#christopher-wheeldon

#christopher-wheeldon

It was my first attempt at a story ballet, and I was over the moon. I would have somehow made it work with 10 or with 100 dancers. And so, in 1996, Wheeldon started crafting a ballet based on William Shakespeare's comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The Royal Ballet opened its 2025/26 season with the first revival of Christopher Wheeldon's 2022 Like Water for Chocolate; and as season openers go, I can't think of many ballets that would offer an audience more bang for their buck. Bob Crowley's stunning, atmospheric designs, Joby Talbot's sweeping, narrative musical score, magical cookery recipes, rampaging revolutionaries, a vengeful ghost, and an extraordinary coup de theatre finale, all framing a life-long forbidden love affair, plunge the audience into a colourful, exotic, sunlit universe