Paris Opera Junior Ballet Review 3*
Paris Opera Junior Ballet joined the Next Generation Festival at the Linbury Theatre with a challenging quadruple bill
What a difference 90 minutes makes. For Paris Opera Junior Ballet it was the difference between a hesitant, seemingly uncomfortable group of young dancers and a fully professional troupe, engaging with each other and the audience, showing off their talent and enjoying every minute of it.
Which is to say, the choice of repertoire for companies made up of young, mostly inexperienced dancers is key. And I feel on this showing the company artistic supremos made an incomprehensible faux pas in opening the programme with Balanchine’s fiendishly complex Allegro Brillante.
Paris Opera Junior Ballet in George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante. Photo: Julien Benhamou
Mercifully, the final piece, Mi Favorita, by company director José Martinez (also Paris Opera Ballet artistic director), suited the young company to a , and gave all 18 dancers something they felt happy and confident with. To the last person, they were thrilling.
Paris Opera Junior Ballet is the newest junior company in existence. Launched in May 2024 as the youth branch of Paris Opera Ballet, it’s just engaged on its first tour. It comprises 18 dancers aged between 17-23, some straight out of school, others already quite experienced.
It’s a very diverse company internationally (fewer than half the dancers are French) and also in terms of training (again, fewer than half attended the POB School). Given the senior company’s strict requirements for a uniform, identifiable style, this diversity is in itself interesting.
The quadruple bill Paris Opera Junior Ballet brought to the Next Generation Festival at the Linbury was, in football parlance, ‘a game of two ‘alves’.
Balanchine’s work challenges even established, fully professional companies. It combines his Russian classical ballet heritage with the vibrancy and attack characteristic of North American dancers on which most of his oeuvre was created. Allegro Brillante, set to Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no, 3, requires the kind of technical proficiency, partnering ability and assurance young dancers like these could never offer.
Things improved with Maurice Béjart’s Cantate 51 set to Bach. Béjart is an important part of the French repertoire, but this piece shows him at his tamest, following the classical rule book. Its most interesting section is the central adage referencing the Annunciation, with Angelique Brosse a beautiful Mary figure, with soft movement and elegant lines and Jaime Almaraz a forceful, yet tender Angel.
Paris Opera Junior Ballet in Maurice Béjart’s Cantata 51. Photo: Julien Benhamou
But it was in the second half that the programme really took flight. Requiem for a Rose, a work for 13 dancers by Annabelle López Ochoa was an enthralling piece where the dancers in voluminous dark red taffeta skirts (costume designer Tatyana van Walsum), swirled around the stage in ever-changing patterns, rather like rose petals buffeted by the wind – all this to glorious Schubert music.
Paris Opera Junior Ballet in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Requiem for a Rose. Photo: Julien Benhamou
Mi Favorita, set to Donizetti, knitted together a vast range of quotes from earlier dance-makers with wit and pizzaz. Its opening referenced the musical 42nd Street, with the curtain raised just enough to show a pair of dancing feet in Louis XIV shoes – the Sun King was, of course, the founder of the French ballet tradition.
Stylishly costumed in dark red/purple by former POB Étoile Agnés Letestu, the dancers sailed through the technical challenges with ease and gusto, engaged with each other in little dramatic vignettes, all the while throwing knowing looks in the audience’s direction.
Paris Opera Junior Ballet in José Martinez’s Mi Favorita. Photo: Julien Benhamou
It was the perfect piece for these talented, beautiful and very keen dancers. And one day in the not too distant future, they will surely be able to tackle Balanchine…
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit: Paris Opera Junior Ballet in Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante. Photo: Julien Benhamou)
Paris Opera Junior Ballet perform at the Next Generation Festival on 19 & 20 June 2025. Info and tickets here
Next Generation Festival continues at the RBO Linbury until 29 June 2025. Info and tickets here