Ten years ago, when Christopher Wheeldon created The Winter’s Tale, it was the first three-act ballet based on Shakespeare premiered at the Royal Ballet since Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet in 1965. It is also a masterpiece.
Watching it twice this week, I was struck by how brave it is. Bob Crowley’s stylised, richly coloured designs establish the contrast between two worlds: the cold, blue-hued winter of Leontes’s Sicily, where the king’s jealousy causes death and destruction, and bright, light-filled Bohemia from which reconciliation and hope spring.
