Alastair Macaulay

Jan 16, 2025 | slippedisc.com | Alastair Macaulay

The Royal Opera’s “Jenufa”By Alastair MacaulayLeoš Janáćek’s opera “Jenůfa” – one of the great works of the human spirit – takes a tragic situation, deepens it, and then transcends it. The unmarried Jenůfa is made pregnant by one man, Śteva, and has her face slashed by another Laca, whose love for her drives him to this shocking violence.

Nov 15, 2024 | slippedisc.com | Alastair Macaulay

Our renowned ballet reviewer had an unusually bad night:MaddAddam, Wayne McGregor’s Timidly Clichéd Dystopiaby Alastair MacaulayIn Wayne McGregor’s new three-act “MaddAddam”, the Royal Ballet has chosen to present us with the triumph of the inept, the mediocre, and the neo-bland – dolled up as if they were innovative and bold. McGregor made this harmless piece of dreariness two years ago for the National Ballet of Canada, and yet the Royal at Covent Garden has chosen to import it.

Nov 5, 2024 | danceforyou-magazine.com | Alastair Macaulay

by Alastair MACAULAYVladimir Putin, in a remarkable June 2019 interview with the “Financial Times”, declared that liberalism had become obsolete. He made clear that he meant many kinds of liberalism. On the one hand he included Angela Merkel’s tolerance of immigrants, while on the other he opposed sexual diversity and multiculturalism.

Oct 23, 2024 | slippedisc.com | Alastair Macaulay

Alastair Macaulay reviews the Royal Ballet’s latest for slippedisc.com:Encounters: Four Contemporary Balletsby Alastair MacaulayThe Royal Ballet, as if proclaiming that we have entered a great era of new ballet choreography, is beginning its season entirely with repertory choreographed in the twenty-first century.

Aug 30, 2024 | slippedisc.com | Alastair Macaulay

From our ballect critic:Georgian State Ballet Swan Lake 2024.viii.30by Alastair MacaulayThe ballerina Nina Ananiashvili – a Georgian who starred with the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow and American Ballet Theatre and gave memorable guest performances with many other companies – had a glorious stage career before she became director of the State Ballet of Georgia, to which she has brought Western choreography by George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton and others.