Talbot: The Winter's Tale

Director: Christopher Wheeldon

Music: Joby Talbot

Coreographer:  Christopher Wheeldon

Conductor: David Birskin

Designs: Bob Crowley

Following his delightful full-length ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Christopher
Wheeldon continues his highly successful collaboration with designer Bob Crowley and
composer Joby Talbot to create his first ballet based on a Shakespeare play, the late
romance The Winter’s Tale. The story follows the destruction of marriage through
consuming jealousy, the abandonment of a child, and a seemingly hopeless love. Yet
through remorse and regret – and after a statue comes miraculously to life – the ending is
one of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is powerful material for ballet, with a story that
allows for the portrayal of intense emotions between and within the characters, and the
opportunity for the Company to create not just new central characters but the whole
world around them.