A Prince of England meets the Queen of the Nile
30 September, 2011
Earlier this year Northern Ballet's Royal Patron, Prince Edward, or to give him his full title, HRH The Earl of Wessex KG GCVO, attended a performance of Cleopatra with his wife The Countess of Wessex at Sadler's Wells.
Following the performance the couple went backstage to meet cast and crew. So what happened when the Prince of England met the Queen of Egypt? Martha Leebolt, our premiere dancer and lead Cleopatra, said "Prince Edward is always so lovely when we meet him. He told me how much he enjoyed my performance and how he didn’t know where I found the energy to perform on stage for so long."
Their visit came towards the end of a very busy and successful week for Northern Ballet in London with our celeb-packed opening night to a successful fundraising dinner and a lunch hosted by HRH The Earl of Wessex for Northern Ballet and our supporters at Buckingham Palace.
HRH The Earl of Wessex has been Royal Patron to Northern Ballet since 2003, it was a position formerly held by his late aunt, HRH The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. He has been a great supporter of Northern Ballet and regularly attends performances by the Company. In January this year he officially opened our new home in Leeds.
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Star Reviews
20 May, 2011
Through the night of the London premiere the stars told us what they thought of the production...
Frances Barber
I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Absolutely stunning. I have played Cleopatra so I followed every single moment and wish that in my dreams I could have ever been as elegant as the Cleopatra tonight. It was absolutely marvellous. Loved it.
Natalie Dormer
I went to the British Museum exhibition on ancient Egypt just before Christmas and saw all the hieroglyphs, and the stances of the figures. The choreography is amazing – it echoes all that perfectly. I think it’s a great hybrid of classical ballet with contemporary movement and dance. I’m loving it! ... I love the modern twist. I think the young lady playing Cleopatra is amazing – she’s absolutely incredible.
Gillian Anderson
I’m enjoying it tremendously. I think it’s a very strong piece. I think the costumes are fantastic. I think it’s great.
Alfie Boe
I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’m a huge fan of Claude-Michel Schönberg’s music. The dancing is incredible. I don’t really go to the ballet very often but when I do go I love it. I can really adopt the language of the dance and it’s incredible the way they’re telling the story with the choreography. I’m absolutely thrilled to be here and this is really inspiring me to come to the ballet more.
Craig Revel Horwood
I’m absolutely loving it! I think the dancers are spectacular, I absolutely adore the music – I think Claude-Michel Schönberg has done an incredible job with the score. It’s hypnotic, it’s glamorous – I just love it.
Lorraine Kelly
I think it’s absolutely fantastic, it’s a real spectacle, very moving, and I’m totally absorbed. I’ve just been completely fixated, I haven’t thought of anything else other than what I’m watching, they’ve completely drawn me in and the skill is just astounding, it’s absolutely incredible. I love the music, I absolutely love the music and the story is such a brilliant story anyway but they’ve just done it so well, it’s just absolutely amazing, I’m in awe.
Beverley Knight
I loved it. I really loved it.
Wayne Sleep
The company are dancing brilliantly. They look so clean, so together. Can’t fault it.
Anneka Rice
I was completely mesmerised and enchanted. Claude-Michel’s music was just wonderful. It was enchanting. I loved it.
Eddie Redmayne
I only know the story through the Shakespeare play and I’m used to seeing actors playing this. What’s so lovely is seeing an artform that you know nothing about but it being as expressive and moving and I’m really enjoying it
Chloe Moretz
I think it’s amazing, I mean I think it’s beautiful the way they’ve taken the ballet and twisted it and made it a little more modern and more unique.
Find out what people are saying about Northern Ballet's Cleopatra across the web & in the papers.
Above photos RH.
London Premiere
18 May, 2011
The London premiere of Cleopatra on 17 May brought out the stars to enjoy Northern Ballet's new production. From Beverley Knight to Chloe Moretz, Lorraine Kelly to Elen Rives, all came to Sadler's Wells Theatre to see our new production.
Cleopatra at Sadler's Wells runs until Saturday 21 May - book now.
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Went to the opening of Northern Ballet's Cleopatra at Sadlers Wells last night and it was amazing! If u get a chance go see it a real treat
Craig Revel-Horwood via Twitter
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Well northern ballets cleopatra was astounding - sexy, emotional and a true spectacle - incredible original score too!
