Arts companies need their friends, never more so than now. The Royal Opera House, which has just lost 10% of its Arts Council funding, relies for support on the Friends of Covent Garden. The ROH marks the membership scheme’s 60th birthday with a bustling ballet bill (which the Friends have sponsored. Get yourself friends who will pay for their own party).
Ballet galas can feel scrappy – a tasting menu of show-off delicacies, zhuzhed and tweezered but not enough to satisfy. Here, the evening begins with three pas de deux that trace a path from flirty (Ashton’s La Fille Mal Gardée) to horny (by Wayne McGregor) via the desperate ardour of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, danced by a fragile, nuzzling Akane Takada and her devoted Calvin Richardson. They’re all nice enough, but hardly get the party started.
