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In 1956, the company was granted a Royal Charter and became The Royal Ballet. This marked a significant milestone in its history.

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Iris Fanger Globe correspondent,Updated May 17, 2024, 5:00 a.m.

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From Covent Garden to the Berkshires: London’s Royal Ballet visits Jacob’s Pillow for the first time - The Boston Globe

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The company’s five days of performances at Jacob’s Pillow, its only US engagement this year, are selling out fast.

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The Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by Dame Ninette de Valois. It was originally known as the Vic-Wells Ballet.

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The Royal Ballet began extensive international tours in the mid-20th century, sharing their exceptional performances around the globe.

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Kenneth MacMillan, one of the most influential choreographers, created numerous masterpieces for The Royal Ballet, including 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Manon'.

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The Royal Ballet continues to thrive, showcasing both classical and contemporary works. They remain a leading institution in the world of ballet.

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Visit the official website of The Royal Ballet to explore various educational resources, including behind-the-scenes videos, interviews, and blogs.

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This summer, July 3-7, The Royal Ballet will make its debut at Jacob's Pillow. The Pillow, located in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, hosts the longest-running international dance festival in the U.S.

For its first-ever run there, The Royal will be showcasing a number of ballets by Wayne McGregor, Christopher Wheeldon, and Pam Tanowitz; heritage pieces from Fredrick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Marius Petipa, and Bronislava Nijinska; and a variety of classical and Balanchine works. The company will perform both in the indoor Ted Shawn Theatre and on the outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage, presenting a unique program for each that caters to the different spaces.

Despite this being The Royal's debut appearance, the company has a long history with Jacob's Pillow. The Pillow's festival was created in the 1940s by Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin at the invitation of Ted Shawn, the founder of Jacob's Pillow. Markova, one of the most celebrated ballerinas of the 20th century, was also the first prima ballerina of what is now The Royal Ballet.

"Jacob's Pillow is something that I remember from when I was a kid," says The Royal's director, Kevin O'Hare. "It was one of the first ever, real dance festivals, and it's a name that's been with me since I started in the ballet world." When the opportunity arose for The Royal to perform at Jacob's Pillow, O'Hare knew he wanted to make it happen. "Hopefully our repertoire will be a nice snapshot of what the company's work is, both historically and what we're doing in the present."

"It's a wonderful testament to the continuity of choreography that The Royal Ballet is cultivating," echoes principal Sarah Lamb on the significance of this debut.

At the Pillow, Lamb will be performing in several works, including a Wayne McGregor world premiere specially choreographed for the Pillow's indoor theater. McGregor is using the large barn doors at the back of the stage, incorporating them scenically into the ballet. Lamb will also appear in Balanchine's "Diamonds" and Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain, which will be performed outside.

" After the Rain is such a beloved pas de deux," says Lamb. "To me, being outdoors is the most appropriate place to be for this because it incorporates the natural world and the eternal."

With the stages at Jacob's Pillow being both indoor and outdoor, there are extra elements that the production team and the dancers need to be prepared for. The Pillow has a detailed backup plan for any bad weather that might arise. Its resident meteorologist keeps an eye on the forecast to determine the best course of action. For The Royal, if the weather were to take a turn, the shows would be moved inside because it will be the only company in residence that week. "Everyone can rest assured that they will be able to see the performance, no matter the weather," says Lamb.

It is an undertaking to bring a group of dancers on tour to another country, especially toward the end of the season. O'Hare initially went to visit Jacob's Pillow last August to see the space and meet with its team. By the end of the month, he knew they were going to move forward with the tour and suggested performing on both stages.

This June, as The Royal started to wrap up its final shows of and Ashton Celebrated, it began preparing for the Pillow. "It has been tricky finding the time to balance rehearsals with the end-of-season performances," says O'Hare, though he believes the company is in a very good place. "I went up and watched a rehearsal for [Wheeldon's] For Four yesterday, and they're looking great."

