Press Release: ROYAL BALLET PRESENTS - WORLD PREMIERE OF LIAM SCARLETT’S THE AGE OF ANXIETY ALONGSIDE WORK BY KIM BRANDSTRUP AND CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON

[Jan McNulty]

WORLD PREMIERE OF LIAM SCARLETT’S THE AGE OF ANXIETYALONGSIDE WORK BY KIM BRANDSTRUP AND CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON

 

CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE / THE AGE OF ANXIETY / AETERNUM

 

Friday 7 – Monday 17 November 2014

 

The Royal Ballet presents the world premiere of Liam Scarlett’s The Age of Anxiety, his latest work for the Company, alongside the London debut of Kim Brandstrup’s Ceremony of Innocence and Christopher Wheeldon’s Olivier Award-winning Aeternum.

 

The Age of Anxiety is a new ballet inspired by WH Auden’s 1946 poem. Set in war time New York it follows four disparate characters who meet in a bar and try to make sense of their shifting worlds. Led by Principal dancers Laura Morera and Steven McRae The Age of Anxiety is Scarlett’s fourth work for the Royal Ballet.  Scarlett was appointed Artist in Residence in 2012 and past work for the Company includes Asphodel Meadows (2010), Sweet Violets (2012) and last year’s Hansel and Gretel (2013).

 

The Triple Bill of one act ballets also features Kim Brandstrup’s Ceremony of Innocence which was originally created for the Benjamin Britten Centenary Celebrations at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2013. Ceremony of Innocenceis set to Britten’s Variation on a Theme of Frank Bridge, and is a subtle response to his final opera Death in Venice.The work features an older protagonist, performed by Principal Edward Watson, looking back on the careless brilliance of his young self, danced by First Artist Marcelino Sambĕ.

 

The programme closes with Royal Ballet Artistic Associate Christopher Wheeldon's Olivier Award-winningAeternum which was created for The Royal Ballet in 2013.  Aeternum is set to Britten’s harrowing Sinfonia da requiem, written in 1940, and is his anguished musical response to the Second World War. This darkly lyrical ballet concludes with an extended duet to create a powerful tribute to the fallen. The cast for Aeternum will include Principal dancers Marianela Nuñez, Federico Bonelli and Nehemiah Kish. Wheeldon’s other recent work for the Company includes two full-length ballets; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which returns to the main stage this Christmas, and the critically acclaimed production of The Winter's Tale which opened earlier this year.

 

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Generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund, Richard and Delia Baker (Ceremony of Innocence), Mrs Susan A Olde OBE, Karl and Holly Peterson, The Age of Anxiety Production Syndicate and the Friends of Covent Garden (The Age of Anxiety)

 

Ceremony of Innocence / The Age of Anxiety / Aeternum

7, 13, 14, 17 November at 7:30pm / 8 November at 2pm and 7pm

 

 

CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE

Choreography                                                 Kim Brandstrup

Music                                                               Benjamin Britten

Costume Design                                              Kandis Cook

Designs                                                            Leo Warner for 59 Productions

Lighting design                                               Jordan Tuinman

 

 

 

THE AGE OF ANXIETY

Choreography                                                 Liam Scarlett

Music                                                               Leonard Bernstein

Designs                                                            John Macfarlane

Lighting                                                          Jennifer Tipton

 

AETERNUM

Choreography                                                 Christopher Wheeldon

Music                                                               Benjamin Britten

Designs                                                            Jean-Marc Puissant

Lighting design                                               Adam Silverman

 

Conducted by Barry Wordsworth, Music Director of The Royal Ballet with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.

 

  NOTES TO EDITORS

BIOGRAPHIES

Kim Brandstrup

Kim Brandstrup made his Royal Ballet debut in 2005 with Two Footnotes to Ashton. Ceremony of Innocence will be the fifth work presented on the Royal Opera House main stage by Brandstrup, who also won an Olivier Award in 2010 for his Goldberg Variations in the Linbury Studio Theatre. Brandstrup recently created the short film Leda and the Swan for Sampling The Myth as part of the Deloitte Ignite Festival 2014.

Brandstrup studied film at the University of Copenhagen and choreography with Nina Fonaroff at the London Contemporary Dance School. He has been working as a choreographer since 1983 and in 1985 founded his own dance company, Arc. Brandstrup work as a choreographer spans dance, theatre and opera.

 

Liam Scarlett

Liam Scarlett trained at The Royal Ballet School and danced with The Royal Ballet, retiring as a dancer in 2012 to focus on his choreographic career. In the same year he was appointed The Royal Ballet’s first Artist in Residence. His works for The Royal Ballet include Despite and Vayamos al Diablo (2006), Consolations and Liebestraum (2009 – nominated for a Critics’ Circle Award), Asphodel Meadows (2010 – nominated for a South Bank Award and an Olivier Award, and winner of a Critics’ Circle Award), Sweet Violets, ‘Diana and Actaeon’ from Metamorphosis: Titian 2012(2012), Hansel and Gretel (2013) and the Jubilee pas de deux in celebration of HM The Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

 

Christopher Wheeldon

Christopher Wheeldon is Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet. He trained at The Royal Ballet School and danced with the Company 1991–3, where Kenneth MacMillan encouraged him in his choreographic work. For The Royal Ballet he has created the one-act ballets Tryst (2002), DGV: Danse à grande vitesse (2006), Electric Counterpoint(2008), ‘Trespass’ (Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, in collaboration with Alastair Marriott) and Aeternum, and the full-length ballets Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 2011 (The Royal Ballet's first full-length commission in  almost 20 years) and The Winter's Tale in 2014.