La Fille Mal Gardée, The Royal Ballet Review 5*
The Royal Ballet revives Ashton’s sunny La Fille Mal Gardée on its 65th anniversary to charm RBO audiences
This article was first published on London Unattached
La Fille Mal Gardée is Sir Frederick Ashton’s most joyous, uplifting and best-loved ballet, undoubtedly one of the jewels in the repertoire of The Royal Ballet, where he was the founder choreographer; and so it’s hard to believe the company has kept it from us for the best part of ten years. There ought to be a law against such cruelty…
No matter. La Fille Mal Gardée (generally translated as The Wayward Daughter) is now back at Covent Garden, as fresh and enticing as ever, with an exciting variety of casts, both debutants (look out for the lovely Fumi Kaneko in the title role a little later in the run) and experienced Fille performers, such as the lead pair on opening night, principals Marianela Núñez and Vadim Muntagirov, who’ve made the roles of Lise and her sweetheart Colas very much their own.
Ashton’s love for the English countryside is well-known, and in his 1960 ballet La Fille Mal Gardée, aided by designer Osbert Lancaster, he created an idealised, sunlit, bucolic setting for a story of true love overcoming all obstacles, told as a gentle comedy, with laugh out loud moments, heart-melting pas de deux, plenty of bright ensemble numbers, dancing poultry and, to top it all, a live pony.
The plot is light, frothy and truly delightful: the irrepressible titular daughter, Lise, has set her heart on the dashing young farmer Colas; her mother, the Widow Simone, though, is determined to marry her to Alain, the simpleton son of a prosperous vineyard owner, Thomas.
The Widow Simone hasn’t counted on the resourcefulness and determination of her wayward daughter, and, of course, in the end, love prevails and everybody is happy, including Alain, who doesn’t much care that he lost his putative bride, as long as he can keep his true love – his red umbrella.
Ashton’s rounded characters are drawn with minute attention to detail and are not easy to get right. Alain is funny, but should never be played as an object of mockery. You laugh at his antics, though not at him – he should be, in fact, quite endearing. On opening night, Luca Acri, a tremendously expressive dancer (who most recently impressed as the revolutionary leader in Like Water for Chocolate), got Alain’s combination of shyness and boisterousness to a T, and handled Ashton’s difficult choreography, all pratfalls and off-centre steps, with total control and remarkable ease.
Although the original ballet of La Fille Mal Gardée dates from 18th-century France, Ashton, the quintessential English choreographer, drew from staples of English culture for his own version, among them the famed pantomime dame. Widow Simone is danced by a man en travesti. She is not a drag queen and must avoid any hint of the grotesque; instead, she is a slightly awkward, well-meaning mother, her harshness the result of wanting the best for the daughter who, deep inside, she really loves.
The role requires perfect comedic timing, eloquent mime and the ability to do the Lancastrian clog dance, the mid-Act I number that those familiar with the ballet always look forward to. Over the years, there have been memorable Widow Simones; in this cast, Thomas Whitehead acquitted himself well in the role.
But, of course, it’s Lise and Colas who make the ballet. Marianela Núñez, the most Ashtonian of the current crop of Royal Ballet principals, absolutely owns the role of Lise, making short work of its truly fiendish technical demands – fast footwork, changes of direction, difficult balances – with a smile that lights up the house.
That she loves dancing with Vadim Muntagirov (whom she christened “Vadream’ for obvious reasons) is never more apparent than in La Fille Mal Gardée.
Not only is Muntagirov a wonderful technician, but he is also a dream partner, and his cheeky chappie Colas is totally convincing and a good foil for Núñez’s Lise. The chemistry between these two dancers can’t fail to boost the audience’s engagement with their fate.
There’s a lot of mime, which they execute with perfect clarity. In a particularly engaging sequence, Lise, locked at home by her mother, dreams of her future with Colas: marriage, three children, whom she’ll lovingly, yet sternly, bring up… unaware that Colas is watching her, hiding behind a pile of haystacks. It’s a simultaneously funny and very moving sequence.
s well, they have to negotiate a mind-blowing profusion of props, including the most famous of them all, the long pink ribbon, with which, while dancing, they’re expected to fashion a cat’s cradle.
A particularly tricky moment is the pas de trois, where Lise is supposed to be dancing with the clumsy Alain, but is simultaneously engaging with Colas. So easy to go wrong, yet faultlessly executed.
The wonderfully descriptive musical score, originally by the French composer Ferdinand Hérold, was augmented, arranged and orchestrated for Ashton by John Lanchbery, and was played with great flair and assurance by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Jonathan Lo.
A final word for Oscar, the white pony, who performed his job of pulling the cart that takes Lise and her mother to the picnic diligently, though I have to confess I missed the now-retired Peregrine, who always used to bring a touch of star quality to the role.
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit: The Royal Ballet, Vadim Muntagirov and Marianela Núñez in La Fille Mal Gardée © 2025 RBO Alice Pennefather)
La Fille Mal Gardée is in repertoire at the RBO from 18/10 to 13/11 and again from 23/05 to 09/06 2026
Live cinema relay on 05/11, with Encores from 09/11. To find a participating cinema, click here