After a turbulent tenure marked by claims of corruption – and an acid attack on the artistic director – the show is finally over for the ballet's general director

Five years from now, popular cinema may have shaken off its infatuation with 3D, but for the moment, the movers and shakers are in thrall to its peculiar approximation of the way the eye sees things for real.

The Royal Ballet's new fledgling may well grow to rival that famous swan, but a tribute to 'Rite of Spring' doesn't take off

ENO's new production of Berg's 1925 opera draws parallels with servicemen's lives in Afghanistan

In his latest dispatch, Michael Volpe reveals how music is crucial to Alice

The Russian dancer Andrej Uspenski who is a First Artist at the Royal Ballet began taking photographs of his colleagues about two years ago. Now his coffee-table book of photographs, Dancers: Behind the Scenes with the Royal Ballet, which is published next month, gives an insider's view of the Royal Ballet.

Her portrayal of Tosca in the 1970s was described by one critic as 'valiant and touching'

New York reserves its tickertape parades for returning heroes – and in 1958 America had no greater hero than a young concert pianist from Texas named Van Cliburn. That spring he had travelled to Moscow to take part in the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition, an event intended to showcase Russian superiority in classical music. And, against every rational probability of that Cold War era, Cliburn won.

“But it isn’t Christmas,” was the response when I mentioned Birmingham Royal Ballet’s shiny new production of Aladdin. 

In Deborah Colker’s danced version of the Eugene Onegin story, multiple Tatyanas yearn for half a dozen Onegins, while scrambling over the branches of a giant tree. The acrobatics often blur the ideas. Colker’s dancers are fearless, but the risks aren’t always expressive.

Bodies honed for heavy industry strut like Greek gods, while a cruel young cad reforms too late

Today's blockbusters are more likely to be live screenings of opera or ballet than the latest Hollywood movie. Jonathan Owen reports

John Cranko’s Onegin feels like the ballet-of-the-opera, a watered-down version of a stronger story.

Scottish Ballet’s Nutcracker is a deliberate step away from Christmas sugar. There’s a cartoon edge to Antony McDonald’s designs, while choreographer Ashley Page is determined to make the story darker, even when that goes against the grain of Tchaikovsky’s score. A bright company performance adds a lot of warmth and sparkle.