program notes

The Royal Ballet Principal talks in detail about his love for MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet.

Award-winning and internationally-acclaimed Royal Ballet Principal Steven McRae, is a delightfully versatile performer. Whether cast as the love-struck Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake or the tap dancing Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Sydney-born dancer raises up to and excels in every challenge. But if there is one role he confesses is ‘in my blood and in my bones’, it’s the title character of Romeo and Juliet, which the ballet star learnt and first performed on very short notice.

‘I was at home on a Saturday evening and at midnight I got this phone call from [Royal Ballet Principal] Roberta Marquez,’ McRae recalls of his early years as a Soloist at the Company. ‘She said: "I’m in Paris, and I’ve just done Don Quixote, but I have to do it again tomorrow, and my partner just hurt himself. Can you come and do it?"' He accepted instantly.

Despite having never danced with the ballerina, and arriving at the theatre with just under an hour to spare before curtain call, his performance was so well received that, upon his return to London, he was asked to understudy the part of Romeo. It didn’t take long for him to debut in that role: ‘The next day [former Principal] Johan Kobborg hurt himself, so that’s when my chance appeared’.

For McRae, Romeo was not just a turning point in his life and career, but also a role he feels he has made his own. ‘I had watched every single show since joining the Company, so when it came to actually doing it, I guess I knew it.’ But he recognises that much of his success with the ballet is down to Kenneth MacMillan’s amazing choreography: ‘The man was a genius. If you let the steps do the talking, it works.’

Steven McRae on Romeo and Juliet (Full interview)

Royal Ballet’s Director Kevin O'Hare gives the inside track on a national dance scene with a plethora of young talent.

For decades, Britain has undoubtedly been one of the most exciting places to be a dancer and a choreographer. The British style is world-renowned, built on the rich heritage of Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan as well as iconic ballerinas like Margot Fonteyn and Darcey Bussell. But ballet training in Britain today looks forwards as well as backwards. For The Royal Ballet’s Director Kevin O’Hare, ‘British dance is having a renaissance.’

Kevin O'Hare on the UK ballet scene

In his Tchaikovsky symphonic series, Riccardo Muti reaches perhaps the most lively: Symphony No. 2, with its light-hearted opening, swaggering second movement processional and joyous finale. Beethoven's noble Triple Concerto artfully showcases the lyrical expressiveness of the violin and cello, beautifully played here by CSO members Stephanie Jeong and Kenneth Olsen and pianist Jonathan Biss.

CSO Program Notes: Muti Conducts Beethoven

Charles Dutoit leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a program brimming with Gallic charm, color and variety. Canadian pianist Louis Lortie is the soloist in Franck's beguiling Symphonic Variations and D'Indy's delightful Symphony on a French Mountain Air. Bookending these works are two of Ravel's most ravishing scores: the sensuous Rapsodie espagnole and the Second Suite from his ballet, Daphnis et Chloe, with its glorious opening dawn music.

CSO Program Notes: Dutoit Conducts Ravel

Revered cellist and CSO Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Yo-Yo Ma joins Concertmaster Robert Chen for a touching and tender duet in Saint-Saens' La muse et le poete, then returns as soloist in Lalo's noble and lyrical Cello Concerto. In the first half of this program, Charles Dutoit conducts Debussy's otherworldly The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian and Ravel's poignant Valses nobles et sentimentales.

CSO Program Notes: Charles Dutoit and Yo-Yo Ma

"Mitsuko Uchida's annual visit to Orchestra Hall rank among the most life-affirming experiences granted to local concertgoers" (Chicago Tribune). The Japanese pianist, renowned for her Mozart interpretations, returns to play and conduct two of Mozart's most beautiful and uplifting concertos. Uchida also accompanies soprano Dorothea Röschmann in a Schumann song cycle, which movingly traces the intimate thoughts of a woman about her beloved.

CSO Program Notes: Uchida Plays Mozart

Coppelia 2019-20 Audio Intro - Part 1

The Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden is home to The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet.

Steven McRae on Romeo and Juliet (Full interview)

The Royal Ballet and Opera

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