Carlos Acosta: A Classical Selection, review: Great technique in Carlos Acosta’s farewell
This programme shows off the Cuban star’s charisma, charm and still formidable technique.
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Your support makes all the difference.A Classical Selection is a very fond farewell. Carlos Acosta, one of dance’s best-known stars, is gradually leaving ballet, saying goodbye in a series of shows and events. This programme shows off the Cuban star’s charisma, charm and still formidable technique.
It’s a format he’s used before, with co-stars from the Royal Ballet and a framework of dancers warming up and cooling down, preparing for performance. This time, Acosta’s chosen particular favourites, from George Balanchine’s Agon to the fireworks of Agrippina Vaganova’s Diana and Actaeon duet.
Unexpectedly, it’s this ripsnorting Soviet display piece that shows him off best of all. At 42, Acosta’s jump may not have the explosive height of earlier in his career – but this performance reveals the depth and cleanness of his technique. His poses in mid-air are beautifully shaped, nothing rushed or skimped: gravity still hasn’t caught up with him. His turns are absolutely centred, speedy and secure.
Diana and Actaeon also makes the most of his sure theatrical timing, and of his personality. He has a delightful rapport with ballerina Marianela Nuñez, who is on sensational form. As she whips through her fouetté turns, he steps in to partner her mid-spin, and turns her even faster – a moment of such joyful shared bravura that the audience oohs out loud.
Acosta and Zenaida Yanowsky dance a taut account of the Agon pas de deux, extending long limbs and curling around each other. In an international career, Acosta has always made himself a company man, dancing a range of repertory and taking care with differences in style.
His Agon is a balance between sharp lines and full-bodied movement, musically phrased. (The ENO Orchestra, conducted by Paul Murphy, is strained by the spiky Stravinsky score: they’re much happier, and more nuanced, with the lush Massenet Acosta has chosen as linking music.)
Ben Van Cauwenbergh’s Les Bourgeois is a jokey gala number, with Acosta rambling tipsily to the Jacques Brel song. He overstresses some of the drunk jokes, but has an engaging, storytelling quality, and a plush flow of movement.
The numbers for Acosta’s co-stars are more uneven. (When Acosta tours A Classical Farewell next year, he’ll be joined by Cuban dancers.) Tierney Heap and Valeri Hristov battle through a duet from Acosta’s own recent, disastrous Carmen; Anna Rose O’Sullivan and Nehemiah Kish give a clear account of Ben Stevenson’s soggy End of Time duet.
Yuhui Choe is musical and airy in an excerpt from La Sylphide, with a lovely touch of mischief. She also makes the most of Van Cauwenbergh’s Je Ne Regrette Rien. Nuñez and Thiago Soares dance Gustavo Mollajoli’s tango duet A Buenos Aires with attack and cool attitude.
Majismo is a Spanish-flavoured finale. Created by Georges Garcia for the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Acosta’s first home company, it mixes strutting and fan-fluttering with bursts of ballet technique. Acosta and Nuñez shine, enjoying the show-off steps and the Spanish flourishes.
To 13 December (020 7845 9300). Touring in 2016
Coliseum, London
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