Performer: Marius Petipa

Roman Mejia and a raft of soloist debuts galvanized Peter Martins' Sleeping Beauty. An elegant production with some incidental messiness and the structural liability of a princess' dependence on a kiss.

The Dutch National Ballet helped shake off those winter blues with a mixed programme that highlighted ballet’s love affair with Latin rhythms and movement.

NYCB has a winning triple bill with its Balanchine + Ratmansky program. Excellent dancing and contrasting works sends the audience home in buoyant mood.

The Artistic Director of English National Ballet reflects on her company's lockdown achievements and discusses her first foray into choreography to revive a 19th-century classic. 

The Sleeping Beauty is perhaps the Ugly Duckling of Tchaikovsky’s three ballets. It was the second in the trilogy, completed in 1889, but has neither the dramatic thrust of Swan Lake nor the calorific sugar-coated charm of The Nutcracker in terms of popular appeal. 

Ask anyone who claims to know nothing about ballet to actually name one, the chances are it will be one of Tchaikovsky's, with Swan Lake high on the list.