This Friday evening marks the Royal Ballet’s last performance of Liam Scarlett’s brand new ballet, Frankenstein, which then gets its US premiere at San Francisco Ballet in early 2017. This Gothic ballet has proven extremely divisive, with critical reviews ranging from despair and sheer disbelief (ex: reviews by Mark Monahan and Ismene Brown), to enthusiasm and acclaim (ex: reviews by Graham Watts and Zoe Anderson).
The set of initial performances also generated much debate on Twitter, and the ballet was given a live cinema relay last week (which we were able to catch, so more on that later). However, one area where everyone seems to agree is that John Macfarlane’s designs for Frankenstein are mesmerising, perfectly setting up the Victorian-horror atmosphere, as you can see from Alice Pennefather’s rehearsal gallery below:
