Press Contact: Megan Stone
05 February 2025
Birmingham Royal Ballet have announced their 2025-26 season, and two of their renowned productions are coming to Theatre Royal Plymouth. Following its hugely successful run in 2023, Black Sabbath – The Ballet is returning in 2025, and the vibrant Don Quixote will be coming in Spring 2026.
The Company’s Director Carlos Acosta said: ‘Following the Company’s most successful Nutcracker season ever, preparations for our spring 2025 tour of Cinderella are well underway but already we are looking ahead and I am so happy to announce the return of two of the more recent jewels in BRB’s crown, Black Sabbath – The Ballet and Don Quixote. Amongst many achievements, these productions are two of which I am possibly most proud as I mark five years with the Company. I continue to honour the memory of my close collaborator and CEO Caroline Miller in my first season without her at my side, and we all remain positive and excited about what lies ahead.’
Black Sabbath – The Ballet had its European premiere in Rotterdam last June and BRB is thrilled to be taking the show to the Virginia Arts Festival and the Kennedy Center Washington before it has its homecoming to open the 2025-26 season in Birmingham at the Hippodrome to kick off a tour that sees its first ever visit to the Lowry, Salford before returning to Theatre Royal Plymouth from 16 – 18 October following its sell-out run in 2023, then heading to Sadler’s Wells, London and finishing with a Scottish premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre. The show was a complete sell-out when it premiered in Autumn 2023, bringing heavy metal fans to ballet for the first time, and this return will see some updated interview audio and even sharper sound design to ensure the dial can be turned up to 11!
A full-length, three-act, Ballet Now commission, Black Sabbath – The Ballet was created by a host of international talent including lead Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidburg, Cuban designer Alexandre Arrechea, Tony Award winning composer Christopher Austin with additional choreographers Raúl Reinoso and Cassi Abranches and composers Marko Nyberg and Sun Keting. Dramaturgy is by Richard Thomas and lighting design is by KJ.
The 8 Black Sabbath tracks featured are: Paranoid (Paranoid, 1970); Ironman (Paranoid, 1970); War Pigs (Paranoid, 1970); Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath, 1970); Solitude (Master of Reality, 1971); Orchid (Master of Reality, 1971); Laguna Sunrise (Vol 4, 1972) and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973). The music has been re-orchestrated for the Royal Ballet Sinfonia with new compositions inspired by Black Sabbath also performed live by the orchestra and live on stage guitarist Mark Hayward reprises his role.
The Spring 2026 season begins in Birmingham with the return of Carlos Acosta’s production of Don Quixote, kicking off a UK-wide tour at the Hippodrome before visiting The Lowry, Salford, Sunderland Empire, Theatre Royal Plymouth from 18 – 21 March, then Mayflower Theatre, Southampton. Finally, with more details to be announced, BRB will be returning to the Royal Opera House with Don Quixote as part of their Summer Season in 2026 after more than a decade-long absence.
BRB last performed Don Quixote in Spring 2022 in the shadow of Omicron. Although the tour was successful, it is felt that the circumstances were less than ideal and that this timely revival can now flourish from an altogether more stable and positive context. Don Quixote will bring the vibrancy of Spanish sunshine to audiences who themselves may now have more of a spring in their step. In 2022 the production was filmed for cinema and broadcast on BBC TV where it has been seen by over 95,000 people, indicating an appetite for this joyous, visually sumptuous ballet to showcase the company’s technical mastery and comic timing!
On sale dates for these two shows will be announced soon.