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• Alejandro Muñoz
• Francisco Serrano
• Gemma Bond
• Harris Bell
• Joshua Junker
• Kevin O'Hare
• Layla Hotham
• Petal Ashmole
• Pietro Zironi
• Sae Maeda
• Stuart Cassidy

Kevin O'Hare

Artistc Director, The Royal Ballet

Interviewed by David Bain
American International Church, Mon 14 May, 2024

 

David welcomed Kevin who began with the Ashton programme saying how exciting it was to have Anthony Dowell and Lesley Collier in the studio for The Dream,talking about important subjects like hair, wigs etc. Lesley was working with Natalia Osipova and Francesca Hayward as well as the two new Titanias, Lauren Cuthbertson and Yasmine Naghdi. Anthony is having a very good time in the studio, coming in regularly from the start. Kevin had himself been coached by Anthony whom he considers one of the greatest. There’ll be a lovely selection of Pucks and some new Bottoms so it should be fun with different casts.

In Rhapsody there’ll be some new casts partly because of injury. Kevin recalled a trip to Hastings at Easter and walking along the seafront getting some fresh sea air he heard his name called and it was Ryoichi Hirano and three Rhapsody boys who were going camping. He hoped they’d all arrive back safely!

Then there’s Les Rendezvous which he’s thrilled to be bringing back though has never danced it himself. There’ve been so many designs – it was once even done with the La Traviata set - and in discussion with Anthony they both felt the last redesign didn’t quite work and it all needed refreshing. Initially they decided to keep the original set and have new costumes and Kevin approached Jasper Conran who he knows well and who did Edward IIand Tombeau. He’d also worked with the company on Within the Golden Hour.He’s very generous with his time and loves it and will work to a brief. He has created beautiful costumes as if the dancers have been to a ball or party and the sun is coming up when they meet in a park. The gents are Mr Darcy-like and ladies have beautiful gowns which they love as they are very light with long skirts. Looking at the sets from previous times, they looked very cartoony so Jasper has redesigned them, still using the gates but taken from a picture from outside of his house looking to the countryside. Then comes Hamlet and Opheliawhich was revived in the Linbury for one night only with the help of the Frederick Ashton Foundation. It was created on Fonteyn and Nureyev though the latter only danced it once but Wayne Eagling did it several times with Margot and he has helped revive it. It should look good with Frankie and William Bracewell who performed it previously, plus Sarah Lamb and Cesar Corrales. The Isadoradances Kevin loves and is thrilled to bring them back so they’ll be new to Natasha and Mayara Magri but Romany Pajdak will come back for them and is featured on the poster outside the Opera House.

Kevin is always in touch with Iain Webb and Margaret Barbieri and thought it would be lovely if they could come to the Linbury to be part of the Frederick Ashton programme which coincided with the Foundation wanting to hold a worldwide festival. Who better than Iain and Maggie to be part of that and they are joining forces with the Royal on works, some of which Kevin has danced in or knows and some less well known. They will also be part of the second programme with The Walk to the Paradise Garden. It will be a very collaborative time giving people lots of opportunities to see works they haven’t seen for a long time or never.

David asked how he chose the three ballets which had made up the MacMillan triple and suggested looking forward to other triples - Deborah MacMillan would love another! Kevin loves putting these works together, reminding him of the programme a couple of years ago with Scenes de Ballet, Month in the Countryand Rhapsody, offering an arc of creativity. Danses Concertantes was in his sights and was closely associated with Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet in his time though he’d not danced it. Kevin was very interested to see how it would look and when he had known it Nicolas Georgiadis had thrown out the original designs and made red leather sofas, ladies in black leather mini-skirts and guys in leather waistcoats so it had a very 70s feel. Iain Spurling later did the designs for The Royal Ballet and then in one of Monica Mason’s first triple bills she reverted to the original designs. There were lots of conversations about the designs but decided to go with it. Interestingly when they did the Scenes de Ballet programme, he watched a full call rehearsal from upstairs, and thought it looked great, so fresh and the company so good although he’d forgotten how hard it was. He then watched it downstairs and was disappointed feeling it didn’t look as good or as sharp as it should and wondered if it was the setting. The next day he took away the sets so they would be in a big black box and it looked amazing, really exciting and dynamic. He tried to speak about it to Anthony Russell Roberts who owned the rights and looking through its history discovered it was a piece that had had a change of sets many times. Normally it’s at the beginning of a programme but Antoinette Sibley remembered they had it once as a middle piece at Drury Lane and the audience went crazy. It can be a confusing work but in the end, they stuck with the costumes and sets, partly because the company were performing really well and the lack of set might have been a distraction. It was an interesting experiment, but it made sense for that triple and similarly with Danses Concertantes to have the original design for MacMillan’s first work for the company. The dancers were a bit worried by the headdresses, but it made sense in the context of lights and sets.

