Conductor(s):
Koen Kessels

Orchestra(s):
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Artist(s):
Lauren Cuthbertson; Federico Bonelli; James Hay; Laura Morera; Christopher Saunders; Steven McRae; Fernando Montano; Gary Avis; Paul Kay; Romany Pajdak; Kristen McNally; Tristan Dyer; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; Koen Kessels

"The Royal Ballet's new season gets off to a phantasmagorical start - The Royal Ballet could hardly have chosen a more eye-popping or enjoyable production with which to launch its autumn season. And this is all the more gratifying given that the ballet in question is only six years old – a mere five in its current, three-act reincarnation.
Cinematic but also unmistakably balletic, Joby Talbot’s complex, theme-driven score – coruscatingly orchestrated with the help of Christopher Austin – is full of magical surprises. Expertly aided and abetted by lighting guru Natasha Katz, designer Bob Crowley has had an absolute field day too, exploiting every means at his disposal – from puppetry to projection – to send us down the rabbit-hole with the heroine.
Wheeldon, meanwhile, absolutely matches his collaborator’s contributions. This is a ballet that eloquently and respectfully reflects his Royal Ballet heritage (from its three-act structure, reliance on mime, and alternation of grand waltzes and intimate pas de deux, to its very Ashtonian reliance on largely cross-dressing comedy) while nevertheless feeling entirely 21st-century and absolutely its own thing. Together with dramaturge Nicholas Wright, he brings Alice even more to the fore than she is in the book, getting her involved in the action wherever possible, and delving deep into his choreographic box of tricks to bring each of the characters she encounters distinctively alive.
Laura Morera (standing in for a sadly injured Zenaida Yanowksy) absolutely nails her twin roles as Alice’s mother and (supremely) the Queen of Hearts.
Steven McRae has lost none of his bite as a dazzling, tap-dancing Mad Hatter (in fact, he was an expert tapper long before ballet ever called), while also very much at the lip-smackingly deranged end of the spectrum is Kristen McNally’s meat-cleaver-welding cook in the magnificently realised kitchen scene.
Also deserving of plaudits are Fernando Montaño’s impossibly slinky Caterpillar, David Yudes’s spring-loaded Frog, and Gary Avis’s operatically OTT Duchess. But top marks go, above all, to Lauren Cuthbertson. As Alice, she avoids all the possible pitfalls of an adult playing a child, bringing pathos, wide-eyed innocence and matter-of-fact resourcefulness to the character, and never forgetting, amid all the elaborate stagecraft, to dance with great delicacy and impeccably classical precision. Wheeldon created the role on her, and it still feels like the part she was born to play." (The Daily Telegraph ★★★★)

"Alice is at it again. Christopher Wheeldon’s 2011 three-act ballet began another sell-out run at Covent Garden last week. It’s a joy to look at and packed with featured roles that show off the Royal Ballet’s strength in depth.
Lauren Cuthbertson showed off her long, clean lines and light jump at last Wednesday’s opening and Federico Bonelli brought boyish charm and classical elegance to the Knave, but the night belonged to Laura Morera’s Queen of Hearts. The Spanish star relishes the physical comedy of Wheeldon’s parody of the Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty, but Morera’s Queen is far more than a comic turn and her hilarious playing of the axe-happy monarch is all of a piece with the neurotic châtelaine of the deanery in the opening scene. " (The Observer)