Ballet gets sexy: the rise of Edward Watson

A chisel-jawed man stares steadily at the camera, a gentle pout forming on his lips.

And if the erotic charge of the image has eluded the viewer, the strap-line running alongside it rams the point home.

It reads: "Meet Ed. Fact: When he's dancing, pound for pound, he's stronger than a rhino. Superheroes really do wear tights."

Ed is not a Chippendale or Hollywood's latest heartthrob. He is Edward Watson, the principal dancer at the Royal Ballet and his close-up appears on the cover of the Royal Opera House's autumn season programme at Covent Garden. It will soon appear in a series of newspaper advertisements and on London Underground posters.

While the bold image may be prompting the keen interest of Mr Watson's female following, it has caused some consternation among ballet aficionados who see it as a cheap marketing ploy to pull in new audiences.

Mary Clarke, the editor of the Dancing Times, deemed such treatment of a serious artist as "tacky". "I think it's appalling and tacky. It cheapens the image of the company and it's not what they are all about," she said.

The ROH said its reasons for launching an advertising campaign that is "up close and personal" is not only to celebrate the physicality of its performers but to challenge people's perceptions of ballet dancers as distant figures in tutus.

Caroline Bailey, the director of marketing at the ROH, said it had evolved from an advertising campaign three years ago, which featured 12 performers beautifully photographed in their home countries, which included Mexico, China, Cuba and Armenia.

This time round, she wanted to deliver something that audiences could connect to on a more emotional level, and decided on featuring Mr Watson gazing directly at the camera.

"We wanted to show him as a human being but also to say that he was extraordinary. And he is a fabulous looking man so it's not hard to get a good photo of him. It's all in the eyes. He is looking directly at you and it is so captivating that you can't get away," she said. Ms Bailey dismissed the notion that this kind marketing was designed to sex up its performers in hope luring greater audiences without regard.

"I have an imperative to sell seats but a bigger imperative to have the right image for the organisation and to change people's perceptions so they realise that we are not intimidating but engaging and very welcoming. Anyone who loves the Royal Ballet knows we need an audience of the future," she said.

The image is the first of four to be launched over the coming year, including the young opera singer Marina Poplavskaya, the ROH's musical director, Antonio Pappano, and the Royal Ballet's principle dancer Marianela Núñez.

Mr Watson, 31, from Dartford, Kent, who has modelled in various magazines in the past, including a 10-page feature in GQ and Harper's and Queen, yesterday told The Independent that he had never regarded himself as a "pin-up". He was happy with the advert and said he found it witty and innovative.

"It's a bit cheeky but I don't really take myself very seriously and I don't think it was that sexy. I didn't feel cheap or dirty doing it. It's not saying 'come and see the ballet' with images of tuttu's. You can see the person so it becomes much more human, which I really like," he said. Mr Watson nevertheless revealed he received considerable fan mail from women who admired his talents.

The dancer joined The Royal Ballet in December 1994 and was promoted to "first artist" in 1997. His career trajectory since then has been a steady climb to the top.

Yet he is not known so much for sex appeal, but for his astonishingly flexible body - performing the splits standing on one leg with far more grace than the average male ballet dancer.

Watson is the first to admit that his red hair, delicate skin and fine limbs perhaps do not qualify him as a regular ballet pin-up.

Growing up, he regarded himself as something of a "ginger freak", he said.

An industry source said it was "surprising" that he was singled out for such marketing. This is not the first time the classical arts have introduced sex appeal in the marketing of its artists' works.

The violinist Vanessa Mae was famously pictured in a sexy dress, playing her instrument in the sea with waves lapping around her figure. The image was a hit and became a turning point after which a crop of "sexy" performers were born in her wake, with the operatic male quartet Il Divo being the most recent. The group consists of unnervingly good-looking singers who have been packaged into a pop-opera fusion act by Simon Cowell.

Similarly, the English National Opera's original campaign in 1989, which drew on the sexiness of its performers and behind-the-scenes operatives, was seen as highly effective as it energised audience figures and revitalised the company.

But Tony Hall, the chief executive of the ROH, said this was most definitively not the Royal Ballet's "Vanessa Mae moment".

"We are not going down a Vanessa Mae road. It's not what we are about. People who come to us a lot know how superb he is. People who do not come here might think 'how amazing, he is stronger than a rhino'," he said.

If it brings in a new audience, it's worth it

Sex sells. That, at least, has been the thinking and the ever more desperate desire in the arts for the past 20 years or so. The English National Opera can be said to have pioneered the hunky poster, with pictures of muscular, bare-chested backstage operatives plastered all over London to advertise works by Monteverdi and and Handel.

And in the wake of that success, the high arts went sex mad. Classical music advertising began to resemble an upmarket edition of Penthouse. The cellist Ofra Harnoy posed for an album sleeve with her instrument between her legs, and the violinist Vanessa Mae posed in a wet T-shirt.

In recent years, the sexual frenzy in marketing departments has cooled. But even during the highly charged years, classical dance rather curiously remained aloof. Curious, as it is a genuinely sexy art form. But the feeling at the Royal Ballet and other classical companies was that they should sell on the repertoire and on the technique of their performers, rather than on some spurious sex appeal.

Even when the Royal Ballet possessed an alluring performer in Sylvie Guillem, an English rose such as Darcey Bussell, or even a dark and dangerous dancer such as Carlos Acosta, it failed to trade on their celebrity appeal. When did you last see any of those three on a chat show or presenting a prize at an awards ceremony?

Ironically, considering the popularity of dance, classical dance has been an insular world whose audiences tend to consist of the same relatively small number of regular attenders.

The Royal Ballet's new campaign shows a change of approach. It's not just the hunk on the front of their brochure. I'm more intrigued by the change of tone in descriptions of the standard repertoire. La Bayadere is described as "a work that brings together everything that makes the classical ballets such wonderful theatre". The Nutcracker "is packed with magical moments of classical ballet". In other words, these are descriptions aimed at an audience unfamiliar with dance.

Is this a Royal Ballet reeling from the loss of Bussell, Guillem and Jonathan Cope and worried that without its established stars it might have box-office difficulties? Possibly. Yet there is clearly an element too of wanting to enlarge the constituency. It's not before time. And, if selling dance on good looks, pseudo celebrity and an impossible promise of sex brings in a new audience, then whatever the cringe factor, it's worth a try.

David Lister