Making a Splash - The National Ballet of Japan in London

By Katsushika Hokusai - Metropolitan Museum of Art: entry 45434, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2798407

 

National Ballet of Japan Giselle  The Royal Ballet & Opera, 26 July 2025, 14:00

The National Ballet of Japan has made quite a splash on its short visit to London.   Louise Levene of the Financial Times (Clement Crisp's old paper) wrote: "The National Ballet of Japan makes its UK Debut with an Exquisite Giselle".  David Jays of The Standard exalted Yui Yonezawa's triumph in the title role. Debra Craine of The Times acclaimed "a triumphant return for Miyako Yoshida".  Mark Monahan of The Telegraph asked: "Who needs the Russians when the Japanese can dance like this?"  It seems a long time since a visiting company received a reception of this kind.   The only comparable one that I have been able to find was when the Bolshoi first visited London in 1956.

We should not be surprised by the National Ballet's success.  There are Japanese principals and soloists in many of the world's great companies.  One of them was the company's director, Miyako Yoshida, who danced first with the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet and then with the Royal Ballet as a principal. Japanese students often do well in international competitions like the Prix de Lausanne.  Yoshida won that too. 

The company that visited London last week was founded in 1997.  According to Wikipedia, it had made only two previous trips abroad.  It visited Washington in 2008 and Moscow in 2009.  Roslyn Sulcas of The New York Times observed that "In London, the National Ballet of Japan steps onto the World Stage."  As I said in Yoshida Coming Home, the National Ballet is not the first company in Japan.  The art form appears to have been introduced into Japan at about the same time as it was introduced here.  There are parallels between the development of ballet in Japan and its development here.   The history of Japanese ballet is explored by Janey Pritchard in an article in the programme entitled Ballet - A Bridge Between Britain and Japan.  

There are certainly strong links between artists in the UK and Japan.  One of Yoshida's predecessors was Sir David Bintley, and Alastair Marriott and Dick Bird contributed to Yoshida's production of Giselle.  But the British connection does not seem to be the only one.  I think I detected a Russian influence in the dancers' virtuosity and maybe an American one in their athleticism. Indeed, Pritchard mentions some of those connections in her notes.

I attended the matinee on 26 July 2025.   The first thing that impressed me, even before the curtain rose, was the full-throated sound of the orchestra.  It was, of course, the Royal Ballet Symphonia who must have played that overture countless times, but something was different.  The conductor was Misato Tomita.  According to Meet Misato Tomita, 25 Sept 2015, on the English National Ballet's Facebook page, this was not the first time that Tomita had worked with the orchestra of an English ballet company, but I am not sure how many times she has conducted the Royal Ballet's orchestra.  She had a rapport with the musicians, which usually takes a long time to develop.

Shortly afterwards, the curtain rose to reveal Bird's set, which was magnificent.  The details and colours of the trees and buildings in Giselle's village were intricate.   His scenery for the second act was even more impressive.  Hills around the cemetery marked with crosses and lanterns were spine-chillingly spooky.  I did not think that I would ever see a set to compare with Toer van Schayk's designs for the Dutch National Ballet's Giselle, but Bird's designs were at least their equal.   Bird had collaborated with the lighting designer Rick Fisher, who plotted the course of the moon as it receded and dimmed with the first rays of morning.  

The first on stage was Hilarion, danced by Takaro Watanabe.  He was well cast for the role.  An excellent dance actor, he expressed jealousy, indignation and self-pity in Act 1 as Giselle's relationship with Albrecht developed.  The audience could almost hear gears grinding in his brain as he worked out the stranger's identity.  In Act 2, he demonstrated his athleticism, flinging himself across the stage at the wilis' behest.

Hilarion was followed by Shogo Hayami, who danced Albrecht, and Fukunobu Koshiba, Albrecht's squire Wilfred.  Hayami was good-looking and suave, but the role required him to project haughtiness and entitlement.  Even though he had concealed his sword and discarded his cloak, it was obvious that he was no peasant.  It was not difficult to understand why an inexperienced, perhaps somewhat simple-minded country girl should be flattered by his attention.  Nor was it difficult to understand Berthe's exasperation or indeed Hilarion's at Giselle's headstrong naivety.  There were a few sniggers and gasps from the audience as Albrecht picked up the flower and surreptitiously removed a petal.

Of all the great classical roles, Giselle must be one of the hardest to perform.  Like Odette/Odile, it requires a personality change, though in Giselle's case, the change results from a transformation and not an impersonation.  In Act 1, Giselle is an impressionable peasant girl from a remote village with a weak heart and a protective mother.   In Act 2, she is transformed into an aetherial being capable of sublime love.   Saho Shibayama performed that transformation flawlessly.   Her interpretation of Giselle was one of the best I have ever seen.

The peasant pas de deux is the only divertissement in Giselle.  The piece offers an opportunity for two of a company's up-and-coming young soloists to show off their virtuosity.   On this occasion, it was danced entertainingly by Moeko Iino, one of the company's most experienced dancers, and  Ren Ishiyama, one of its first artists. I think it was there that I detected a Russian accent. At any rate, I was not surprised to learn that Moeko Iino had studied in Novosibirsk before joining the company,

Although it is not a major role, Berthe (Giselle's mother) is important to the story.   She has a premonition of Giselle's fate, which she reveals graphically to her daughter.  She even traced out the outline of the wilis' veils with her hands.  That role was performed by Misato Nakada, who is an excellent character dancer. I am sure she would be a great Madge in La Sylphide or nurse in Romeo and Juliet.

Other featured dancers in Act 1 were Masahiro Nakayo, who was the Duke, and Misato Uchida, Albrecht's betrothed.  All danced well, as did the villagers and hunting party.  The women members of the corps were magnificent in Act 2, as I shall mention later.

