Revé closed the show in a blaze of bravura; like Kaneko and Muntagirov, their technical control, artistry and sense of performance operated on an entirely different level from the surrounding programme. Núñez was vivacious; Revé matched her with buoyant virtuosity. The choreography, Minkus’s exuberant score and the vivid costuming combined to show off what gala ballet can achieve when artistry, rehearsal and charisma align.
As a collective, the pieces were uneven. Diana and Actaeon felt oddly cold, its central dynamic lacking spark and Madeline Woo offering very little assurance or emotion to her audience. Raymonda, compared with the stronger classical showpieces, faded into the background – the choreography was simply flatter than others. By contrast, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux was a personal highlight – as a fan of both Tchaikovsky and Balanchine, it’s hard to put a step wrong with a score that moving.
With unstable landings, wobbly pirouettes, and out-of-sync unison passages, several works felt under-rehearsed. In a city where you can see The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet or a visiting roster of world-class companies on any given day of the week, such unevenness is difficult to overlook. A gala need not replicate the polish of a full company run, but it must still meet a certain standard of rehearsal.
The digital backdrop (which I suspected was AI-generated – if not then it’s simply unimaginatively produced) appeared bland and two-dimensional. In several pieces, a plain backdrop would have been better, allowing the dancers to carry the show themselves, which would have been more than enough. Sound design proved more problematic. When the orchestra was not playing, recorded tracks were mixed unevenly, with noticeable fluctuations in volume that drew attention away from the stage. During Uhuru in particular, the imbalance became intrusive to the point that I focused more on that than the dancing.
The opening segment — a montage of self-recorded videos from artists associated with the gala over the years – was yawningly self-congratulatory. Audio levels varied wildly, with the sound engineer’s reactive adjustments being very audible. It felt like a glaringly careless way of opening a show.
Ballet Icons delivered moments of genuine brilliance. When artists of the calibre of Kaneko, Muntagirov and Núñez take the stage, the audience sit up and take note. But an anniversary edition should feel curated and elevated, not simply assembled. The gala offered flashes of excellence framed by inconsistency. Its most memorable performances soared; the surrounding structure struggled to keep pace.
This show runs at X until Y. Tickets here.