La Traviata (Royal Opera 2nd Time Lucky)

4 hours in the day queue produces results. A ticket to Netrebko's last night which, unbelievably, she was good enough to turn up to. Hvorostovsky took the night off, which was irritating, but I didn't really give a stuff since Netrebko was performing. The following review will hardly be a review at all, more of a eulogy to Miss Netrebko. For a proper review see my previous effort, La Traviata.

Well she was worth the wait. Pure operatic gold. Comfortably the closest thing we have to a divine being on earth. Weeping after Act III is one thing. This woman brought me to tears after only two. In no way does she look like someone dying of Tuberculosis. But she makes you believe she is. Her acting abilities are without doubt some of the best around. Her coughing is so believable it's difficult to believe she's then be able to blast out the sound she can. She fills the auditorium with her rich voice, sliding effortlessly through the difficult coloratura. Her "Sempre Libera" is every bit as good live as it is in recording. Who cares if she doesn't reach for the high E, what she aims for she hits with incredible ease. Whilst she can produce sounds that lift the roof off the building, she is also capable of immense subtlety and purity. Her "Addio del passato" is truly moving. Her voice floats out even when incredibly quiet. She generates such an atmosphere that the temperature seems to drop. As she finally falls to her death the whole audience is visibly moved. Hankies being whipped out left, right and centre. It's a complete performance. Her movement, voice and face operating in perfect harmony.

Jonas Kaufmann seemed to feel more comfortable performing with Netrebko. He seemed much more besotted with Violetta in Act I, and his "Di miei bollenti spiriti" was filled with joy. The same cannot be said of Hvorostovsky's replacement Andrzej Dobber, who produced a massive void of a performance. His opening aria was distressingly bad. He grew a little as the evening wore on, but he simply didn't have the firepower to keep up with Kaufmann and Netrebko.

This remains a stunning production. Netrebko's run is finished but I hope she'll be back soon. She really is that good.

Sadlers Wells Sampled

This is a seriously cool concept. Rip out the front stalls to give a large promming area, sell all the tickets for under a tenner, and then offer up a seriously impressive mix of dance. The evening wasn't without its flaws, but as a way of getting people into dance it will surely struggle to be bettered.

The opening piece was two extracts from Compañia María Pagés. Easily the most difficult piece in the evening, the sniggering that was heard at the start was soon silenced by the sheer speed of her feet and her long flowing arms. The band were stunning (two professional clappers, what more could you ask for?) with a tremendously warm sound produced. Perhaps it was a little long, the final section could have been skipped, but overall it was a strong start to the evening and offered the most international dance of the evening.

After what felt like an age, that even the inimitable Jonzi D (the compere) struggled to cover, we saw a chunk of Hofesh Shechter. My friend was a little alarmed by what exactly "contemporary dance" was. Images of bad sound effects and a lone woman running about like a wild banshee clearly crossed her mind. Thankfully, Shechter creates movement that just works. It's extremely physical, visceral stuff and had the audience on edge. The self deprecation of the voice over provided well needed humour and totally removed that hideous po-faced atmosphere that can plague modern dance.

The third and final piece in the first half was beyond brilliant. Salah is an absolute genius (here's a clip from the French version of Britain's got Talent, which he won). His squeaky voice should be insanely annoying but is in fact hugely endearing. He dances with such skill and control you're left breathless by his abilities. The brief sequence with a handkerchief is breathtaking. I don't think I've enjoyed a twenty minute period more in quite some time.

The second half kicked off with some gorgeous ballet. It's rare to be able to appreciate such an amazing dancer as Alina Cojocaru at such close range. You'd have to be hovering over the orchestra pit to get so close at Covent Garden. She was partnered by the dashing, if slightly overbearing, Nehemiah Kish (of the National Ballet of Canada). They didn't seem to be a particularly strong partnership (Kish must have been a foot taller than Cojocaru) but a major test came when the pre-recorded music died mid way through. They passed with stunning colours, continuing in perfect sync for the remaining few minutes sans music. The roar from the audience was immense, ballet had just become edgy and exciting for all. A triumph.

A major disappointment followed. Boy Blue were just amateurish. Kenrick "H2O" Sandy (they all had silly middle "names") is a vast hulk of a man and he danced well enough in the lead role. He was not well supported. The women were simply woeful. I'm not even sure they were full time dancers, rarely have I seen such terrible rippling torsos as these, and they had to do a lot of rippling. The whole piece just seemed lightweight, I mean vampire bats?!?!? Who thought that was a good idea.

