Rescue me Rojo

Sleeping Beauty, La Scala Ballet, Royal Opera House, 26th July

Last month La Scala Ballet Company graced the stage of the Royal Opera House, gilding it with their version of Rudolf Nureyev’s choreographic reworking of Sleeping Beauty. I was in attendance on the Thursday evening; a welcome return (after a financially deficient absence they call student-hood) to the venue which, to me, embodies British ballet with all of its class and style. There is comfort in familiarity. Those grey-haired balletomanes; velvet-clad twelve year old wannabe Darcys; horsey young ladies with their giraffe necks and Chanel watches – all are still in attendance. The smoked salmon sandwiches still taste as good, and that atmospheric odour in the auditorium remains the same.

Tonight, however, there’s no Royal Ballet, as La Scala take over the reins. I miss them, finding little solace in a company that appears before me like an European charlatan, a poor relation of what I am used to. The Royal always endow their productions with a certain class – an understated contemporary elegance which strikes the right note between tradition and sophistication. Nothing of the like from the Italians, whom I expected to epitomise understated style. Despite the overwhelming charm of their work I am still left feeling a little like I am watching a regional production, a version of a ballet through the eyes of someone who has never seen one before. Everything is overdone, to the extent I feel I don’t see anymore, and the magic is obscured by the Baroque gilt.

The dancing is there, of course, and moments shine through – but more than anything it is Tamara Rojo who pulls focus, like a masterpiece in a gaudy frame. Her movement is divine – this is ballet as it should be, with no tell-tale joins between the steps, no cracks in the façade which all too often fracture the fairytale illusion. Rojo’s milky limbs shine through and the polite tapping of pointe shoes that was the rest of the company simply receded into insignificance. A premium prima, Rojo’s momentum swept the corps under the carpet and single-handedly saved the evening for me.