Lorraine Kelly via Twitter
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The #NorthernBallet's rendition of Cleopatra was utterly amazing, so beautiful so intese, so epic. Such an amazing night :)
Chloe Moretz via Twitter
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All photos RH
Reviews
4 April, 2011
Here's a short excerpt from the first act of Cleopatra with Martha Leebolt as the queen and Javier Torres as Caesar.
Filmed at Hull New Theatre in March 2011, the music is by Claude-Michel Schönberg (Les Misérables) and performed by Northern Ballet Sinfonia.
Filmed Zsolt Sándor
Reviews
4 March, 2011
Want to read what people are writing about Cleopatra? We've a Reviews page set up just for you...
Production photography
1 March, 2011
Bill Cooper's photography has captured the beauty and grace of Cleopatra, take a closer look at some of the amazing images he took.
Cleopatra – the Soundtrack
26 February, 2011
Be among the first to own the sensational new score for Cleopatra by Claude-Michel Schönberg - the award winning composer of Les Misérables, Miss Saigon and Northern Ballet's Wuthering Heights, played by Northern Ballet Sinfonia. Due for release in early April 2011 - pre-order your copy now.
Interview with projection designer, Nina Dunn
26 February, 2011
Cleopatra makes use of projection to enhance the lighting and sets. Nina Dunn is the projection designer and in this interview talks about her involvement and the benefits of projection to a production like this.
Walk Like an Egyptian
25 February, 2011
With only a day to go before the première we're really getting in the Cleopatra mood. So much so we've a competition to help get you in the mood too!
Take a look and enter our Walk Like An Egyptian competition...
Cleopatra, the music
24 February, 2011
It takes no great leap of the imagination to visualise a woman undulating to
music on a stage when the character embodied is Cleopatra.
In our collective unconscious, she is and will always remain the incarnation of the femme fatale – ‘she from whom there is no escape’: a seductress oozing sensuality; a destroyer at her most spellbinding; a woman of superior intelligence, manipulative but also touching as the mother of her children and of a whole nation whose culture, five thousand years ago, gave birth to our own civilisation. A powerful ruler and a woman in a man's world, she devoted her whole life to the protection of her family and her people.
And so my interest in Cleopatra, when David Nixon first mentioned her name in 2003, will come as no surprise; we had completed our first collaboration with Wuthering Heights. At the time, while the idea seemed brilliant, the scenario was still too vague in my mind.
After a long period of reflection, I came to understand the sheer brutality of the Queen of Egypt's life. All the men she loved met a violent end. She herself disposed of her own brother and committed suicide rather than capitulate. Such were the themes that fired my inspiration, as four pivotal chapters emerged, embodied by the Snake, Ptolemy, Caesar and Mark Antony, all intimately woven into her destiny.
I began to write a scenario. Then the music came forth, sombre, eerie, wild or amorous, luring me back to my keyboard again and again to create a work that David would want to choreograph, that John Longstaff would want to orchestrate, John Price Jones to conduct, the musicians to play and mostly, something the dancers would want to dance.
David's reaction to the demo was encouraging and so, with Patricia Doyle, we carried on shaping into a ballet the story of this young queen, who spoke more than five languages (the only one of a long line of Macedonian monarchs to master Egyptian), who ruled over one of the richest countries in the world and spent her short life fighting the emerging Roman Empire.
More than 2,000 years ago, this woman became an icon of her era and it is no wonder that she continues to fascinate and move us.
I have dedicated this score to my two daughters, Margot and Lily, with the hope that people will still talk about them in the year 4010.
Claude-Michel Schönberg
February 2011
The queen of media – the changing images of an icon
23 February, 2011
Cleopatra may have been born in 69BC but she has remained a powerful icon ever since. Arguably no other figure in ancient history has been depicted so widely as this fascinating, and powerful woman. Join us as we take a trip through her most enduring incarnations on stage, in film, fashion, the world of celebrity and, of course, dance.
Theatre
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety"
William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra at the start of the 17th century and many consider the role of Cleopatra to be one of the most complex female roles in his work. Famously, when Royal Shakespeare Director Peter Hall asked Judi Dench to play the title role in a staged, and then later televised, production she turned down the part claiming that her Cleopatra would be a “menopausal dwarf”.
However, Hall eventually coaxed Dench into the role for which she went on to win rave reviews from both theatre critics and TV audiences.
Last October Kim Cattrall, who plays Sex and the City's feisty man-eater Samantha, made her Shakespearian debut as Cleopatra at the Liverpool Playhouse.
