The Royal Ballet Celebrates 60 Years Of The Friends Of Covent Garden With A Diamond Celebration

The Royal presents A Diamond Celebration, a special programme to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of The Friends of Covent Garden. This celebration will also be broadcast live to cinemas around the world on Wednesday 16th November and encore screenings on Saturday 19th November.

Kevin O'Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet, has curated a programme featuring an array of Principal dancers, a showcase of The Royal Ballet's repertory past, present and future. Works by Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon will be performed alongside world premieres from Pam Tanowitz, Joseph Toonga and Benoit Swan Pouffer, all making their main stage choreographic debuts, and from Royal Ballet First Soloist Valentino Zucchetti.

A work new to the Company by Associate Artist Christopher Wheeldon, For Four, will be a showcase for the talents of Matthew Ball, James Hay, Vadim Muntagirov and Marcelino Sambé.

Joseph Toonga was appointed Royal Ballet Emerging Choreographer in 2021, This two-year programme provides an opportunity for an emerging choreographer to gain experience of working with one of the world's leading ballet companies, as well as being mentored by Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor. This will be Toonga's main stage debut at the Royal Opera House and features a specially commissioned score by Michael 'Mikey J' Asante.

Celebrated American choreographer Pam Tanowitz returns to The Royal Ballet following her critically acclaimed Everybody Keeps Me, which received its premiere in the Linbury Theatre in 2019. For her main stage debut, Tanowitz has created a pas de deux on Royal Ballet Principals Anna Rose O'Sullivan and William Bracewell set to Ted Hearne's Dispatches. Tanowitz also returns to the Linbury Theatre in February 2023 to present a new work alongside the first revival of Everybody Keeps Me.

Valentino Zucchetti presents his latest work for The Company following his award-winning ballet Anemoi from 2021 which won The South Bank Sky Arts Award for Best Dance and Critics' Circle National Dance Award for Best Classical Choreography. This new work has been created on four of the Company's Principals, Francesca Hayward, Fumi Kanako, Mayara Magri and Yasmine Naghdi. Set to Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No.3, the ballet features costumes by leading British Fashion designer Roksanda Ilincic. Regarded as one of the most important designers shaping the fashion industry, the award-winning designer also designed the costumes for Cathy Marston's In Our Wishes live-streamed by The Royal Ballet during the 2020 pandemic.

Rambert, once Rambert Ballet, has a long association with The Royal Ballet with their respective founders, Marie Rambert and Ninette de Valois, laying the foundations of UK dance in the early 20th century in the wake of the Ballets Russes. The current Director of Rambert, Benoit Swan Pouffer, presents his first work for The Royal Ballet, a duet for Principals Natalia Osipova and Steven McRae celebrating the special qualities of these two artists using music by French contemporary classical composer Saint-Preux.

In a fitting tribute to the Friends of Covent Garden 60th Anniversary, George Balanchine's Diamonds completes the programme. This quintessentially classical work premiered in 1967 as the third movement from Balanchine's Jewels which was inspired by a window display at Van Cleef and Arpels. Diamonds is a dazzling display of Balanchine's masterly talent and is set to Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.3 in D major. Marianela Nunez and Reece Clarke alternate during the run with Sarah Lamb and Ryoichi Hirano in the principal roles. Together with the full Company, they come together in these performances to thank the Friends for their valued support over these many years.