When the Norwegian National Ballet packs its bags and heads west, it brings a full evening of dazzling stage images, powerful contemporary dance and some of the most iconic moments in ballet history. Audiences will experience three works spanning more than a century: from the elegant classical legacy of ballet icon Makarova in Swan Lake, via Samantha Lynch’s pulsating contemporary style, to Balanchine’s brilliant neoclassicism.

Swan Lake in Makarova’s Vision
The evening begins in white, with Act II of Swan Lake, set to Tchaikovsky’s extraordinary music. This is the famous “white act” – the most iconic part of the ballet. The version you will see was created by the legendary ballerina Natalia Makarova, after the original choreography by Petipa and Ivanov from 1895. In her reconstructions of the classical ballets, Makarova’s distinctive elegance shines through, elevating the stories to a new level.

Ravel Unleashed
Samantha Lynch is a principal dancer with the Norwegian National Ballet and an acclaimed choreographer. In recent years, several of the world’s leading ballet companies have commissioned works from her. For this tour, we are reviving her first work created for the Main Stage of the Oslo Opera House: A Boléro, set to Ravel’s famous 1928 score, in which the same musical motif is repeated again and again – growing more intense and powerful each time. Audiences and critics alike loved A Boléro after its premiere in 2021. This is what ballet of our time can look like.

Sparkling En Pointe
Can you create a ballet about jewels? Master choreographer George Balanchine did exactly that in his three-part ballet Jewels. The Norwegian National Ballet now performs the final section, Diamonds, in which the movement, colours and music are inspired by diamonds. For Balanchine, movement and music were two sides of the same coin. Here, the dancers perform to large portions of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 3 in D major.

Photo: Erik Berg