The Royal Ballet’s production of Jewels at the Royal Opera House has won the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production.
Originally created in 1967 for New York City Ballet, George Balanchine's Jewels comprises three distinct ballets. Each is named after a precious stone and features a score by a different composer, evoking its own mood: Emeralds, set to the music of Fauré, is dreamy and reflective; Rubies is energetic and vibrant, and set to Stravinsky; while polished, classical Diamonds uses a Tchaikovsky score.
Reviewing the 2007 production of Jewels, Jenny Gilbert of The Independent was most impressed with the Diamonds section, in particular the performance given by Alina Cojocaru: “She began frozen, remote and formal. She then warmed and glowed and yearned. By the climax of the adagio she and we were quite dizzy with ardor.”
Other principal dancers in Jewels included Tamara Rojo, Leanne Benjamin and Ivan Putrov in Emeralds, Carlos Acosta, Zenaida Yanowsky and Sarah Lamb in Rubies and Rupert Pennyfather who paired up with Cojocaru in Diamonds.
Also nominated in this category, but unlucky this year, were Fabulous Beast Dance’s The Bull, Mark Morris Dance Group’s Mozart Dances (both Barbican) and Northern Ballet Theatre’s The Three Musketeers (Sadler’s Wells).
TB