Despite the hectic scheduling, Lamb, a Boston native, is excited to be back in Massachusetts. "I have family, friends, and people who would never normally be able to make the journey over to London coming to watch me perform," she says. "I have former teachers, former students, and old colleagues visiting. I'm so flattered that so many people from my past will be there to support me and The Royal Ballet."

Viewers who are unable to catch The Royal live at Jacob's Pillow can tune in to a livestream of the company's performance on Saturday, July 6 from 8-10pm EDT. A recording of the performance will then be available on Jacob's Pillow On Demand for 24 hours, from 12pm on Wednesday, July 10 to 12pm on Thursday, July 11.

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The Royal Ballet Makes Its Jacob's Pillow Debut - Pointe Magazine

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This summer, July 3-7, London's The Royal Ballet will make its debut performance at Jacob's Pillow dance festival.

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The Royal Ballet of the United Kingdom | Coming to Festival 2024

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CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON, OBE ( Director & Choreographer) trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet in 1991. In 1993, he joined New York City Ballet and was promoted to Soloist in 1998. He was named NYCB's first Resident Choreographer in July 2001. Since then, Mr. Wheeldon has created and staged productions for many of the world's major ballet companies: San Francisco Ballet, The Bolshoi Ballet, The Mariinsky Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet, and Hamburg Ballet among others.
In 2007, Mr. Wheeldon founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and was appointed an Associate Artist for Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Mr. Wheeldon now serves as Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet. He has created many works for the company, including the full-length Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter's Tale, both of which were co-productions with The National Ballet of Canada. In 2012, his ballet Cinderella premiered at Het Nationale Ballet and is making its way to audiences worldwide. For the Metropolitan Opera, he choreographed Dance of the Hours for Ponchielli's La Gioconda (2006) and Richard Eyre's production of Carmen (2012) as well as ballet sequences for the feature film Center Stage (2000) and the musical Sweet Smell of Success on Broadway (2002). Mr. Wheeldon created a special excerpt for the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, and in April 2016, he was the Artistic Director for the Fashion Forward exhibition in Paris at La Musee Arts et Decoratif. In 2014, Mr. Wheeldon directed and choreographed the Broadway musical version of An American in Paris, which had productions in Paris, New York, and London and has toured extensively through America, China, Japan and Australia. The Joffrey Ballet presented the world premiere in 2016 of The Nutcracker reimagined by Mr. Wheeldon and in 2017 he directed and choreographed Lerner & Loewe's Brigadoon starring Kelli O'Hara and Patrick Wilson at New York City Center. 2019 saw the premiere of Corybantic Games at The Royal Ballet and a re-staged version of Cinderella for the English National Ballet at Royal Albert Hall. Like Water for Chocolate is his latest full-length ballet for The Royal Ballet which had its premiere in June 2022 and its American premiere with American Ballet Theater in 2023. Most recently he directed and choreographed MJ The Musical which opened on Broadway in February 2022, winning four Tony Awards, including Best Choreography. It is currently touring throughout American and opened in London's West End in March 2023. Among Mr. Wheeldon's other awards are another Tony Award for Best Choreography for An American in Paris, 2 Tony Nominations for Best Director, an Outer Critics Award for Best Choreography and Direction for An American in Paris, the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center, the American Choreography Award, the Dance Magazine Award, South Bank Show Award, multiple London Critics' Circle Awards, and the Léonide Massine Prize for new choreography. Mr. Wheeldon's productions of Cinderella and The Winter's Tale received the Benois de la Danse, and he is an Olivier Award winner for his ballets Aeternum for The Royal Ballet and Polyphonia for Morphoses. In 2016, Mr. Wheeldon was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and was made an Honorary Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Christopher is a dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom and resides in New York City with his husband, Ross Rayburn, and their dogs, Hattie and Theo. Photo copyright Angela Sterling

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Official Bio of Christopher Wheeldon - Christopher Wheeldon

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CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON, OBE ( Director & Choreographer) trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet in 1991. In 1993, he joined New York City Ballet and was promoted to Soloist in 1998. He was named NYCB's first Resident Choreographer in July 2001.

