Alessandra Ferri Celebrates 40 Years Of Association With The Royal Ballet

Celebrating 40 years of association with The Royal Ballet, world renowned ballerina Alessandra Ferri returns to the Linbury Theatre this October for L'Heure Exquise: Maurice Béjart's interpretation of Samuel Beckett's play Oh les beaux jours (Happy Days).

Created for Carla Fracci and Micha Van Hoecke in 1998, and set to music by Anton Webern, Gustav Mahler, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Lehar, the production opens with Ferri embedded waist deep in over 2000 pointe shoes and features a series of stunning variations capturing her life in fragments.

Ferri trained at The Royal Ballet School, entering the Company in 1980, performing as a Soloist from 1983 and as a Principal from 1984. In 1985, she joined American Ballet Theatre on the invitation of Mikhail Baryshnikov, and from 1990 appeared as a guest artist with leading companies around the world. Since announcing her retirement in 2007, she has made a number of appearances in Royal Ballet productions: in Wayne McGregor's Woolf Works, for which she was awarded both the Critics' Circle National Dance Award for Best Female Dancer and a second Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance; and as Marguerite in Frederick Ashton's Marguerite and Armand. In L'Heure exquise, she will be partnered by Carsten Jung.

On Monday 18 October, as part of the Royal Opera House's Insights programme, Ferri will be in conversation, celebrating four decades with The Royal Ballet. Tickets are available on the Royal Opera House website.