Requiem is in Kevin’s Top Ten to be done whenever they can and the chorus was available. Then considering narrative works Different Drummer was worth looking at again and it felt right to go from that work into Requiem. Different Drummer was the one that really worked for Kevin though he’d been unsure how it would go now. A lot of current choreographers are taking bits of stories and making them into a whole and Kenneth had done just that. Kevin was in it when it was created and saw Wayne Eagling and Alessandra Ferri, then they had Ed Watson and Leanne Benjamin and this time some fantastic performances from Marcelino Sambe and Frankie and Natasha and Reece Clarke. It really worked and told the story in a way Kevin could only have hoped for, so he was thrilled with the way it came together.

Looking to the future, we all have our favourites and Gloria is one Kevin wants to bring back as well as Fin du Jourand many others. Valley of Shadows is another which Kevin was in as a student but thought it might be difficult to revive. The film is very patchy, and something happened with the setting but it might work set in a different period.  This year they have ten programmes, mainly because of revivals rather than new works, but then you realise how big these ballets are, making for a lot of work, and since only three people had done them before they were like new creations.

Festival of New Choreography. Putting together a programme for the season, there was no big new ballet, so Kevin felt it was time to look at voices new to The Royal Ballet and the main stage.  It’s hard to put new choreographers against the big established names so it gave them the opportunity to succeed on their own terms and the films before each work introduced the choreographers to the audience. Joseph Toonga’s piece didn’t happen but it will be done next season though he will now be up against three big names but Kevin thought the four which were seen worked well together. He’d wanted to do something with Gemma Bond for some time, Mthuthuzeli November has always been around and he wanted Joshua to have an opportunity. When everyone is new you don’t know what you’re going to get so he contacted Jessica Lang whose work he knew and because she was more experienced, he could be more prescriptive and ask for something joyful and light to go home on. When you ask choreographers to do something new, they tend to go into a deep, angst moment but in this case nobody was angst ridden so it worked well and bucked the trend. Kevin was really pleased with the results and would be happy to work with all of them again. At the same time there was Robert Binet’s piece in the Linbury which was fascinating and different for them and brought in new people to dance. Kevin recently went to watch Rambert perform in a very small space and reading reviews afterwards realised people are fascinated to see amazing dancers in close proximity. There were other events around the festival like a family Sunday when Valentino Zucchetti was brilliant, creating on the spot with kids and encouraging them in how to be a choreographer. Also, Kristen McNally was creating The Limitin the Linbury. There were few plusses from Covid but one was it gave people time to talk more and exchange ideas. The idea came from Alexander Campbell to try a workshop around the play The Limit when you were only allowed to speak so many words in a day. He approached Kristen who worked with Isobel Waller-Bridge for the music and Kevin felt it was very brave of Frankie and Alex, as well as Kristen who had to marry the words with the dance and it looked smart and was a fascinating project. The premise of the idea was a bit annoying, but they made it intriguing, and you grew to enjoy the characters. The alternate cast was also very good. It was brilliant of Alex to help produce it. Now he is at the RAD and it’s great that someone who has been encouraged to do different things has now taken on this big role. Our former dancers are now spread across the world with Leanne in Queensland, Federico at Northern, Alessandra in Vienna which is fantastic. Kevin felt he himself was very lucky to have been helped by generous people when deciding his career path, so he has tried to do the same for others in his present role. It’s wonderful that these people are taking on big tasks and have had the experience but just need extra knowledge of how an institution or company runs. It’s good to see Kristen back choreographing and she’s going to have a massive year next year but it’s always hard balancing a career as a dancer and your creative side though it’s good to be able to delve in and out. Kevin looks forward to Calvin Richardson doing more - he’s shown tremendous talent but is busy dancing. Also, Ashley Dean has done some pieces but is busy dancing too. Josh is finding that now as after the success of his piece in that programme he has had offers but still wants to be a dancer so you try to help him navigate his way so that he can take those opportunities when he can.

