Pierrot Lunaire review – Royal Ballet reaches for the moon with a creepy dance of desire

2026-02-11 - 20:15

Linbury theatre, London Glen Tetley’s landmark 1962 ballet, set to Schoenberg’s atonal score, is stark, strange and psychologically charged Sometimes the revival of an old work can make it, and us, feel revitalised: if it speaks to the present, for example, or refreshes our sensibilities, or just because its artfulness endures. Other times it stays in the past, like a historical curiosity, a museum piece, even a relic. Glen Tetley’s 1962 Pierrot Lunaire, a pivot point in dance history, is an odd conjunction of these disparate aspects. Drawing from commedia dell’arte iconography, it tells the stylised story of moonstruck innocent Pierrot (Marcelino Sambé), the awakening of his desire through an encounter with many-faced Columbine (Mayara Magri), and the intervention of the dominant, manipulative Brighella (Matthew Ball). The set is sparse – just a scaffold, centre stage – and the dance style is a bold, efficient alloy of the long, lean lines of classical ballet with the gravitational pull, tensed angles and visceral gesticulations of Martha Graham. Continue reading...