Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan in their respective elements: two defining styles of The Royal Ballet in a single programme. Ashton's one-act rendering of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream brings out the contrasts of mortal and fairy worlds as a disagreement between Oberon and Titania (the fairy king and queen) escalates to comic confusion.
The course of true love doesn't run smooth when Mozart and Da Ponte call the shots. Cosi fan tutte - 'That's how all women behave' - is the last of the three operas written by this great musical and dramatic pairing and is revived by The Royal Opera for the Olympic Programme in the classic production by Jonathan Miller, under the baton of the great Mozartian Colin Davis and for the final performance The Royal Opera's David Syrus.
The final production of The Royal Opera's Mozart-Da Ponte cycle is the glorious comedy of The Marriage of Figaro. Mozart's great score has a wealth of famous numbers and gives the chance for especially fine singing.
As part of the Royal Opera House's Olympic Programme, The Royal Opera stages a cycle of all three operas written by Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, beginning with the most fiery and flamboyant of them all: Don Giovanni.
Rusalka has its first ever staging by The Royal Opera in a production new to the Company. The tragic story of the water nymph who longs to walk on the ground as a human draws on the richness of Czech mythology: a prince, a princess, a water goblin and a witch are the other main characters, mixing the supernatural and the mortal.
"David Haig gives the performance of his life as King George III in the West End premiere of Alan Bennett's smash-hit comedy."