| ROMEO & JULIET | Apr 97 |
| "In the ten years of her stage career, Darcey Bussell has done many wonderful things. None, I thought after Tuesday night, more touching or more revealing of her powers as a dance actress than Juliet ... With Darcey Bussell I saw the role MacMillan made. Its life, its emotional purpose and driving physical imagery were heart-stirring. this was ... a character most sensitively understood. Bussell is a child in the opening scene, coltish and blessedly innocent - not easy for a tall dancer - and her inexperience (the downcast eyes, her sense of delight in even being at the ball) make the exactly needed contrast with the young woman whom Romeo is to fine into emotional life. All this Bussell shows with an exquisite precision and a self-absorption, which explains the rest of the action. IN the balcony duet, the dance is impelled onwards by her new-found sexuality, itself still innocent. Faced with the tyrannies of her family, she is by turns rebellious, then drained of force. In everything feeling seems spontaneous, overwhelming - for us as well as for her. It is a beautiful reading ... The role was shown with great artistry and even greater conviction. How fortunate we are to see it" | Clement Crisp
Financial Times
17 Apr 97 |
| "I have never seen Bussell dance better. And that is a very grand statement indeed. She was breathtaking, one of the finest Juliet's ever. She looked perfect, danced with a dazzling technical expertise and simply surrendered to the choreography and narrative and won all our hearts" | Nicholas Dromgoole
Sunday Telegraph
20 Apr 97 |
| SONG OF THE EARTH | Dec 98 |
| "Bussell is, for me, a mysterious artist. With her first starring roles she new things she could not have known, did things that only an assured ballerina could do ... Her youthful assumptions of The Woman in Song of the Earth ... revealed that in emotionally demanding choreography, Bussell caught the least nuances of the ballet and danced with a heart-tearing clarity ... Bussell was incapable of dancing certain ballets without getting every step right" | Clement Crisp
Financial Times
30 Dec 98 |
| SERENADE | Jul & Aug 99 |
| " There have been some exceptionally fine individual performances in the Royal Ballet's season ... A special pleasure was the sight of Darcey Bussell in Balanchine's Serenade ... Despite an injured ankle, Bussell gave a beautiful account of the ballet" | John Percival
The Independent
26 Jul 99 |
| "Serenade was rescued by the superb dancing of Darcey Bussell" | Giannandrea Poesio
The Spectator
31 Jul 99 |
| "Darcey Bussell was again at her best dancing Balanchine. Her beautiful simplicity produces a perfect chemistry with Balanchine's lean poetry" | Nadine Meisner
Sunday Times
1 Aug 99 |
| "Bussell was born to dance Balanchine and she gave a superb performance ... She dances on such a large and lovely scale that it is as if she were being tracked by a huge magnifying glass. It isn't just the sheer length of each line, or the instinctive timing of each phrase, it is the very force of her personality. She colours her 'character' with such extraordinary sweetness and pathos that between them she ans Tchaikovsky made you fell like you'd sat through a three act drama" | Louise Levene
Sunday Telegraph
1 Aug 99 |
| "Darcey Bussell epitomises the Balanchine ballerina. Tall, slender and linear, her limbs are designed for neo-classical tracery and her role in Serenade was immaculately prepared" | Emma Manning
The Stage
4 Aug 99 |