The success or otherwise of any production of Giselle rests on Myrtha, one of the great female roles in ballet.   In Saturday's matinee, it was danced by first artist, Suzu Yamamoto.   Technically, she was faultless.  However, wilis are the spirits of scorned women whose fury exceeds that of Hell.  I have come to expect an iciness and steeliness, not to mention spite in Myrtha's role, and maybe Yamamoto was just a little bit too nice.

Susan Dalgetty Ezra of the London Ballet Circle once referred to Moyna and Zulme as "Myrtha's sidekicks", and I smile at that thought, which I can never remove from my mind.   Moekko Iinp, who had danced in the peasant pas de deux in Act 1, reappeared as Zukme in Act 2.  Maho Higashi danced Moyna. They also danced well.

I was most impressed with the corps in Act 2.  They were disciplined, well-rehearsed and as precise as a company of guardsmen.   The scenes in which they crossed the stage en arabesque in formation were mesmerizing.  The scene in which they dispatched Hilarion was spine-chilling.  They deserve much of the credit for the success of the show.

Yoshida has produced a fine Giselle. It stands comparison with my other favourites, Mary Skeaping's, Sir Peter Wright's and even Rachael Beaujean's.  The National Ballet's visit was far too short.  They have left their audience wanting more.   If they come back to London, it would be good to see some of the other works featured in their 2024/2025 video, or better still, some of their commissioned works, such as Ishii Jun's Bonshō no Koe—from The Tales of the Heike, or Maki Asami's La Dame aux Camélias. 

Swan Lads - Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Bradford Alhambra 4 March 2014

The swans in Matthew Bourne's 2005 Tour     Source Wikipedia

Last night I saw Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at the Bradford Alhambra. It was great entertainment: gripping drama, humour, spectacular choreography and powerful dancing. It is easy to see why this production won so many awards and ran and ran on Broadway and in the West End. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

When I reviewed Bourne's Sleeping Beauty on 6 April 2013 I asked "Why can't I be nicer to Matthew Bourne?" Well, this time I think I can. That does not mean to say that I don't have reservations about his work.  As I said last year:

"I have mixed feelings about Matthew Bourne. He has won so many awards. His ballets are dramatic. His choreography spectacular. I have seen Cinderella and Nutcracker as well as Sleeping Beauty. Two of those performances were at the Alhambra and the third was at the Wells. On each occasion the crowd went wild. And the crowd is part of the ballet. And yet...... The trouble is that one can sometimes be too clever by half and Matthew Bourne is very, very clever. He knows how to raise a laugh from the audience with the puppet baby Aurora. And then to make them shiver as she climbs the curtain. Brilliant! But is it ballet?"

Bourne's Swan Lake was even less like conventional ballet than his Sleeping Beauty with no tutus (except in a spoof romantic ballet with monsters and an axe-wielding maiden), hardly any (if any) dancing on pointe and no great ballerina roles but if ballet can be defined as dance drama there was plenty of that.

For those who have not yet seen the work there is a good synopsis in Wikipedia.  The fairy tale about a handsome prince falling in love with a princess under the spell of a wicked magician is jettisoned.  In its place is inserted a study of an insecure and unstable individual who is heir to his country's throne but cannot quite live up to the responsibilities for which he is being groomed. He is briefly distracted by a brassy, flashy blonde who makes a thorough nuisance of herself in the royal box during the performance of the absurd ballet and later snubs him when he shows up in his underwear in the Swank (Swan + K get it?) bar. His mother, the queen, (a Volumnia type who places public duty before everything including her son) denies him any signs of affection.  Haunted by nightmares of menacing swans who first show him love and then molest him he eventually flips.  He produces a pistol, shoots at everybody in sight, is committed to a secure hospital where he receives something like convulsive electric shock treatment and after more nightmare images of molesting swans he eventually dies. With its corgi on wheels it was the best propaganda for republicanism since the days of Cromwell. It is perhaps no coincidence that the ballet was first staged in 1995 just a few years after so called annus horibilis.

According to a notice board in the foyer of the theatre, the prince was danced by Liam Mower, the swan by Chris Trenfield, the queen by Saranne Curtin and the brassy flashy blonde by Anjali Mehra. I am not sure how accurate that was because the photos in the programme seem a little different from the faces I saw on stage (albeit from a distance and some height) and there was no cast list but whoever danced those roles last night did an excellent job. Growing up as I did in Molesey by the Thames I have no illusions about swans. Nasty hissing brutes that chased small dogs and indeed small boys they had far more in common with Matthew Bourne's boys in feathery breeches than with the sweet teenage girls of Ballet West last Saturday (see "Swan Loch - Ballet West's Swan Lake, Pitlochry 1 March 2014" 3 March 2014) or even Wayne Sleep's in his Big Ballet (see  "No Excuses! If the Dancers in Big Ballet can do it so can I" 21 Feb 2014).

There were two other stars of this ballet, Lez Brotherston who designed the sets and costumed. I was amazed how he transformed the prince's bed into a balcony from where the prince and queen acknowledged the cheers of the adoring crowds. Gently teasing the Bradford audience he dressed the brassy, flashy blonde in a pink dress that was very similar to several outfits that I spotted in the theatre bar. Clearly the blonde was cast as a "Brat-ford" lass. It is no wonder that she raised a massive cheer when she took her bow. The other star creative was Rick Fisher who arranged the lighting. The enormous shadows of the clinicians in the hospital and the swans in the last two scenes were striking and frightening.

There was so much in this ballet that I liked - the way Bourne reworked some of the familiar old tunes like the music to the 32 fouettés and the divertissements, the kiss that the prince gave to a bag lady who had come to feed the swans as the curtain fell on Act II - I am so glad I can be nicer to Matthew Bourne. He deserves some praise.