Alina Cojocaru Glows in London City Ballet's Night of Ghosts and Dreams

By Elena Vasquez

Alina Cojocaru, 45, opened London City Ballet's programme at Sadler's Wells as a near-mystical apparition — and the review verdict from our source is unambiguous: she is "positively glowing" in a night built on dreams and the ghosts of dance history.

The evening's anchor is John Neumeier's ballet Ghost Light, created in 2020 for his Hamburg Ballet. A "ghost light" is the single lamp left burning on a stage when a theatre is dark, and one glows throughout the piece. Cojocaru, a guest dancer with London City Ballet, has a long working relationship with Neumeier and his Hamburg company, which originally created the work on her generation of dancers.

What happens in Ghost Light?

Cojocaru materialises onstage in silence, "so ethereal it's almost mystical". She reads like a ghost of Swan Lake's Odette — wings fluttering, eyes half closed, lost in a memory. Her delicacy carries the full romance of ballet until her steps glitch: she stumbles over a chair and comes to.

The stage becomes a place of dreams for every dancer who has crossed its boards, and superstition holds that ghost lamps allow the spirits of former dancers to return. Neumeier evokes those histories in fragments: a stray sylph upstage, earnest solos, sparky allegro, and two young men in a tender duet — passing each other sometimes in parallel worlds, sometimes in moments of connection.

How was the ballet made?

The parts were created separately during Covid, with bubbles of dancers, as a practical measure. The result, per the review, is "a beautiful rendering of the passage of time and its circularity" — of dance's and dancers' evolution. Neumeier is 87 and has seen his share of stages; Cojocaru, at 45, "always brings real poignancy".

Who dances Firebird?

The programme's second half revives Glen Tetley's Firebird (1981), staged to mark the late choreographer's centenary. Reviving forgotten ballets is a major strand of the company's identity, and London City Ballet — formed only three years ago in its current version — is, in the reviewer's words, "looking very fine".

Ellie Young dances the Firebird, here a young woman ostracised from her austere family. She finds a partner in Joseph Taylor, praised as "strong, lyrical and so attentive".

Tetley served as a bridge between ballet and modern dance, and the company pays exacting attention to form in swift, clean steps and emotive expression. The caveat: the narrative may be fuzzy, and the final scene — set to Stravinsky's glorious score — falls short of the majesty of Michel Fokine's version, with Natalia Goncharova's designs. Still, the review finds "much to cherish here".

Where can audiences see it?

The double bill plays Sadler's Wells in London until 24 October, then tours until 6 December. That gives audiences roughly six weeks of London dates, plus a further six weeks on the road, to catch a ballerina the review calls "never not glowing".