Draft Works has slightly disappeared though we do have International Draft Works. There’s a struggle with the rep and balance of rehearsal schedules. They tried to put it on but it’s difficult when they are so very busy. On the back of Covid they set up a Greenlighting meeting every alternate Wednesday to discuss everything they’re doing that’s not on the main stage, and after an hour they have only got through a month’s works with all the arrangements concerned with small events which is great but very time consuming. Going straight from the MacMillan programme they are still doing Swan Lake,while getting The Winter’s Tale on which is fantastic, but Christopher’s choreography is so interesting particularly in Act II where the corps are dancing. It’s very intricate and everyone is dancing on a different beat at different times, and this takes a lot of rehearsal. So, they are constantly battling the schedule and they’ve also tried to make sure the dancers get extra breaks and always trying to evolve.

When Kevin was last our guest, he was asked how he planned a season’s programme to which his reply was one third classics, one third heritage and one third new, so what happened? They’re just finishing 30 Swan Lakes and did Nutcrackerat Christmas so he didn’t feel they needed to rush into more big classical ballets though you could argue what is a classic? It’s a different season from others because of what has happened repertoire-wise in the past couple of years. They did 30 Sleeping Beauties the previous season so yes, sometimes it goes slightly differently. He feels it’s a broad season, and not just because of the anniversaries. He wanted to bring back Onegin for its 60^th, Romeo and Juliet which hasn’t been done for three years plus Cinderella felt a good alternative to Nutcracker and gives several different opportunities to the company though the latter would be easier to put on. Having done all the work on Cinderella last season and the Ashton season now, a big Ashton work at the end seemed important. Alice hasn’t been seen for several years but there will be plenty of classics on the other side. There are four 20^th century programmes on the main stage. They haven’t done Balanchine for a while though Diamonds was on last year. Kevin wanted to do a big Balanchine programme, so they have Three Signature Works of Mr B. For Kevin you can’t get better than Serenade, a perfect abstract ballet. Some years ago, he took a few weeks off and went to New York and devoured New York City Ballet for three weeks. It seemed very different at first but then you suddenly see the dynamics and energy in the dancing and the repertoire. It was early 90s with Balanchine and Robbins in the rep but not much else. Kevin thought you don’t need much else, seeing Giselle within Serenade, and for him it’s perfect, with the lovely music, and it’s great for the corps who are fantastic at the moment with Sam Raine and team in charge. Prodigal Son was to be done in 2020 but it’s a great narrative ballet and hasn’t been seen for a long time by any company here and we have the artists to perform it. He thought of Theme and Variations which is close to his heart, but ENB did it so in came Symphony in Cwhich Kevin loves and it is massive so offers more opportunities to more people within its four movements. Another work he considered is Symphony in Three Movements which he knows from Birmingham but felt they needed a tutu ballet. The fantastic Pat Neary will come to oversee the whole programme and it’s a nice moment as a tribute to her for all she’s done for the company.

It’s a long time since we’ve seen Agon, Kevin also thought of Ballet Imperialand Four Temperaments which is very much in the rep but the list goes on and on and it is a question of personal taste. Seeing Apollo which they did in 2021 you realise what an amazing piece of theatre, art and dance it is. The choices are endless, but this is a snapshot of Balanchine, and quite a feel-good programme.

How do you define heritage?  Cranko: Onegin is a masterpiece and brings everything - story telling, musicality, great roles and design - and it deserves to be seen. There are other Cranko ballets that were in our rep but are not particularly what The Royal Ballet needs to be doing at this time. He’d be more interested in looking at his other works which we haven’t done. Reid Anderson was here last week, and they were talking of his other works so it might be interesting to delve into those he made for Stuttgart which would work for our company of today. Of Nijinska, Ashton’s import into the company, they had an insight for Les Noces and neither that nor Les Biches has been seen for years. Kevin thought he’d missed a trick there. There are many anniversaries but it’s too late now though it doesn’t take an anniversary to revive Les Noces. He loves this masterpiece and it needs to be seen and done by The Royal Ballet and not many companies can do it but it is very expensive needing four very good singers, a chorus and four very good pianists and hire of pianos which elevate the costs. But it is there somewhere in the ether.