A recovery was mounted by the ever amusing Ballet Boyz. I've seen this tango before and yet it will never cease to impress me. Technically impressive and with some more than stunning facial performances, it's great fun. Michael Nunn and Will Trevitt are a partnership perfectly in tune with each other. Puncturing all of dance's pomposity, they are one of the greatest forces in the popularisation of dance.

The evening came to a close after nearly three hours. I loved almost every minute of it although it felt a little incoherent due to the massive gaps between acts. Whatever the flaws I cannot wait till next year.

Sylvia (Royal Ballet)

Sylvia has a weird and completely pointless story, and that's by ballet standards. Why anyone ever thought this was a sensible story is a great mystery to me. A powerful female huntress called Sylvia (who has made a vow of chastity) is shot by one of Eros's (a living statue, shudder) arrows in order that she falls in love with a shepherd but is then kidnapped at that exact same moment by a creepy hunter called Orion, and dragged off to his lair. The story goes on in this totally unfollowable vein with the third act a particular treat of confusion. It matters little though because really this piece was made for the dancing.

Unfortunately we find a mixed bag here. Zenaida Yanowsky is a stunning dancer who can make anything look exciting. She certainly looks like an Amazon warrior. But here she exhibits that peculiar and altogether unenviable trait of seeming to hit the ground sooner than she should after ever leap. Everything felt a little rushed, especially in the first act, but her big solo in the third was a definite improvement. David Makhateli is comfortably my least favourite principle and, to be brutal, he showed why here. It might not be the manliest of roles but he really does dance like a girl. His partnering is feeble (although the odd height ratio may account for some of that) and his slow turns and balances lacked any sense of power or grace. Thankfully the awesomely reliable Gary Avis showed just how to make a very silly, camp role into one of great value. His Orion, dressed in bright yellow with an amusing upturned flowerpot hat, was a despicable villain that you just had to love. He swans about the stage like he owns it. There are about a million smaller roles, none of which I feel particularly keen to mention although Kenta Kura and Johannes Stepanek made a fine fist of the slaves in act two. The corp were not particularly well drilled, especially the woodland creatures in act one who had some fairly serious synchronisation issues.

The costumes and sets are stunning, the transformation at the end of act two almost worth the price of entry and gives the Nutcracker some fair competition. The music by Delibes is simply ravishing, epitomising everything you'd want from a ballet score. Opulent is a good way to describe the whole thing. This is fluffy ballet, backed up by some strong music and staging, but lacking in this case the substantial dancing required to bring it off.

La Traviata (Royal Opera)

The Royal Opera have had a terrible run of bad luck recently. They seem to have a near total inability to keep hold of their singers. Anna Netrebko was the star upon which this production was sold, so naturally she fell ill. This isn't a first for her either. Last year she failed to show for a series of Don Giovanni performances (although luckily not the night I went). So that's Villazón, Terfel and Netrebko in the space of just a few months and a whole raft of singers have cancelled on the forthcoming Ariadne auf Naxos. Thankfully the Royal Opera always seem to come up with very creditable replacements. Ermonela Jaho is a more than respectable replacement. In fact had I (and the rest of the audience) not been expecting Netrebko, she would have been simply fantastic.

The audience naturally didn't instantly warm to Jaho. In fact I think many wanted to hate her, as if somehow it was her fault we couldn't have Netrebko. She started perhaps a little too keenly. Her tone was lovely, but her facial expressions were a little too earnest. Desperate to please. Her recitative also carries something of an eastern European tinge. But as the evening continued she more than fulfilled her remit, her Sempre libera (a Netrebko speciality) was particularly good, showing off a flowing coloratura with excellent top notes. By her death, Jaho had well and truly entrenched herself into the hearts of the audience. It wasn't a big, showy performance, but it had a warmth that was well appreciated. Of course Jaho wasn't alone on the stage and the very fine tenor Jonas Kaufmann gave a well rounded if slightly intense performance. His acting in the first act was a little mechanical but he stepped up a gear in the second, with a passionately aggressive performance at the gambling table. Dmitri Hvorostovsky has a lovely dark baritone but he can't act at all. Indulging in the sheer beauty of his sound, one can easily forgive him his wooden acting.

