Birmingham Royal Ballet’s 2025-26 season has been a tremendous success so far with a 30% increase on ticket sales from the last record-breaking season in 2019, demonstrating the demand for world-class ballet is back to pre-Covid attendance numbers.

The 2026-27 season announcement also follows the most successful run ever of The Nutcracker in Birmingham, and takes place on the brink of a national tour of Carlos Acosta’s production of Don Quixote - which had its premiere in the long shadow of the Covid pandemic and now gets a sun-drenched revival which opens at Birmingham Hippodrome on 12 February. The Company will be joined by guest dancers Siphesihle November and Genevieve Penn Nabity from National Ballet of Canada for selected Birmingham performances following their company’s staging of this production in 2024.

Next season sees the return of Sir Peter Wright and Galina Samsova’s perennially popular Swan Lake, one of several celebrations in his 100th year. The season opens at Birmingham Hippodrome on 23 September where it will play until 3 October.

The Nutcracker returns to Birmingham Hippodrome from 20 November - 12 December and, in the absence of a Royal Albert Hall run this year, the Company will shift focus entirely to the premiere of The Maiden of Venice, running at Birmingham Hippodrome from 20 – 27 February.

The Maiden of Venice is Carlos Acosta’s groundbreaking reimagining of the 19th-century classic, La Bayadère. The creation of this production is an important development for Birmingham Royal Ballet. The Company has never had a full-length La Bayadère in its repertory and performing it will showcase the virtuosity of the current dancers. 

La Bayadère is extremely important in Ballet history, not least because of the incredibly beautiful and technically challenging Kingdom of the Shades scene. In recent times, the original narrative has become problematic, in both its themes and its recognised cultural appropriation. By moving the time and place from ancient India to Renaissance Venice, these sensitivities are removed in favour of the universal messages and richness of this precious work of art. This new setting is being brought to life through set and costume designer Anna Fleischle’s stunning designs with lighting design by Lucy Carter and new arrangements of Minkus’s score by Gavin Sutherland.

More announcements for the 2026-27 Season will follow later in the year. For more information, visit: brb.org.uk