Film
Cleopatra has filtered through the ages without a real face. Only a selection of coins depict her (as rather unattractive and hag-like) and a few busts are believed to portray the Egyptian queen, but these cannot be verified. However, almost everyone in the Western world could conjure a picture of Cleopatra if asked to do so. But without question this image will be of an actress portraying the queen on film.
Cleopatra has been a central character in over 15 major films and countless television programmes. The first cinematic portrayal of Cleopatra was in the silent film of 1917 starring seductive actress Theda Bara. Despite the film's popularity in its day, it was deemed profane under the Hay's Code in the 1930s and subsequently destroyed.
In 1945 Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains starred in the first large scale Hollywood film about Cleopatra, in an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1898 play Caesar and Cleopatra. Despite carrying the tagline “The most lavish picture ever on the screen!”
this film pales into insignificance compared to its 1960s successor.
Cleopatra, the 1963 epic starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison gave the world its most iconic images of Cleopatra. Adjusting for inflation, Cleopatra remains one of the most expensive movies ever made costing just under $300 million, nearly bankrupting 20th Century Fox. The lavish film contains 26,000 costumes, 65 of which were for Taylor alone, including a dress made from 24-carat gold cloth. At a cost of $194,800 this was the highest ever costume budget for a single screen actor.
Cleopatra looks set to dominate cinemas again in a new 3D film starring Angelina Jolie as the Queen of the Nile. Similar to real life couple Taylor and Burton it is rumoured that Angelia’s husband Brad Pitt is to play Mark Antony. The screenplay of this forthcoming blockbuster is already risking a budget that rivals its 1963 predecessor.
Fashion
Pleats draped over one shoulder, sharp black bob with thick, blunt fringe and sweeping jet black eyeliner; Cleopatra remains a fashion muse for the 21st century. September 2010 saw the catwalks awash with black bobs and kohl eyeliner, insect jewellery, bejewelled collars and regal bibs, and Egyptian-inspired body armour pieces for a modern take on Cleopatra chic. Favoured by designers like Vivienne Westwood and L.A.M.B. (the fashion label founded by singer Gwen Stefani) the ‘Miss Cleo’ look proved Cleopatra is every inch the modern ‘it’ girl. According to Christina Mannatt, Cultural Editor at the trend forecaster Stylesight.com, “The Miss Cleo trend has a royal aura without being ostentatious – it is all about the accessories.”
Celebrity style
Despite their own success and influence on style and fashion modern day celebrities often choose to channel Cleopatra’s distinctive appearance and style to guarantee them increased column inches. Halle Berry sported a Cleopatra-like hairdo on the September cover of Vogue magazine last year.
Pop-princess Katy Perry turned Cleo-queen for the cover of her new single, ET, due for release later this year. Renowned for her colourful image and playful single covers Katy Perry revealed on her Facebook page in January that she has traded the bubble-gum playfulness for dark-bobbed hair and striking eye make-up with the trademark Cleopatra sweeping black eyeliner.
Autumn 2010 saw Cleopatra inspire another cover girl, but this time for a more inanimate celebrity. Barbie, arguably the superstar of dolls, graced the cover of Barbie Collector Catalogue as Cleopatra, the toy manufacturer’s latest marriage of divine queen and mass commercialism. According to Barbie Collector Magazine, “History and striking elegance meet to create an extraordinary doll.”
The commemorative Barbie doll, designed by Linda Kyaw which was priced at $100, is now sold out.
Dance
Despite Cleopatra's dominance on stage and on film her story has not featured greatly in the world of dance. Ballets Russes premiered in Paris in 1909 with their production Cléopâtre which saw Ida Rubinstein dance the title role. Although originally presented in 1908 as Nuit d'Egypte by Mikhail Fokine, Ballets Russes' debut in Paris marked the beginning of a whole new era in ballet and the star-studded opening night audience included Auguste Rodin, Isadora Duncan, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Jean Cocteau.
The last full length version of Cleopatra as a ballet was Houston Ballet’s production choreographed by their Artistic Director, and former dancer with Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, Ben Stevenson. Cleopatra had its UK premiere at Sadler's Wells, London, in April 2001.
Almost a decade later, Cleopatra is getting ready to again take centre stage in Northern Ballet's sumptuous new production. David Nixon has long been fascinated by this enduring icon and set to Claude-Michel Schönberg's haunting new score, this unmissable ballet explores Cleopatra's sensational rise to power, her scandalous romances with the most powerful men in history and her ultimate downfall.
Don't miss your chance to be a part of something special – book now!
Cleopatra Timeline
21 February, 2011
Cleopatra's story has been retold for over 2,000 years.
