When Artistic Director David Hallberg plans any season, he says, he plans for the entire arc, for both dancers' and audiences’ fulfillment. He is proud that his 2025 season will show the full “weight and importance of the repertoire the Australian Ballet (AB) can perform”.
The year will open at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre with the return of Nijinsky, John Neumeier’s moving tribute to the legendary dancer and choreographer. Neumeier created the ballet in 2000 to mark the 50th anniversary of Polish-Russian dancer’s death, and it was performed by the AB in 2006. Now a new generation will make its mark in the role: an extraordinary challenge in particular for the male dancers, who will step into the shoes of this man who was fabled as much for the heights of his artistry as for his decline into “madness”. Nijinsky will be performed from February 21 to March 1 at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne and from April 4 to 22 at the Sydney Opera House.
Another role to relish will be that of Manon, in Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s morally complex ballet of the same name, one of the most popular ballets in the repertoire and a role coveted by female dancers. Manon will be performed from April 30 to May 17 in Sydney and October 10 to 22 in Melbourne.
And yet another complex role will be Carmen, in a modern interpretation of the classic tale by the acclaimed Swedish choreographer Johan Inger, which was performed this year in Sydney and will be performed in Melbourne from March 7 to 18 and Canberra from June 20 to 25.
Balancing these full-evening ballets will be a triple bill, “Prism”, which will deliver a “powerful mixture of movement” from three of the world’s most creative choreographers: William Forsythe, Jerome Robbins and the Australian Ballet’s own resident choreographer Stephanie Lake. Says Hallberg: “She [Lake] has gone the opposite of her huge Circle Electric of 2024 and is instead using a small group in a work that promises to be lyrical and soft.” The Robbins ballet will be Glass Pieces, to the music of Phillip Glass, created for the New York City Ballet in 1983. Forsythe will visit Australia to work with the dancers on his Blake Works VI (The Barre Project), conceived at the height of the pandemic as a homage to the legions of dancers who sustained their fitness and technique with at-home barre exercises. "Prism" will be performed in Melbourne from September 25 to October 5 and in Sydney from November 7 to 15.
Rounding out the year will be The Sleeping Beauty - David McAllister’s lavish staging. The Sleeping Beauty is the ballet Hallberg danced the most on stage during his career, and he says that each time he danced it he found more precision to the choreography. “It is not just a light switch to bring in audiences”, Hallberg says, “but one of the great works in the repertoire.”
The Sleeping Beauty will be performed in Adelaide from July 22 to 29, Brisbane from August 16 to 23 and Sydney from November 21 to December 17.
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