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The Royal Ballet: Rhapsody pas de deux (Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé)

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Insights: The Royal Ballet in Rehearsal - Swan Lake

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"royal opera house" "the royal opera" "covent garden" london "the royal ballet" theatre theater ballet opera dance music cinema "classical music" orchestra s...

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Feel something new at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. If you're new to ballet and opera or have loved them all your life, we have something for you. The Royal Opera House is the home of The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera.

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For Four – Christopher Wheeldon (Vadim Muntagirov, Matthew Ball, James Hay, Marcelino Sambé)

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Christopher Wheeldon, (born March 22, 1973, Yeovil, Somerset, England), British-born ballet soloist and choreographer, known for his work with New York City Ballet, its connected institution, the School of American Ballet, and the Royal Ballet, London. In his choreography, Wheeldon shunned trendiness and preferred the classical and lyrical to the more contemporary.

Wheeldon was first attracted to ballet when he saw the chicken dance in a production of La Fille mal gardée on television. He began taking classes, first in a local school and later at London's Royal Ballet School. There he began creating dances and winning awards for them. At age 17 he won the Prix de Lausanne competition's gold medal with a program that included one of his own pieces.

In 1991 Wheeldon entered the corps de ballet of the Royal Ballet, where he spent two years. While on a trip to New York City during a company break, he was persuaded to take a class with New York City Ballet (NYCB), and at the end of the class he was offered a job with that company. In 1993, after he finished his contract with the Royal Ballet, he entered the NYCB corps. He appeared in such ballets as Dances at a Gathering, The Four Temperaments, Chaconnne, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Nutcracker, The Concert, and The Goldberg Variations. He originated roles in a number of other works, among them West Side Story Suite, La Stravaganza, Brandenburg, Reliquary, and Episodes and Sarcasms. Along the way, he was promoted to soloist.

Wheeldon also choreographed for the School of American Ballet for such performances as Le Voyage (1994) and Danses bohémiennes (1996). In 1997 his first work for NYCB, Slavonic Dances, was presented to wide acclaim. Wheeldon also choreographed Scènes de ballet for the School of American Ballet; it premiered in 1999. Set to music by Igor Stravinsky, it featured more than 60 children in a classroom setting and for the most part was choreographed to give the illusion of dancers and their mirror images. One scene, however, depicted a rapturous fantasy pas de deux "imagined" by one of the children as she gazed into a mirror.

As his reputation grew, Wheeldon received invitations from other ballet troupes such as the San Francisco Ballet, for which he choreographed Within the Golden Hour (2008). He created pieces for the Colorado Ballet and Boston Ballet, and in late 1999 it was announced that Wheeldon had been appointed Boston Ballet's principal guest choreographer. He also supplied some of the original choreography for the motion pictures Center Stage (2000), Ballets russes (2005), and The Sleeping Beauty (2008).

In 2007 Wheeldon founded a dance company, Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, in collaboration with former New York City Ballet principal dancer Lourdes Lopez. When Wheeldon left the organization in 2010, Lopez carried on and continued to direct the company then renamed simply Morphoses.

Shortly after, Wheeldon became the artistic associate of the Royal Ballet, where he created the three-act ballets Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2011) and The Winter's Tale (2014). He also staged productions for a number of major ballet companies, including Cinderella (2012) for both the San Francisco Ballet and the Dutch National Ballet, Amsterdam, and The Nutcracker (2016) for the Joffrey Ballet, Chicago. Wheeldon's work in theatre included An American in Paris (2014), for which Wheeldon received a Tony Award for best choreography; Brigadoon (2017); and MJ: The Musical (2022), a musical about the life of Michael Jackson.

