Royal knockout ... Zara Deakin as Diana and Sean Ganley as Charles in Diana, the Princess. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AP
The Kirov's tour to Manchester and Birmingham last month was meant to be a special event for UK ballet fans - a rare chance to see the great Mariinsky company outside London. Yet the theatres were half-empty. One significant turn-off was the ticket prices, which had been pitched greedily high, with top seats going for £95. But the other was the decision not to open the Kirov's arrival at each city with Swan Lake, or any other obvious classic. Instead the company were dancing Balanchine's Jewels - hardly a scary novelty but apparently not well enough known to generate full houses.
It's hard to see how this culture of conservatism is ever going to shift, and how the general ballet public will be persuaded to want new work. One route, taken by the shamelessly entrepreneurial Peter Schaufuss, has been to sell his new productions on the back of celebrity culture. Who needs the easy-recognition factor of Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty when you've got Princess Diana as the heroine of your new ballet or, in the case of Schaufuss's most recent production, the diva trio of Judy Garland, Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich opportunistically shoehorned into the same piece.
London gets to see Schaufuss's Divas on June 19, but a week earlier English National Ballet premiers a production that goes down the same showbiz route. Strictly Gershwin has been created for the arena-sized space of the Albert Hall and will feature a cast of 60 dancers orchestrated into mass ballet, tap and ballroom numbers as well as a live band headed by the veteran cabaret singer Barbara Cook.
There is nothing wrong with ballet companies wanting to have fun. There is nothing wrong with them putting on the occasional splashy event to buffer against budgetary crisis. But no one should fool themselves that this will solve the image crisis affecting the art form as a whole. Pretending that ballet isn't really ballet, that it's just an upmarket sister to Strictly Come Dancing, won't lure any new viewers into the theatre the next time the Kirov dance Balanchine.
