Received in the newsletter for the Friends of Covent Garden:

To Principal
Lauren Cuthbertson (First Soloist), Rupert Pennefather (First Soloist).

To First Soloist
Yuhui Choe (First Artist, Steven McRae (Soloist)

To Soloist
Helen Crawford (First Artist), Laura McCulloch (First Artist), Ryoichi Hirano (First Artist), Paul Kay (First Artist), Sergei Polunin (Artist), Eric Underwood (First Artist)

To First Artist
Elizabeth Harrod, Romany Pajdak, Pietra Mello-Pitman, Liam Scarlett (all from Artist)

Gillian Revie will become Guest Principal Character Artist from next Season.

James Hay to the Artists (joining from The Royal Ballet School and also two Prix de Lausanne apprentices Akane Takada and Kyle Davies.

Oooh!

I don't know the lower rank artists as well, but given the performances I saw these all make sense. Polunin's leapfrogging ranks isn't a surprise (neither is Choe's - both are doing major roles all the time) Cuthbertson, Pennefather and McRae were pretty obviously up for promotions. Kay has been doing his share of pyrotechnic roles for a while, and McCulloch's gotten some plum opportunities including Lilac Fairy. Gillian Revie was a magnificent Carabosse, the company is right to groom her as a character artist. We saw James Hay at Proteges in Washington - he did a very elegant job in the solo in Bintley's Galanteries.

Congratulations to all!

Bravo Eric Underwood!

Kyle Davis

I'm very excited for Polunin -- he's a gorgeous dancer with wonderful, clean form: a real classicist.

Revie's Carabosse was one of the best performances in a theater I've seen in ages, and I'm glad her talent is being recognized.

The Royal Ballet has also announced that first soloist Martin Harvey is leaving the company at the end of the season, and going into the cast of Dirty Dancing in September. He's had some big roles in the last couple of seasons and also danced with the Birmingham Royal Ballet at the end of last year.