Dancing Master News Today

The dancers bring their brains and souls to the roles along with excellent classical technique. Every move looks effortless and feels organic, even the most amazing ones.

Maine State Ballet revives one of its favorite classics, CINDERELLA, in an elegant and ageless production with the choreography of Linda MacArthur Miele and the design wizardry of Gail Csoboth.  The production, grounded in the Balanchine tradition in which Miele was nurtured, is eloquent in its disarming simplicity of narrative and timeless traditionalism of its dance.  Set to Serge Prokofiev’s stirring score, Miele’s eighty minutes of dance offers an afternoon of enchantment.

John Andrews has gained a well-earned reputation for brilliant recordings of unknown operas and operettas. As he turns his attention to Ethel Smyth’s Der Wald, Richard Bratby listens in

David Truslove reflects on Natalie Romaniw's performance in Ariadne auf Naxos at Garsington Opera.

When tears well up during stretches of Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s curious hybrid which you never expected to move you, something special's going on. The magic happened last night in an evening which I didn't anticipate equalling “the Carmelites experience” at Glyndebourne. But, in its very different way, it did, in terms of casting, conducting and a production (by Bruno Ravella) that wasn’t too interventionist but had some powerful ideas of its own.

Russian symphonies, a musical morality tale and a well-lubricated night out Reviews by Graham Rickson

Leveret – Forms. The leading English folk trio’s tenth anniversary album

Opera North’s Ariadne auf Naxos, first seen in Gothenburg, is a smart, satirical staging with two vocal set-pieces to die for

A rediscovered comic opera, orchestral froth and a spectacular 20th century symphony Reviews by Bernard Hughes and Graham Rickson

This operatic triptych never quite finds its footing