In this timeline we (try) to add a little historical perspective to the events in the ballet - a time of great turbulence across the major powers of the day - right up to the infamous bite which ended not only her life but the Pharaoh's rule of Egypt.
From 69 BC
Cleopatra born in Alexandria, Egypt to the house of Ptolemy.
Her father, Ptolemy XII, dies in 51BC, leaving a will that states his daughter and son should be co-rulers of Egypt.
From 50 BC
Cleopatra and her young brother-husband eventually rule jointly, though not amicably, and rival factions develop in the Palace.
From 48 BC
Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great, Roman Generals, and part of the triumvirate in Rome, are fighting a civil war. Pompey receives aid from Ptolemy XIII and the war arrives on Egyptian soil as Caesar enters Egypt in pursuit.
Ptolemy changes sides and has Pompey executed knowing that he would have to lose men and money if he continues to support Pompey. Caesar is presented with Pompey's head and ring but is disgusted. He must arbitrate between the brother and sister and collect overdue money owing to Rome.
Cleopatra has fled from Alexandria and is in exile.
Caesar summons Cleopatra to the Palace and she comes by night, hidden in a bag, and successfully seduces Caesar. He insists the bother and sister rule together but another battle breaks out with Caesar the victor, and Ptolemy is drowned in the Nile.
Cleopatra reigns alone as Queen of Egypt. Caesar and Cleopatra embark in a long Nile cruise.
From 47 BC
Cleopatra and Caesar's son Caesarion is born.
From 44 BC
Caesar brings them to Rome but because of political unrest is assassinated by 60 conspirators on 15 March.
Cleopatra and her son return to Egypt.
Mark Antony and Octavian, are now the most powerful leaders of the Roman Empire.
Antony summons Cleopatra about her loyalty to Rome in the war against the conspirators. She travels to Tarsus by Royal Barge and presents herself to Antony as Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.
A long love affair begins and they have three children together. Twins Alexander Helios (Sun) and Cleopatra Selene (Moon), and Ptolemy Philadelphus.
Antony gives lands gained in the name of Rome to Cleopatra and her children. He returns to Rome and cements his loyalty to the Empire by marrying Octavia, the sister of Octavian.
Antony returns to Egypt and Cleopatra and divorces Octavia.
Octavian declares civil war against Antony and Cleopatra and defeats them at the battle of Actium. They flee back to Egypt.
From 30 BC
Antony commits suicide believing Cleopatra to be already dead.
Cleopatra is taken prisoner by Octavian in her Palace. She has an asp smuggled in to her mausoleum and is poisoned, bringing to an end the Ptolemic dynasty. She was the last Pharaoh to rule Egypt.
David Nixon & Martha Leebolt on Radio 4
16 February, 2011
Yesterday's PM programme on Radio 4 had a report on narrative ballet and included an interview with David Nixon OBE and Premier Dancer Martha Leebolt.
You can listen to the feature on the BBC iPlayer until 22 February. PM on BBC iPlayer. The piece on narrative ballet begins about 26 muinutes in.
Costume Designs
15 February, 2011
Click on an image for a closer look at Christopher Giles' costume design illustrations for our Cleopatra ballet.
The images are a detailed look at the characters from Mark-Antony & Caesar to the gods Wadjyt and Apis.
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Not all these designs are finalised; they may change a little before you get to see them on stage.
Cleopatra – the icon
6 January, 2011
What do Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Catrall, Angelina Jolie, Claude Michel Schönberg and David Nixon OBE have in common? Just the most powerful woman in history: Cleopatra.
Elizabeth Taylor famously portrayed her in the 1962 film Cleopatra; Kim Catrall of Sex & the City fame recently took on the role at the Liverpool Playhouse; Angelina Jolie will play her in a new film, rumoured to be directed by Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, Green Zone, United 93). Now composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and Northern Ballet's Artistic Director, David Nixon, turn their hands to telling her story through dance.
Cleopatra is the woman of the moment. Her appeal is obvious – her beauty, her intelligence, her power and strength of character have made her an icon who continues to captivate.
In this new ballet, Cleopatra, his first new full-length work in over two years, David Nixon is keen to do her justice.
“I have been fascinated by the story of Cleopatra for a long time. There is little factual information about her yet she managed to hold in her grasp two of the most powerful men in history. She was in some ways beautiful and unbelievably sensual for the almost barbaric Romans but she was also a woman, mother and above all a queen.”
Claude-Michel Schönberg, composer of Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, has written the music for the ballet.