In 2016 Wheeldon was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

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Christopher Wheeldon | Biography, Ballet, Cinderella, Nutcracker, Alice in Wonderland, & Facts

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Christopher Wheeldon, (born March 22, 1973, Yeovil, Somerset, England), British-born ballet soloist and choreographer, known for his work with New York City Ballet, its connected institution, the School of American Ballet, and the Royal Ballet, London. In his choreography, Wheeldon shunned trendiness and preferred the classical and lyrical to the more contemporary.

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One weekend in the early 1990s on Manhattan's Upper West Side, 19-year-old dancer Christopher Wheeldon found himself at a loose end. He had recently moved from London to join New York City Ballet. "I hadn't really made any friends yet and I remember a really lonely Sunday afternoon going to the cinema," says Wheeldon. "There used to be a great art house at Lincoln Center, called Lincoln Plaza." The film he saw there was Like Water for Chocolate, an adaptation of the Mexican author Laura Esquivel's magical realist novel about thwarted love.

"It just really stuck with me," says Wheeldon. "I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic, I suppose." Back then, he had no idea that 30 years later he would still be living in New York, now an internationally successful Tony and Olivier award-winning choreographer, turning the movie he saw into a ballet.

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Having begun his choreographic career making abstract neoclassical ballets (including Polyphonia, Morphoses and Tryst) based on streamlined beauty, patterning and musicality, Wheeldon has since made his name as a large-scale storyteller, who has tackled everything from the visual spectacle of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to turning The Winter's Tale, supposedly one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", into an emotive ballet. He also choreographed and directed a hugely successful stage version of the Gene Kelly film An American in Paris and recently opened the Michael Jackson musical MJ on Broadway.

Esquivel's novel is unlike any of these shows, but Wheeldon spotted some rich ingredients for ballet in the story of heroine Tita, forbidden from marrying her beloved Pedro because family tradition dictates she must stay at home to care for her demanding mother. As Tita cooks for the family, her emotions are transferred to the food and those who eat it, causing outbreaks of lovesickness and intense desire. Heightened emotions and simmering passion are things ballet does very well, and Wheeldon foresaw great ballerina roles for Tita, her mother and sisters ( Francesca Hayward will be the first Tita). "And it's a very dynamic story," he says. "There's a ghost, a band of revolutionaries and, of course, the magic."

Marcelino Sambé and Francesca Hayward rehearse Like Water for Chocolate. Photograph: Andrej Uspenski

At the outset of the project, Wheeldon visited Esquivel in Mexico City and she cooked him a recipe from the book, a champandongo casserole. "I wouldn't do this without Laura's blessing," he says, aware of the sensitivities of telling stories outside one's own culture. "We have to make sure we're asking all the right questions and have permission."

Wheeldon also worked closely with the Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra and composer Tomás Barreiro, but has no intention of carbon-copying the novel's world. Having researched a huge array of Mexican folk dances, he decided the best route was to invent his own language. Similarly, the score, by Joby Talbot, combines impassioned melodies and danceable rhythms with only hints of Mexican flavour.

Even the story is abstracted somewhat, its "tightly woven, detailed tapestry" distilled into key relationships to suit ballet's strengths. Wheeldon is well aware that for those unused to dance, watching even well-known story ballets on stage can be baffling. "I sat in on Swan Lake the other night, and thought: 'If you're coming to this for the very first time and you haven't read what it's about, you're going to struggle.'"

That may be why ballet so often falls back on the same old stories, something Wheeldon is no longer interested in. "I don't think we should be afraid of tackling complex stories and not feeling like the audience has to understand every second; one of the beauties of dance is that we get to escape into this poetic abstraction, even within a story ballet." Nonetheless, he is planning to send out a synopsis when people get their e-tickets, as well as links to a number of talks he has done about the work's creation. "If you're completely confused as to what's going on, you're not enjoying yourself; you can be made to feel stupid."