A delightful staging by Richard Eyre. The solid sets and opulent costumes (that were apparently remade at the eye popping cost of 135,000 pounds) set the scene beautifully. The Act I party does seem to occur in a tomb like building which struck me as a little dour, but the magnificent final act is perfectly displayed in Bob Crowley's sets. The tableaux at the end of Act II is a treat. A strong performance in the pit, under the baton of Maurizio Benini brought the work to life, and even the very variable Royal Opera Chorus were having a very strong evening. It was a pity not to hear Netrebko but Jaho filled her shoes (if not completely her dresses) with aplomb, a fine performance of a very fine opera.

Hiroaki Umeda Triple Bill

Hiroaki Umeda is almost creepily good at what he does. He ripples with energy. His limbs move at such pace but with such precision. He transcends definition, it's clearly modern with more than a hint of hip-hop but he has all the grace of a classically trained dancer. Few dancers can stand alone and transfix an audience.

That isn't to say his show doesn't have weaknesses. 70 minutes of one dancer is a lot. The opener of the triple bill, "Duo", is the most interesting. He stands on one side of the stage whilst a projection of him stands on the other. At first the movements are slow, but he moves in exact sync with the projection. Slowly the image of him starts to fuzz, distort, the piece building as the two gradually differ by more and more, one slightly ahead, then the other. It's clever stuff, and does make you think about how we affect and are affected by technology. Are we leading, or is it? He does this to his own music, which I found quite decent, but is surely going to turn a large number off his work. It's loud, aggressive throbbing base.

The second piece inexplicably called, "Montevideoaki", (you what now?) is a film of him dancing across a variety of run down locations. The solitude that runs through all the pieces remains, but film serves only to distance us from him. Much of the intensity of his dancing is lost.

The third and final piece, "While going to a condition" was visceral in the extreme. He began moving his feet very slowly and the dance progressed up his body. By the time his shaven head first flicked, sweat flew off him like he'd had a bucket of water tossed over him. Powerful stuff. The music remains harsh, loud and it's supported by the flashing projections behind him. The speed of his movements was astonishing and yet he could stop in an instant, hitting every beat he desired. My only complaint came with the strobe light. It went on so long my head started to hurt.

Hiroaki Umeda is an unbelievably talented individual but he stretches himself to breaking point here. Thankfully he never quite breaks and it is an entirely rewarding show. It's visceral, exciting stuff that deserves a wider audience than it will receive in this run.

Paso Doble

I'm sure there's an audience for this sort of rubbish. I'm just not it. Oh so comparable to watching paint dry, two men fooling around with clay. I'm sure they're having great fun, it looked like good fun. Pity I wasn't. I'm told Miquel Barceló is a great artist and Josef Nadj is a great choreographer. Greatness is not something found here. In an art gallery this might have past muster, after all I could have walked past. Subjected to it for 50 minutes it was like a casual form of torture. Here were two men with a really cool toy (walls of clay are undeniably cool) refusing to share, but merely gloating at range.

There were a few positives. Visually they make a nice pair. Short and fat, tall and thin. Like any good comedy double act. They wear suitably insane attire for mucking around with clay. They must have a huge dry cleaning bill for the suits. They also periodically raise a titter from the audience. The first appearance of an unfired vase, which they promptly squish is amusing. The 17th vase is less funny. Some of the patterns they create are interesting although the vast majority are actually rather unattractive. The sound of clay being trodden on made me feel a little nauseous, but they covered this with a decent soundtrack from a bloke called Alain Mahé.

The whole production was produced by a range of people all with thoroughly fashionable names (Fabienne Varoutsikos is a fantastic name) and I'm sure there's a huge chic crowd who'll lap this up as being an allegory for the creation of man and the universe. Unfortunately it isn't. It's two men mucking around with clay, and after 50 minutes they hadn't created the universe, they'd created a slightly differently shaped wall of clay. Great job guys. Next time just do it without the audience. Save us the grief.

Glengarry Glen Ross

Glengarry Glen Ross is not the easiest night at the theatre and sadly not the most rewarding either. As with so much Mamet this isn't traditional drama. There's no real beginning, a little bit of middle, and then it ends. Narrative? Not really, more a window into real life. This isn't a bad thing per se. He sheds light on situations beautifully, but to what end? To show the tragic consequences of the American dream, a group of wealth hungry men who'll do anything to garner material wealth? I'm not sure, and I'm not sure I terribly care. Whatever Mamet's intentions I came out feeling like I'd seen a tour de force of company acting, but a piece that had zero emotional effect upon me.

