The reviews are in for Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake, which reached Sadler’s Wells on 28 October for a six-performance London run after its autumn season in Birmingham. This is the staging Peter Wright and Galina Samsova made for the company in 1981, revived in the year of Wright’s centenary, with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Paul Murphy in the pit. On one point the critics come close to agreeing: Yu Kurihara, who dances both Odette and Odile, is the reason to go, and most of them also mention the gasp that greets the swans rising out of the mist in the final act. Where they part company is the production itself. The Reviews Hub and West End Best Friend find it sumptuous and stirring; London Unattached and Theatre and Tonic find Philip Prowse’s dark, mourning-heavy staging and some uneven ensemble work harder to love.
3.6 / 5 from 4 criticsThe verdict: seven reviews of the London run so far, four of them with a rating: one at four and a half stars, one at four and two at three, for an average of 3.6 out of 5 among the critics who score. Seeing Dance gives no rating, and the notices in The Times and the Financial Times sit behind paywalls. Nobody disputes Yu Kurihara’s Odette and Odile; the argument is over a production that some find sumptuous and others find gloomy.
What are critics saying about Swan Lake?
The Reviews Hub
“Total Anguish and Awe”
Reviewer: Tiffany R. Ragsdale
The warmest notice so far. Ragsdale praises the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Paul Murphy and Yasiel Hodelín’s controlled Siegfried, and her one real complaint is that the small ensembles in the first act drift out of unison. Then the second act arrives, and with it Kurihara:
“But no one can touch the powerhouse that is Yu Kurihara as Odette.”
She is just as taken with Kurihara’s Odile and her 32 fouettés, and saves her last word for the fog-shrouded opening of the final act, crediting Philip Prowse’s design and Peter Teigen’s lighting.
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: Chris Abbott
Abbott treats Swan Lake as the gateway ballet and judges this version a fine example of the traditional kind, clear in its storytelling down to the funeral procession for the late King that opens it. He saves his warmest words for the ensemble:
“It is traditional, sumptuous and beautifully danced, especially by the corps de ballet.”
He admires Prowse’s heavy, layered costumes, Kurihara’s expressive arms and Hodelín’s unusually sullen prince, and picks out Riku Ito as a soaring Benno.
Theatre and Tonic
Reviewer: David
A more guarded response. David enjoys Kurihara’s technique, especially her fouettés, finds Hodelín an athletic, steadfast prince and calls the third-act pas de deux intelligently arranged. His reservation is about restraint:
“a sophisticated affair elevated by legacy, but which often finds itself shackled by self-inflicted modesty”
In his view the final act lacks the choreography to carry the lovers’ climax, and Prowse’s ornate design loses its force when the drama does.
London Unattached
“Sir Peter Wright’s Production of the Much-Loved Classic”
Reviewer: Teresa Guerreiro
Guerreiro is the most candid of the critics, and says so early on:
“I’ll come right out and say it: I didn’t really like it.”
The mourning that opens the ballet colours the first two acts too darkly for her, and she finds the corps not yet uniform enough for the white acts, with the cygnets strained on opening night. The ballroom act lifts things, and she enjoyed Riku Ito’s Benno, Katherine Ochoa’s Italian princess and, above all, Kurihara’s mocking Odile.
Seeing Dance
“A beautiful spell.”
Reviewer: Zoë Hewitt
Hewitt gives no rating. She admires the mist-covered reveal of the final act, Prowse’s fairy-tale costumes, Ochoa’s Italian Princess and the Sinfonia’s playing, while noting a run of small slips in precision through the evening. What she misses is the love story:
“The enchanted lake is entirely convincing. The enchantment between its two lovers is much harder to find.”
She never quite believed that Odette and Siegfried had fallen for each other, and came away admiring the beauty around them more than feeling their loss.
Production photographs by Bill Cooper, from an earlier revival of the staging.
Also reviewed by: The Times (Debra Craine, “Yu Kurihara delivers a splendid performance”) and the Financial Times (“Peter Wright’s Swan Lake still sparkles after 45 years”), whose reviews sit behind paywalls.
For more dance at the same address this autumn, read our roundups of Acosta Danza: Cuban Baroque and London City Ballet’s Firebird double bill, and of A Centenary Celebration, the Royal Opera House gala in which Birmingham Royal Ballet shared the stage with the Royal Ballet.
Birmingham Royal Ballet: Swan Lake runs at Sadler’s Wells until 31 October 2026.
For more information, visit the official website.
