LONDON - The Royal Ballet, Britain’s largest ballet company, leaps back into action on Friday after seven months of COVID-19 gloom with an extravaganza that mixes classics such as Romeo and Juliet and Don Quixote with playful modern dance.Restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus have battered the performing arts across the globe: theatres and concert halls have lain empty for months and many musicians, actors and dancers have been stuck at home.
“It’s like seven months of pent-up energy, excitement to develop further,” Marcelino Sambé, a principal dancer from Portugal, told Reuters. “Frankly, it really is a really bad situation for the Opera House,” said Kevin O’Hare, director of the Royal Ballet. “We have to be performing. We’ve lost, I think, three in every five pounds because we’re not performing.”
“It is probably the longest time, other than injuries, that dancers may have had, that we’ve all been away from our daily routine and our training as we know it and performing on stage,” said Anna Rose O’Sullivan, first soloist.