We focus on the creative process. Despite the fact Michael Jackson is so polarising, his music connects

It is a viewpoint sometimes missed by those, such as Wheeldon, who have been immersed in ballet since childhood. Born in Yeovil, Somerset, he started ballet at eight and was accepted into the Royal Ballet School at 11, based at White Lodge in Richmond Park, west London. He began choreographing straight away. "I was pretty bossy and I liked to organise," he says, "so it just seemed natural. When the annual choreography competition happened, I was like: 'Yep, I'm going to enter that and I'm going to win it.'" His first-year entry was chosen to be performed for Princess Margaret. "I was like: 'Wow, somebody thinks my little piece is good!' So often in class we were being told that we weren't any good as dancers. When someone tells you you're good at something, they give you that confidence - that for me was the big push."

At White Lodge, it was great to be surrounded by so many other people obsessed with ballet, but the intense competition could be hard. "If you didn't get selected for something, like The Nutcracker, your name just didn't go up on the board. Nobody took you aside to talk to you. It's very different now," he says. Back then there wasn't a lot of talking about feelings in general. "Those are really formative years, you're maturing, and whereas I feel kids now are encouraged to be free about who they are, these were not times when we shared or spoke about any sexual feelings. I think most of the boys in our year were gay and we were all so closeted, we were all terrified our parents were going to disown us. I went to New York to find myself. I wasn't able to fully express myself as a gay man until I moved away."

Wheeldon is now happily married, to yoga instructor Ross Rayburn (they have just moved, with their dog, to an apartment block where, coincidentally, the esteemed choreographer George Balanchine used to live). The way we talk about many things has changed since the 90s, and there is a gradual openness in the ballet world to conversations about diversity, body shape, gender, company hierarchy and power dynamics - subjects that previously weren't addressed. "We're reassessing what's considered excellent on stage," says Wheeldon. "It's going to take a while. It's going to be clunky and uncomfortable and awkward, but as long as we're having the conversations and progress is being made I'm encouraged."

The cast of Like Water for Chocolate. Photograph: Andrej Uspenski

At White Lodge, students were allowed to put one poster up on their bedroom wall, and, while others had pictures of ballet stars, Wheeldon had a poster of Michael Jackson's Bad ("I remember being obsessed with that album"). It's another memory that resonated down the years when Wheeldon was asked to direct and choreograph MJ the Musical, recreating the preparations for Jackson's 1992-93 Dangerous World Tour. A white, British, ballet-trained choreographer, with no expertise in hip-hop or funk dance styles, Wheeldon was not the obvious directorial choice. "I said that when they asked me! You do know who I am?" But the show's Pulitzer prize-winning writer Lynn Nottage had seen An American in Paris, and wanted a dance-maker at the helm.

Inevitably, he had reservations about taking it on, because of the complexities of Jackson's legacy. "Everyone has their own opinion," he says. "Some people think it's not appropriate; some people separate the art from the artist. We're asking, in part, how do we have this conversation about this great body of work that's going nowhere? We focus on the creative process. Despite the fact he's so polarising, his music connects. On a nightly basis we have the most diverse audience in New York, all connecting through his music. I don't regret having done it at all."

The pressure of creating a Broadway musical is different from making a ballet, "because you're expected to make people money", says Wheeldon. But as a result they have much more development time to get things right: numerous workshops before getting into rehearsals, six weeks of previews before press come in. "I still haven't put two scenes together in Like Water for Chocolate," he says. When will it come together? "The day before! Honestly, that's usually what happens. Everything crashes together and then it's opening night." It's a much riskier prospect. "But it's kind of the excitement, too," he says. "You just have to jump in at the deep end and get on with it."

Like Water for Chocolate is at the Royal Opera House, London, 2 to 17 June.

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Christopher Wheeldon: 'Most boys at ballet school were closeted, terrified our parents would disown us'

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As his version of Like Water for Chocolate opens at the Royal Opera House, the choreographer talks about how the ballet world is changing - and why he took on the Michael Jackson musical

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From Ballet to Broadway - Episode Eight: Christopher Wheeldon

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In the early years, the company focused on creating a repertoire of classic ballets. Some of the notable early productions included 'Giselle' and 'Swan Lake'.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Royal Ballet, English ballet company and school. It was formed in 1956 under a royal charter of incorporation granted by Queen Elizabeth II to the Sadler's Wells Ballet and its sister organizations, the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet and the Sadler's Wells School.