There are five programmes of 21^st century works. Kevin said it is all about the rep and what has been seen and what needs to be seen. There’s a new ballet from Wayne McGregor, MaddAddam,following on from his Woolf Works and Dante Project, then there’s Alice and there’s not another ballet like that in anyone’s rep which is why so many companies do it. It can engage families and children in this generation with classic dancing of the lead couple, tap, contemporary, and the fun of storytelling as well as the design. Kevin wanted to create new works for the company and push it forward and he feels it has happened. It feels great that over the past 10 years we have some creations which are now being performed by companies around the world. There’s the phenomenal reaction to The Winter’s Tale, which has been at the Bolshoi and Hamburg and is going to Vienna and ABT as well as to other companies. ABT at the Met are doing Romeo and Juliet and Like Water for Chocolate and Woolf Works. We should be proud of that and shout it out loud and, without forgetting the past, it is also about now. Light of Passageis a beautiful work, tackling subject matter for the world today. Kevin went to Paris for Norwegian Ballet’s performance and saw how it can affect people, and their reactions were extraordinary.

The company is very strong at the moment with talented dancers. Does that make casting more difficult? Yes, absolutely. Kevin said he can always sleep whatever is happening but that would be the one thing to keep him awake. He so cares about the dancers and wants them to have the opportunity to do the roles and it is super hard when you see the talent and it doesn’t stop coming. The new young group of dancers who joined in the last four years is extraordinary. There’s one great dancer he brought in from the school who has said it was lucky he came when he did otherwise, he might not have got in now with all the talent coming on. Kevin tries to be as honest as possible with the dancers. You never really know where their careers will go but you can help them on their way by giving them as many opportunities as possible. It is a balance so some people do fewer performances but unless the roles are shared out, the work would be static with only a small group doing those shows.

How do you cope with the logistics of dancers guesting all over the world. Kevin said he would like to tag them, so he knew where they were! It is really difficult but very important that they have the opportunity in a short career. But again, it is a balance and sometimes he has to think of the company as a whole as well as looking at the individuals, and sometimes it doesn’t add up quite right. Marcie did three shows of Fille in Paris which was the cause of pride for the company and a great moment for him. It was hard to arrange but Jose Martinez and Kevin made it happen. It helped that they don’t cast early in Paris and they agreed to some switching around of casts, which we wouldn’t do, to fit in with our schedule. The company is also linked with Denmark, who were putting on the now-former Queen’s production of Nutcracker at the Tivoli which she was due to attend. They needed two fantastic dancers to do the Nutcracker so it was arranged for Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell to go. Kevin got a text from Paul Lightfoot, the choreographer who he was at school with, saying he was watching our two dancers and his faith in classical ballet had been restored. That’s what it’s about, that sort of reaction is important and it’s great for The Royal Ballet that the Danes were thinking the same.

David mentioned a recent discussion about the rise in dance agents organising galas, which was not necessarily a good thing. Kevin said some dancers have agents, some don’t and what might not have happened in the past is a modelling agent or someone casting for other things. It works quite well for the company as it is a one-to-one arrangement which is right and proper. Also, it is a lot of hard work getting contracts and you don’t want the dancers to be fleeced so an agent is good but of course the company do help if necessary. Melissa Hamilton talked about putting her programme together and it was nice to be able to support her in producing her show. She’s worked a lot with Roberto Bolle and has been involved in many galas so has seen good and bad and she was very excited as it went well and she’ll do more. Melissa is one of the most extraordinary dancers and he admires her very much and loves having her in the company.

