THE ROYAL BALLET
Director
Founder
Founder Choreographer
Founder Music Director
Prima Ballerina Assoluta
The Royal Ballet dedicates this Season’s performances to the memory of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Season Principal Aline Foriel-Destezet
Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor generously supported by Tina Taylor
Generous philanthropic support from Julia and Hans Rausing, Aud Jebsen, John and Susan Burns OBE, The Sargent Charitable Trust and The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund
Young ROH is generously made possible by The Bunting Family, Sir Simon Robey, Tim Ashley and John Booth, additional kind support from Josh and Layla Harris
The 2022/23 Royal Ballet Season is generously supported by Aud Jebsen
Woolf Works
A TRIPTYCH
01.03.2023 19:30
APPROXIMATE TIMINGS
GUIDANCE
This production contains references to suicide. Lasers are projected into the auditorium during Becomings.
CREDITS
CAST
Voiceover from a letter by Virginia Woolf spoken by Gillian Anderson
With special thanks to The Estate of Virginia Woolf
Students of The Royal Ballet School appear by kind permission of the Artistic Director Christopher Powney
SYNOPSIS
I now, I then (from Mrs Dalloway)
Mrs Dalloway, Woolf’s 1925 stream of consciousness novel, is set over the course of one day and alternates between two stories: a society hostess preparing for an important party and a shell-shocked war veteran on his way to a psychiatric assessment. Though they never meet, both Clarissa, the protected insider and Septimus, the social outcast, are haunted by the past. Opening with an excerpt from Woolf’s recorded essay, On Craftsmanship, I now I then is a journey into the writing of Mrs Dalloway, interweaving narrative fragments from the novel with aspects of Woolf’s autobiography including the experience of drawing on her own mental illness as subject matter.
Becomings (from Orlando)
‘on or about December 1910 human nature changed’ – Virginia Woolf
Written in an epoch of recalibration in every sphere including the roles and rights of women, modes of representation in art and literature, and rapid advances in cosmology, Woolf’s iconoclastic 1928 novel Orlando centres around a fantastical figure who journeys through three hundred years without growing old, and changes sex along the way. Relationships prove transient, even with himself, while relativity and plasticity define her experience of time and space. Becomings presents Orlando’s dizzying wide-angle vision of a vast, ever-altering universe in which life is energy passing through a multiplicity of forms – a brief, gorgeous flaring of insect wings, gestating, emerging, extinguishing and moving on.
Tuesday (from The Waves)
Grand and elegiac, The Waves (1931) is Woolf’s most experimental novel, conceived in response to her own childlessness and the contrasting fierce maternity of her sister Vanessa. In the novel, the voices of six people growing from childhood to old age are punctuated by symbols of natural decay and renewal, the most important of which is the ever-returning sea. Responding to Woolf’s unique fascination with underwater imagery in all her writing, Tuesday merges themes of The Waves with a portrayal of the writer’s suicide by drowning. As Woolf counts her steps towards the river Ouse and her final journey, so too the world of her novel moves towards abstraction and silence.
THE ROYAL BALLET
Music Director
Resident Choreographer
Artistic Associate
Administrative Director
Rehearsal Director
Clinical Director Ballet Healthcare
DIGITAL CAST SHEETS
We are working to make the Royal Opera House more sustainable. To do this, some of the ways in which we share information have changed, including cast sheets.
You can view the digital cast sheets on a computer, tablet or smartphone. You can also download and print the digital cast sheet. Check the digital cast sheet for the most up-to-date information before the performance starts, during the interval, or after the performance day.
Scan the QR codes displayed around the building with a smartphone to view the latest digital cast sheets. The cast sheets are also displayed on screens outside the auditoria.
Cast sheets generously supported by the Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.
GUIDELINES
Photography and filming are prohibited during performances in any of our auditoriums. You are welcome to take pictures throughout the rest of the building and before performances and share them with us through social media. Commercial photography and filming must be agreed in advance with our press team.
Larger bags and backpacks need to be check into our complimentary cloakrooms. Unattended bags may be removed.
Please do not place any personal belongings on the ledges in front of you.
Only bottled water and ice cream purchased from the premises can be taken into the auditorium.
If you arrive late to the auditorium or leave during a performance, you will not be allowed back to your seat until the interval or a suitable break.
Smoking and vaping are not permitted anywhere on the premises.
The safety of our visitors, staff and artists is still our priority. There are hand sanitiser stations throughout the building. To help us provide a comfortable experience for everyone, please be mindful of others and their personal space.
Our staff are committed to treating everyone with dignity and respect and we ask that you show them and your fellow audience members respect too. We adopt a zero-tolerance approach in response to anyone who interacts with our staff or with fellow audience members in an intimidating, aggressive or threatening manner.
SUPPORT OUR ONGOING RECOVERY
We are so glad to welcome our artists back to our theatres to perform for you the opera and ballet you love. During the pandemic we lost £3 in every £5 of our income and we continue to feel the impact as we recover. Sustaining the future of ballet and opera has never been so important. Please consider making a donation to the Royal Opera House community today and help support the future of ballet and opera.