| Description | Off-air recording: BBC 2, 19:30, 90 mins; 21:30, 75 mins. Final performance by the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera before the closure of the Royal Opera House for redevelopment. Includes clips of dancers backstage and discussion of development plans. Includes excerpts from: Symphony in C (Balanchine); Manon (MacMillan); La Valse (Ashton); The Sleeping Beauty (Petipa); Walk and Talk (Page); Romeo and Juliet (MacMillan); Le Corsaire (Petipa); The Dream (Ashton); Diana and Acteon (Petipa and Vaganova). Dancers in this programme include Darcey Bussll, Jonathan Cope, Sylvie Guillem, Irek Mukhamedov, Ashley Page, Viviana Durante, Tetsuya Kumakawa, Deborah Bull, Leanne Benjamin, Bruce Samson and Igor Zelenski of the Royal Ballet. Conductors for this evenings performance Xolin Davis, Edward Downes, Bernard Haitink, Peter Ernstassen, Paul Murphy, George Solti and Anthony Twiner. The programme is introduced by Michael Berkeley. Produced by Jonathan Fulford and directed by Derek Bailey. |
| Related Material | The gala was in two parts; minimal adverts recorded in between each part. Opera extracts include: Peter Grimes, Cosi Fan Tutti, La Boheme, Lucia di Lammermoor, Fidelio, Der Rosenkavalier, Othello, Falstaff. |