Birmingham Royal Ballet's 'The Maiden of Venice', choreographed by Carlos Acosta after 'La Bayadère', with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia playing the score live.
Birmingham Royal Ballet bring The Maiden of Venice to the Sunderland Empire from Thursday 18 to Saturday 20 March 2027. It's a three-night run with three performances: 7.30pm on Thursday, 2.00pm on Friday, and 7.30pm on Saturday.
The Maiden of Venice is director Carlos Acosta's reimagining of the 19th-century classic La Bayadère, which he's moved from imperial India to Renaissance Venice. The story follows two men battling for the affections of a young woman, and it works through themes of love, lust and betrayal. The production keeps the famous classical excerpt 'The Kingdom of the Shades', and the choreography is Acosta's after Marius Petipa, with Yu Kurihara as Nicoletta. The Royal Ballet Sinfonia plays the original Ludwig Minkus score live, in an arrangement by Gavin Sutherland. Set and costume design are by Anna Fleischle, with lighting by Lucy Carter.
To get some context on where this comes from, La Bayadère first premiered with the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg in 1877 and has since inspired generations of choreographers, from Petipa to Nureyev. Acosta's version takes that foundation and shifts the setting and the story to Venice, while keeping the original music. The show runs about two hours and 45 minutes, and the live orchestra means you're hearing the score played in the room rather than from a recording.
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Sunderland is one stop on a wider tour that also takes the production to the Birmingham Hippodrome, Theatre Royal Plymouth, the Lowry in Salford and Mayflower Theatre in Southampton. If you're planning to go, the three performances are 7.30pm on Thursday 18 March, 2.00pm on Friday 19 March, and 7.30pm on Saturday 20 March, all at the Sunderland Empire.
