Birmingham Royal Ballet 2024-2025 Season, Shows, Reviews

January 1, 2020 - Updated on September 4, 2024

Birmingham Royal Ballet

♦ Location: Birmingham, West Midlands – England

♦ Artistic Director: Carlos Acosta

♦ Orchestra: Royal Ballet Sinfonia

♦ Affiliated School: Elmhurst Ballet School

♦ Founded in 1946 by Dame Ninette de Valois as Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet. It was later known as Touring Company of The Royal Ballet (1956) and Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet (1977) before changing to its current name 1990 when the company moved to Birmingham.

♦ Official Website of Birmingham Royal Ballet

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Birmingham Royal Ballet 2024-2025 Season

The Birmingham Royal Ballet 2024-2025 Season was announced today by Artistic Director Carlos Acosta along with news about other tours recently scheduled in Europe.

In summer 2024, the company will head to the Luxor Theatre in Rotterdam to perform Black Sabbath – The Ballet, which sold our in the UK last year and will take Carlos Acosta’s Classical Selection program to Reykjavik, Iceland.

“I am so happy to be able to share our plans for the future with everyone. Still riding high from the successes of the autumn/winter 2023 season, we have a lot to celebrate, but we also keep moving forward, keep challenging ourselves and keep aiming high, in terms of our goals and ambitions.

Everyone at BRB has worked incredibly hard to ensure my vision for this company has been, and continues to be, realised, and I am very proud of our achievements and excited about our plans.

This Season exemplifies the importance of balancing the creation of platforms for emerging talents to shine, alongside the joy we bring to the classical canon of work that the Company is so proud to perform.”

Carlos Acosta, Artistic Director of Royal Birmingham Ballet

Celebrating Sir Frederick Ashton

The season begins with the presentation of Sir Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée, its Founding Choreographer’s most popular ballet. In celebration of the 120th anniversary of Ashton’s birth, the company will also present a one-night only performance of Ashton Classics accompanied by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.

World Premiere of Luna

The season will also see the world premiere of Luna, a 2-act full-length, abstract ballet in six movements, which forms the final part of Acosta’s Birmingham Trilogy (City of a Thousand Trades + Black Sabbath + Luna).

Drawing inspiration from the book Once Upon a Time in Birmingham: Women Who Dare to Dream by Louise Palfreyman.

The movements of Luna are distinguished by each one focusing on a different theme.

Act 1 Scene 1 Terra is choreographed by Wubkje Kuindersma (Netherlands) and set to music by Kate Whitely (UK).
Act 1 Scene 2 Enlightenment is choreographed by Seeta Patel (UK) and set to music by Kate Whitely.
Act 1 Scene 3 Overcoming Adversity is choreographed by Thais Suarez (Cuba) and set to music by Gabriel Fauré.
Act 2 scene 1 Empowerment / Daring Together is choreographed by Arielle Smith (UK) and set to music by Kate Whitely.
Act 2 Scene 2 Into the Light is choreographed by Iratxe Ansa (Spain).
Act 2 Scene 3 Luna is choreographed by by Wubkje Kuindersma and set to music by Kate Whitely.

The all-female, international creative team, also includes Costume Designer Imaan Ashraf, Projection Designer Hayley Egan, and Lighting Designer Emma Jones.

Other full-length ballets during the season include Sir Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker, his gift to the City of Birmingham when Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet moved to the city in 1990, and Sir David Bintley’s Cinderella.

Source: Royal Birmingham Ballet