Reviews are in for Visionaries: Robbins and MacMillan, the Royal Ballet’s double bill at the Royal Opera House, which opened on 9 November 2026. The programme pairs Jerome Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering (1969), set to Chopin piano pieces, with Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth (1965), set to Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. The notices are broadly warm, with five stars from London Unattached and The Stage. Marcelino Sambé, Marianela Núñez and pianist Leonardo Pierdomenico draw repeated praise. The dissent is limited: Seeing Dance finds Dances at a Gathering too long, and The Telegraph’s headline questions the pairing.
4.4 / 5 from 5 criticsThe verdict: nine outlets have reviewed the double bill so far. Five give a star rating, two at five stars and three at four, an average of 4.4 out of 5. Seeing Dance publishes no rating, and The Times, the Financial Times and The Telegraph sit behind paywalls. Praise for Marcelino Sambé and Marianela Núñez runs through most of the notices; the dissent is over the length of Dances at a Gathering and, in The Telegraph’s headline, the pairing itself.
What are critics saying about VISIONARIES: ROBBINS AND MACMILLAN?
London Unattached
"Two masterpieces of pure dance in the Royal Ballet’s latest bill"
Reviewer: Teresa Guerreiro
Guerreiro reads the evening as a study in contrasts: the light, playful encounters of the Robbins against the grief of the MacMillan.
"On opening night, The Royal Ballet dancers made both pieces their own with assured, arresting dancing."
She singles out Marcelino Sambé’s opening solo and Marianela Núñez as the Woman, and finds William Bracewell’s Messenger of Death menacing through lightness rather than force. Her one wish is that the company brings the pair back soon.
LondonTheatre.co.uk
"this pure dance double bill is a total joy"
Reviewer: Julia Rank
Rank names Dances at a Gathering her favourite Royal Ballet and Opera production of the year, with Sambé as its anchor, Anna Rose O’Sullivan as Apricot and Lauren Cuthbertson’s late entrance as Green.
"…I could have happily watched another hour of such undistilled joy."
She finds Song of the Earth easier to admire than to love on a first viewing and thinks Bracewell could be more menacing, though Núñez is mesmerising.
Bachtrack
"The Royal Ballet in Visionaries: two spellbinding masterpieces"
Reviewer: Graham Watts
Watts gives much of his notice to the music, praising pianist Leonardo Pierdomenico, who replaced Robert Clark one working day before the performance, and conductor Koen Kessels.
"Both works are defined by pure dance and musical excellence."
He feels Robbins runs short of ideas towards the end of his piece, but was won over by Bracewell’s Death, a casting he had doubted, and by Núñez.
Folio/Folia
"Reece Clarke steals the show in The Royal Ballet’s Robbins/MacMillan double bill"
Reviewer: Lily Hyde
Hyde names Reece Clarke as Purple the evening’s standout, and admires Sambé’s precision and Cuthbertson’s flirtatious Green, while finding Yasmine Naghdi’s Pink less convincing.
"It’s a world one could stay in forever."
She is less at ease with Song of the Earth, beautiful but heavy, and questions how much MacMillan the company has programmed this year.
Seeing Dance
Reviewer: David Mead
Mead is the coolest voice here. He enjoys the dancing in the Robbins, singling out O’Sullivan and Clarke’s partnering, but argues the piece is not visionary and outstays its welcome.
"And, unfortunately, Dances at a Gathering starts to drag well before its overdue conclusion."
Song of the Earth fares much better with him: spare, powerful choreography given an intense performance by the cast.
Also reviewed by: The Stage (Siobhan Murphy, five stars, "Superlative"), The Times (Debra Craine, "Visionaries review — the Royal Ballet’s double bill of sunshine and death"), the Financial Times ("Visionaries — superb Royal Ballet revival of two postwar masterpieces") and The Telegraph ("Pairing ballet’s most beautiful scene with a stinker"), whose reviews sit behind paywalls.
For more from the London stage this week, read the critics on ENO’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Tango After Dark at Sadler’s Wells and Dogstar at Hampstead Theatre.
Visionaries: Robbins and MacMillan is booking at the Royal Opera House until Saturday 28 November 2026.
