The Royal New Zealand Ballet 2023 season marks the company’s 70th year and celebrates the return of a full season after three years of adaptation due to the pandemic.
The Royal New Zealand Ballet will also continue to offer a menu of digital programming so that audiences around the globe can join the company in this historic year. This includes free broadcasts of short works and on-demand streams of full-length ballets, available to watch at home.
Royal New Zealand Ballet 2023 Season Trailer
Royal New Zealand Ballet 2023 Season Schedule
Tutus on Tour | February 23 – March 12, 2023
Various Locations
- After the Rain by Christopher Wheeldon
- Holberg Suite by Greg Horsman
- Le Papillon by Marie Taglioni
- Cold Winter’s Waiting by Brian Enos
- ‘Nobody Takes Me Seriously’ from FrENZy by Mark Baldwin
Le Papillon and After the Rain – made almost two centuries apart – both show the intimate magic of a couple dancing together, creating a miniature world in the spotlight onstage.
‘Nobody Takes Me Seriously’ from 2001’s landmark FrENZy is a toe-tapping solo to Tim Finn’s Kiwi classic and the chance for one of the company’s men to cut loose, with style.
The program is completed with two works each for eight dancers: the New Zealand premiere of Brian Enos’ elegantly neo-classical Cold Winter’s Waiting and Greg Horsman’s classical showpiece Holberg Suite, created for Tutus on Tour in 2009 and now given a welcome revival.
Romeo and Juliet | May 4 – June 10, 2023
Various Locations
- Romeo and Juliet by Andrea Schermoly
Exquisite sets and costumes by Academy Award-winning designer James Acheson (The Last Emperor, Dangerous Liaisons), first seen onstage in 2017 to universal acclaim, bring to life all the splendour and seduction of Renaissance Verona, swept up in Prokofiev’s exhilarating, sensuous score.
The color and vitality of the marketplace, where bawdy laughter turns to horror in the blinking of an eye, the grandeur of the Capulet palazzo where love blooms, the intimacy of balcony, bedroom and tomb – the story unfolds inexorably but with the freshness and spontaneity of young dancers giving the performance of a lifetime.
Youthful, impetuous, aflame with the glory of first love and its tragic end, this is a timeless romance that resonates down the ages.
Lightscapes | July 27 – August 12, 2023
Various Locations
- World Premiere by Moss Te Ururangi Patteron
- Serenade by George Balanchine
- Requiem for a Rose by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa
- Logos by Alice Topp
Moss Te Ururangi Patterson’s new work is inspired by haka and powered by the strength of the men of the RNZB.
Serenade is a plotless ballet somehow laden with meaning and unspoken narratives, filling the stage with exquisite movement and deep emotion.
Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Requiem for a Rose and Alice Topp’s Logos are both New Zealand premieres. Requiem is an exploration of love, romantic and idealized, versus lasting and real while Logos will transport viewers to a world of pure physicality, borne aloft by mesmerizing music and audacious design, inspired by fears, fights, darkness and demons.
Hansel & Gretel | October 26 – December 9, 2023
Various Locations
- Hansel & Gretel by Loughlan Prior
Loughlan Prior, with Claire Cowan and Kate Hawley, has created a magical world of memorable characters: a brave brother and sister; their loving parents who never give up hope; the mystical Sandman and his sparkling Dew Fairies; and the most delightful (or is she?) Ice Cream Witch… not forgetting the Man in the Moon, an array of spooky forest creatures, fantastical food and a sinister chorus line of pink-iced gingerbread men.
Featured Photo for the Royal New Zealand Ballet 2023 Season from the company’s website.
70 years – bravo! Certainly a mile stone. Shame, Ms Barker is rather shortsighted in her programming choice for the 70’th season.
I guess the pioneering work for the company of Russell Kerr and Poul Gnatt or perenial favorites and mainstays of the company repetoire such as Ray Powell’s “One in Five” are not worth bothering about. Nevermind…. Look a bit furtther, my dear!