The profile of dancers to the general public and if you ask anyone the name of a dancer, they would still probably say Darcey Bussell and there doesn’t seem anyone else coming along has a name. Kevin said that was 20 years ago, Darcey was a brilliant dancer who looked amazing and could also do modelling and was in The Vicar of Dibleywith a TV viewing audience of 20 million. She was also in French and Saunders and then on Strictly so had the talent to back it up doing other things. Kevin mentioned as a youngster the appearance of Andre Previn on Morecombe and Wise.He didn’t know any conductors, but he did know who Andre Previn was.  Now people have thousands of followers on their Instagram account, and it comes and goes very quickly and is more diluted which is a shame. It’s important that we should do things to get the wonderful dancers of today known to the outside world. Part of the rebranding is to have The Royal Ballet in the title, and he’ll be very happy to see the flags outside the Opera House saying Royal Ballet and Opera because people generally didn’t know we were at the Opera House. Now Kevin told his name-dropping story! Harry Styles is doing a bit of ballet, with Nathalie Harrison helping him. She asked if he could come to the studio so they could work when no-one was there, it was agreed, but he was late which they thought was just a pop star thing, but it was because he went to the Albert Hall! Since then, he’s come to Swan Lake and loved it and has been to the Opera House several times. Alex Beard has said several different Culture Secretaries have been to the Royal Opera House in the last five years and one said he didn’t know The Royal Ballet were there. After the announcement, Kevin was sent a recording of Anthony Dowell on Desert Island Discsin 1999 when he said it would be great if it was both The Royal Ballet and Royal Opera which it now officially is.

Despite the film showings there’s not a lot of ballet on TV. David recalled as a small child seeing Peter Wright on TV with his potted ballets lasting half an hour or so. Kevin wasn’t aware of them but said everything is so diluted with TV and they do have their streaming, but the BBC are less interested in picking up their work unless they want to do a documentary. They have the cinema programme which does reach a lot of people who couldn’t otherwise come to the Opera House. This generation of dancers has a huge catalogue of work. Growing up Kevin remembers Cinderellaand Sleeping Beauty on TV. Dance Month was very exciting but it’s hard. People pitch ideas to him and say Netflix will be interested, but sadly they’re not. It doesn’t mean we give in and keep pushing for an opportunity.

Next season there are only three ballet programmes having Friends’ rehearsals (Encounters mixed programme, MaddAddam and Cinderella) whereas this season there were nine. Kevin doesn’t know why but will find out.  There should be an Insight for every programme and ideally each programme should have a matinee. He does try to put the opening night cast in a matinee too, so the out-of-towners have the chance to see them.

Relationships. In one performance Cesar Corrales was going to be Frankie’s Dad! It’s not done on purpose but that’s theatre. He did tell Mayara Magri she could get a bit tougher on Matt Ball in The Winter’s Tale.

Kevin is still coaching when he can and enjoys it. Sometimes he’s a bit last minute if someone doesn’t turn up. Just before Covid everything slotted into place with his other commitments, so he was able to take Yasmine’s cast of Oneginwith Federico, Anna Rose O’Sullivan, and Joseph and it was lovely to be with them from the beginning.  When Reid left, he looked after them until they went on stage. He wants to put his pitch in for something this year but the dancers do need consistency.

He’s putting a call out for tap dancers for Alice. He thought of Calvin who’s good and has done it before. He just cast Bottom, so people were wide-eyed at the thought of going on pointe. Sam Raine is taking them for special private lessons on pointe work.

Ballet hasn’t quite got the elitist look of opera? Generally, people come and are moved by it whether or not they understand the story and it takes people away from the everyday world by seeing amazing dancers using their bodies in an incredible way to tell a story. Also it does transcend the age groups - you take your grandchildren to Nutcrackerand Cinderella which doesn’t happen early on with opera. A work like Alice crosses so many different worlds and can appeal to so many people.

Curtain calls take a long time. In Swan Lake the ballerina has to get unstrapped, but he really tries to be snappy and has cut one forward and back in Swan Lake and has asked for the flowers to go on quickly. For The Winter’s Tale and the MacMillan programme they had blackouts rather than bringing down the curtain each time. Friends in the theatre always say ‘you and your curtain calls’ but the audience do enjoy it! Stefano Pace was technical director for a while and had grown up in the theatre. He said it was so provincial coming out with flowers, which seemed like being in a church hall but Kevin loves the flowers and now they’re also given to the men which is a way of showing appreciation. Vadim Muntagirov and Fumi Kaneko are in Italy and sadly their bouquets are wilting at the stage door!

David thanked Kevin enormously for coming to talk to us and especially for the annual invitations to an open rehearsal. David here put in a final plug for Ashton’s Wedding Bouquetto come back. Kevin will take a look at it.

Report written by Liz Bouttell and edited by Kevin O’Hare and David Bain.

© The Ballet Association 2024