20th-Century Masterpieces

Fri 19 – Sat 20 June 2026

Three ballets from three choreographic giants

Birmingham

Overview
Cast & Credits
Gallery
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About 20th-Century Masterpieces

20th-Century Masterpieces shows how ballet can thrill and delight through sheer artistry and brilliance, and yet it can explore dark and ever-with-us conversations about man’s inhumanity to man.

BRB’s founder choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, made Birthday Offering for the then Sadler’s Wells Ballet to celebrate their 25^th anniversary in 1956 (the year they became The Royal Ballet), working with a dazzling cast of dancers that included Margot Fonteyn.

Image: Momoko Hirata in Theme and Variations. Photo © Johan Persson. Illustration © Beth Ingleton

Image gallery

A gallery slider

Joseph Cipolla as Death in The Green Table.
Credit : Leslie E. Spatt

Karen Waldie as The Woman in The Green Table.
Credit : Leslie E. Spatt

Vincent Redmon as The Profiteer in The Green Table.
Credit : Leslie E. Spatt

Vincent Redmon as The Profiteer and Mikaela Polley as The Young Girl in The Green Table.
Credit : Leslie E. Spatt

Mark Welford as The Old Soldier and Yi-Lei Cai as The Young Soldier in The Green Table.
Credit : Leslie E. Spatt

Mark Welford as The Old Soldier and Joseph Cipolla as Death in The Green Table.
Credit : Leslie E. Spatt

Joseph Cipolla as Death and Marion Tait as The Mother in The Green Table.
Credit : Leslie E. Spatt

Artists of Birmingham Royal Ballet in The Green Table.
Credit : Leslie E. Spatt

The Green Table is considered Kurt Jooss’s masterwork – created in 1932 he foreshadows the ultimate futility of the peace negotiations of that decade and shows Death becoming the inevitable dance partner of each of the characters in turn.

George Balanchine’s joyous Theme and Variations drips with gilded grandeur, evoking in Balanchine’s own words the ‘great period in classical dancing when Russian ballet flourished with the aid of Tchaikovsky’s music’. Created in 1947, it is a glorious celebration in dance with which to round off the programme.

20th-Century Masterpieces is supported by donors to the Caroline Miller Fund. The Green Table is supported by Stuart Sweeney and Fern & Clive Potter. Birthday Offering is supported by The Frederick Ashton Foundation and The Rick Mather David Scrase Foundation.