Christmas at Covent Garden: 300 Years of Christmas Shows

The London Christmas season was invented at Covent Garden. The first theatre on the site was the home of Harlequin and Columbine and 300 years on Harlequin and Columbine are still dancing in “The Nutcracker”. Most of what we now consider to be quintessential pantomime – principal boy, fairy tales, transformation scenes and the dame, can be traced back to the operas and ballets put on at Covent Garden during its first 200 years. Panto has moved on to the Palladium, but you can still see its basic components in the seasonal operas and ballets the Royal Opera House puts on every year: Rossini’s ‘Cenerentola” (Cinderella) for example or Humperdinck’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’, Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ or Ashton’s ‘Cinderella’. The repertoire changes every year and this lecture is up-dated to include current ROH Christmas offerings.