The staging is naturalism to such a point you could film the whole thing and it would just look like TV. The set for act I (it has two clear acts but why stick an interval in a 70 minute work, I can only assume for the bar money, which as an act of money grabbing is oh so appropriate for the piece) is a perfectly seedy Chinese restaurant, and the second a trashed office. Both are beautifully detailed, and are perfect backdrops for the grubby characters. It would seem churlish to mention names from amongst the stunning line up. There is no weak link, even the accents hold up pretty well.

I don't really like this as a play. It's just a little pointless. I'm sure I'm missing something crucial but such is life. It's a fine production with some truly stunning performances; I just found no connection and my interest flagged, despite the running time.

The Nutcracker (Royal Ballet)

The Royal Ballet Nutcracker is as traditional as it gets (and about as far from this as it is possible to be), and you know what? That's a really good thing. The sets are sumptuous, the costumes divine and the dancing almost impeccable throughout. This is also a Nutcracker that follows a plot that almost works. Peter Wright foregrounds Drosselmeyer making the tale of Clara and the Nutcracker closely woven to Drosselmeyer's actions.

The dancing was in most cases beyond brilliant. Gary Avis is one of the finest character dancers at the Royal Ballet and he manages to convey great emotion. It's very easy for Drosselmeyer to become one dimensional, he does little more than wave his cloak, but Avis brings great depth to the role. Iohna Loots looks surprisingly youthful as Clara, wide eyed at the party, flinging herself at her prince with a wild abandon. Ricardo Cervera offered some of the finest mime I've ever seen, and danced with great dignity in the title role. As the Sugar Plum Fairy, Marianela Nuñez gave one of her impossible not to love performances. The magic was briefly dampened when she slipped and hit the floor in a less than graceful manner, but her recovery was miraculous whipping out a series of improvised turns before returning to her doting partner, Thiago Soares. As a pair these two are currently hard to match, few other partnerships so attuned. They are just a joy to watch. The smaller roles were all danced beautifully with a special mention needing to go to the "Russian" dancers, Steven McRae (Is it possible not to mention how brilliant he is in a review?) and Michael Stojko (Another rising star) who delivered some spectacular leaps.

This is a timeless production. The magic is superb, the transformation scene a triumph. There really is very little to fault. Perhaps the first half could do with a little more pure dance, it's almost all in the second half, but this is a minor complaint. There aren't many shows that can compete for sheer festive fun.

The Nutcracker (English National Ballet)

I've got to start by saying I don't get this. What is the point in taking a classic and saddling it with ugly sets and costumes? The waltz of the snowflakes (usually one of the most beautiful bits) is shockingly unattractive with asexual dancers prancing about the stage as some really pitiful snow falls in patches around the stage. Who goes to The Nutcracker to watch a large group of grotesques cavort in front of the Christmas tree? I know I don't.

In fact it's a real pity because there's some high quality dancing throughout. The choreography for the party in the first act is particularly good, although the Zimmer frame might be a touch too similar to "The Producers". All the requisite (and brilliantly politically incorrect) dances feature in the second half and all are danced admirably. Lisa Probert made for a dainty to Clara (albeit with ridiculous red hair) and she was well partnered by the reliable Yat-Sen Chang. Fabian Reimair and Adela Ramirez danced the big sugar plum fairy pas de deux decently enough but lacked sparkle.

Whatever Christopher Hampson has managed with the choreography there is no getting away from Gerald Scarfe's dreadful designs. His overarching book imagery actually works quite well (although it virtually vanishes in the second half) and the giant paper bird is a novelty, but not much else works. Drosselmeyer looks like one of Siegfried and Roy flitting around in his unbecoming black outfit. The Nutcracker itself is oddly two dimensional and seems to crack nuts between its thighs, a dirty joke on Scarfe's part? The Russian walks on in an inexplicable bright blue bear outfit only to have his top half ripped off by Drosselmeyer. We are then left with a man wearing only what appear to be the fluffy trousers from "Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake" after they've accidentally gone in the colour wash. I just cannot comprehend who thought this would be a good idea.

This is a really disappointing production, the English National Ballet are on really good form and Hampson's choreography is in places probably superior to Peter Wright's at Covent Garden. Nothing however can redeem the production from some of the most inappropriate designs I've ever seen.