Following Birmingham Royal Ballet’s return to live performance, with the Curated by Carlos season and Cinderella at Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Theatre Royal Plymouth, Acosta will again balance the new and the classic in a season that begins with contrasting tellings of the greatest love story ever told.

For Birmingham Royal Ballet’s homecoming season at Birmingham Hippodrome, Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet choreography and Prokofiev’s score will set the stage alight in this interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy. From the balcony scene’s pas de deux, to the lovers’ deaths, Romeo and Juliet is ballet at its most poignant. Performances will take place at Plymouth Theatre Royal in October.

Following this, Carlos Curates: R&J Reimagined sees Romeo and Juliet receive a very different treatment with the Company premiere of Romanian choreographer Edward Clug's Radio and Juliet, a reinvention of the classic story set to the music of Radiohead. This version explores what could have happened if Juliet decided not to take her own life, and is an emotional rollercoaster that has toured the world to widespread acclaim since its premiere in 2005.

Radio and Juliet forms a double bill with a new work from Birmingham-based choreographer Rosie Kay, with details to be announced. October also sees the postponed and adapted London run of Curated by Carlos at Sadler’s Wells. 

In a new production created especially for Birmingham Royal Ballet, Don Quixote introduces audiences to Cervantes’ famous knight, and lovers Kitri and Basilio. The first UK performances of Acosta’s new 21st-century production of this 19th-century work take place in February. The festive season will then see Birmingham Royal Ballet bring The Nutcracker back to two stages. Birmingham Hippodrome welcomes the production in November and the Company will celebrate its fourth appearance at the Royal Albert Hall ‪from 28 December. 

Image Credit: Momoko Hirata as Juliet. © Bill Cooper