Birmingham Royal Ballet announces 2026–27 season including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and The Maiden of Venice

By Grace Hatchell 2nd Act Couriers

This one arrived with a faint dusting of rosin and a very grand sense of occasion.

I clocked it straight away — you don’t get through my satchel waving Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and a centenary year without me peeking inside. And sure enough, tucked neatly into the paperwork was the announcement of the 2026–27 season from Birmingham Royal Ballet, and it’s a season that knows exactly what it’s doing.

First up, a revival that feels as inevitable as it is welcome. Sir Peter Wright’s Swan Lake returns to Birmingham and London in the autumn, part of a wider celebration of his 100th birthday. This is the Swan Lake many audiences grew up with — elegant, clear, emotionally direct — and its return feels less like a revival and more like a homecoming.

Then there’s The Nutcracker, back at Birmingham Hippodrome in late November. No surprises there, and rightly so. It’s become a seasonal ritual, and this year it lands with extra weight, coinciding with Sir Peter Wright’s centenary. Some productions sparkle and fade. This one endures, passing from generation to generation like a well-loved family story.

But it’s spring 2027 where things get especially interesting.

Carlos Acosta’s The Maiden of Venice receives its world premiere before heading out on a UK tour, and this is very much a statement piece. A reimagining of La Bayadère — a ballet famous for its beauty and technical brilliance, but also for a narrative that no longer sits comfortably — Acosta relocates the story to Renaissance Venice, keeping the richness of the choreography while shedding the cultural baggage

And because ballet folk will already be muttering “but what about La Bayadère?”, let me get this said properly.

La Bayadère isn’t just any old 19th-century classic. It’s a cornerstone. Partly because it holds one of ballet’s most celebrated sequences: the Kingdom of the Shades. If you’ve never seen it, imagine discipline turned into poetry — dancers arriving in a slow, unbroken flow, line after line, each movement needing absolute control. It’s technically punishing and strangely hypnotic, and it’s the bit that ballet lovers talk about in that reverent, slightly haunted way.

But here’s the rub. In recent years, the original narrative has become increasingly hard to ignore for the wrong reasons. The themes, the framing, the cultural appropriation — it’s all been sitting there, growing heavier with time.

What Carlos Acosta is doing with The Maiden of Venice is not to pretend La Bayadère isn’t important, but to stop it being trapped by the parts that no longer sit right. By shifting the world from ancient India to Renaissance Venice, the production aims to remove those sensitivities and keep what’s precious: the beauty, the craft, the universal pull of the story, and the sheer richness of the dance.

And it’s not just a “new setting” on paper, either. This version is being built with proper theatrical muscle behind it: set and costume design by Anna Fleischle, lighting by Lucy Carter, and new arrangements of Minkus’s score by Gavin Sutherland. In other words, it’s being reimagined from the ground up — not simply re-labelled..

From what’s outlined, this isn’t revision for revision’s sake. It’s a thoughtful, considered attempt to preserve what matters in ballet history while allowing the work to live, breathe, and speak to contemporary audiences. With new arrangements of Minkus’s score and designs by Anna Fleischle, it promises scale, atmosphere, and serious ambition.

Acosta himself speaks openly about not wanting the ballet to be buried or quietly cancelled, and that honesty carries through the whole season. There’s a confidence here — in the dancers, in the repertory, and in the audience’s appetite for work that respects tradition without being trapped by it.

Alongside the main company, BRB2 will also take to the stage in spring 2027 with a brand-new programme, continuing the company’s commitment to nurturing the next generation of dancers and giving them space to be seen on their own terms.

What’s perhaps most striking, reading through all this, is how grounded it feels. This isn’t flash for flash’s sake. It’s ballet that understands its past, acknowledges its present, and plans carefully for its future.

And judging by the company’s recent success — with ticket sales climbing back beyond pre-pandemic levels — audiences are very much ready.

Some seasons shout.
This one stands tall, adjusts its crown, and lets the work speak for itself.

Listings Information (UK only)

Please note, on-sale dates vary across the season.
Please check BRB’s website for details.

2026

Don Quixote

Music Ludwig Minkus
Choreography Carlos Acosta after Marius Petipa
Production Carlos Acosta
Designs Tim Hatley
Lighting Peter Mumford
Staged by Christopher Saunders

Birmingham Hippodrome
Thu 12 – Sat 21 Feb

Audio Described Performance: Sat 14 Feb, 2pm

The Lowry, Salford
Thu 5 – Sat 7 Mar 

Theatre Royal Plymouth
Wed 18 – Sat 21 Mar 

Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
Wed 15 – Sat 18 Apr 

Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London
Thu 23 – Sat 25 Apr

BRB2: Carlos Acosta’s Ballet Celebration

Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham
Thu 14 – Sat 16 May

Hall for Cornwall
Wed 20 May

Northampton Royal & Derngate
Sat 23 May

New Theatre Peterborough
29 May

Sir Peter Wright Centenary

Birmingham Hippodrome
Thu 18 Jun

20th Century Masterpieces

Birmingham Hippodrome
Fri 19 – Sat 20 Jun

Swan Lake

Choreography: Peter Wright, Lev Ivanov, Marius Petipa
Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Production: Peter Wright, Galina Samsova
Designs: Philip Prowse
Lighting: Peter Teigen

Birmingham Hippodrome
23 September (PN) – 3 October

Sadler’s Wells Theatre
28 – 31 October

The Nutcracker

Choreography: Sir Peter Wright, Lev Ivanov, Vincent Redmon
Production: Sir Peter Wright
Composer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Designs: John Macfarlane
Lighting: David Finn

Birmingham Hippodrome
20 November (PN) – 12 December

2027

The Maiden of Venice
Music: Ludwig Minkus

Arranged by: Gavin Sutherland

Production: Carlos Acosta
Choreography: Carlos Acosta, after Marius Petipa
Production Set and Costume Designer: Anna Fleischle
Lighting Design: Lucy Carter

Birmingham Hippodrome
20 – 27 February
Press performances matinee and evening 23 February

Theatre Royal Plymouth
11 – 13 March

Sunderland Empire
18 – 20 March

Lowry, Salford
1 – 3 April

Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
14 – 17 April