Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Jennifer Stahl

Mere Mortals, an immersive sensory-experience ballet that merges dance, lights, visuals and sound, is clever.

There’s much to love in Helgi Tomasson’s production of Romeo & Juliet, starting with Prokofiev’s sumptuous score.

The ballet culminates with fouettés, bravura leaps from the oversized ensemble and a rousing finish with all 44 dancers onstage. It was an exuberant end to an intelligent, satisfying production, both of thought and movement.

“Your love affair with ballet, your time with ballet, is short,” explains Welsh about his ballet Bespoke, “Eventually you lay down, and dance keeps moving. It’s a bittersweet thing.”

A welcome return to London for America's oldest ballet company begins with a highly personal interpretation of Shostakovich in dance 

Ulrich Birkkjaer presented an affecting portrait of a tormented Shostakovich, as he paced, leapt, slumped, was propped back to standing, and relentlessly propelled forward.

Among the standouts at the San Francisco Ballet gala evening performance were Ana Sophia Scheller in Rubies, Sasha De Sola in Études, Benjamin Freemantle in Agon, and Misa Kuranaga and Angelo Greco in Handel-A Celebration.

Benjamin Freemantle danced the opening solo, gorgeously, in the role of the grandfather as a dreamy young Adonis. 

The show stealer is the opening scene of Act III, as the curtain rises to reveal a line of females, both human and forest-creature, seated, waiting to try on the slipper the prince holds. It’s brilliant, laugh-out-loud clever.

Set to Frank Moon’s moody, thematic score, the curtain rises on a foggy night scene as a shiny black stretch limousine glides onstage—the real deal, dazzling to behold, like a noir film come to life.

San Francisco Ballet's first program of 2016, featuring Forsythe's rarely performed Pas/Parts and the revival of 7 for Eight and Magrittomania, leads the way into an exciting season.

San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker delivers world class entertainment and features such stars as Maria Kochetkova, Joan Boada, Vanessa Zahorian, Frances Chung, Jaime Garcia Castilla. A holiday classic with a fresh spin that's a must-see for adults and children alike.