The founders of the Sadler's Wells Ballet were Lilian Baylis and Ninette de Valois. De Valois established a ballet school in London in 1926, the same year that Baylis, the director of the Old Vic Theatre, engaged her to stage incidental dances for operas and plays. When Baylis took over as director of the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London in 1931, she and de Valois organized the Vic-Wells Ballet there. While the company performed at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells theatres through the 1930s, it was called the Vic-Wells Ballet; later it was known as the Sadler's Wells Ballet.

Alicia Markova became the company's first prima ballerina in 1933. When she left the company in 1935, many of her roles were inherited by the 16-year-old Margot Fonteyn, who later matured into one of the great ballerinas of the century. Robert Helpmann, who had joined the company in 1933, became its principal male dancer. In the 1930s the company premiered several important new ballets choreographed by de Valois and by Frederick Ashton. The dancer and choreographer Léonide Massine was associated with the Sadler's Wells Ballet in the 1940s and '50s. In 1949 the company made its first triumphant American tour. It was by then a very large organization, with its own school and a sister company, the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, which had been founded in 1946 to undertake foreign and provincial tours.

In 1956 Sadler's Wells received a royal charter and was renamed the Royal Ballet. Its two companies began a gradual amalgamation that was completed in 1959. The Royal Ballet, since its formation in 1956, has featured such choreographers as Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Bronislava Nijinska, and George Balanchine and has toured widely.

Amy Tikkanen.

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Royal Ballet | History, Dancers, & Facts

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Royal Ballet, English ballet company and school.

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Sir Frederick Ashton (born September 17, 1904, Guayaquil, Ecuador-died August 18, 1988, Sussex, England) was the principal choreographer and director of England's Royal Ballet, the repertoire of which includes about 30 of his ballets.

Ashton studied dancing in London under Léonide Massine, Nicholas Legat, and Marie Rambert, who encouraged his first choreographic efforts, The Tragedy of Fashion (1926) and Capriol Suite (1930).

Ashton joined the Vic-Wells (later the Sadler's Wells and then the Royal) Ballet in 1933 and distinguished himself as a mime and character dancer in such roles as Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty and the gigolo in Façade and as the versatile choreographer of ballets that include Cinderella, Sylvia, and Daphnis and Chloë and the film Tales of Hoffmann (1951). He was the Royal Ballet's principal choreographer from 1933 to 1970, during which time he also served as its associate director (1952 to 1963) and its director (1963 to 1970). In 1970 he retired from his administrative position in order to devote his time exclusively to choreography.

In 1963 Ashton created Marguerite and Armand especially for the new partnership of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. Others included The Dream (1964), a one-act ballet based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream; Monotones (Part I, 1965; Part II, 1966), to music of Erik Satie; Jazz Calendar (1968); Enigma Variations (1968); A Month in the Country (1976); and Rhapsody (1981), based on music by Sergey Rachmaninoff. In 1970 Ashton choreographed and danced in the motion picture Tales of Beatrix Potter. His major works include such enduring favourites as Façade (1931), Les Rendezvous (1933), Les Patineurs (1937), Symphonic Variations (1946), Illuminations (for the New York City Ballet, 1950), Homage to the Queen (1953), Romeo and Juliet (for the Royal Danish Ballet, 1955), Birthday Offering (1956), Ondine (1958), and La Fille mal gardée (1960). Ashton was knighted in 1962.

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Sir Frederick Ashton | Ballet, Dance, Choreography

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Sir Frederick Ashton was the principal choreographer and director of England's Royal Ballet, the repertoire of which includes about 30 of his ballets. Ashton studied dancing in London under Léonide Massine, Nicholas Legat, and Marie Rambert, who encouraged his first choreographic efforts, The