Black Sabbath among highlights of Royal Ballet’s 2025-26 season
Birmingham Royal Ballet has unveiled its 2025-26 season – with a string of highlights including Black Sabbath - The Ballet returning to the UK for an autumn tour.
Other notable productions include the Royal Ballet returning to Japan with Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty while The Nutcracker makes its way back to Birmingham Hippodrome and the Royal Albert Hall.
Meanwhile, Carlos Acosta’s Don Quixote will tour the UK in the spring of 2026 and will also return to the Royal Opera House stage in the summer after a 10-year absence.
Birmingham Royal Ballet 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 are taking the show to the Virginia Arts Festival (28-30 May) and the Kennedy Center Washington (4-8 July) before it has its homecoming to open the 2025-26 season in Birmingham at the Hippodrome (18-27 Sep).
It kicks off a tour that includes its first visit to the Lowry, Salford (8-11 Oct).
The show was a sell-out when it premiered in Autumn 2023.
Summer 2025 also sees the Company’s return to Japan with Cinderella (27 - 29 June) and The Sleeping Beauty (20-22 June) visiting Tokyo Bunka Kaikan before the latter visits Osaka (2 July) and Nagoya (5 July).
Alongside The Sleeping Beauty BRB’s digital project will be part of the highly prestigious Osaka Expo with an exhibition of photos by Clive Booth, inspired by the Company’s research into the effects of Relative Energy Deficiency in dancers running from 25 to 1 July.
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 (12-21 Feb) before visiting The Lowry, Salford (5-7 March), Sunderland Empire (12-14 March), Plymouth Theatre Royal (18-21 March), then Southampton Mayflower (15-18 April).
The Nutcracker’s Birmingham run begins on 21 November playing through to 13 December. The Royal Albert Hall spectacular presentation returns this year (29 - 31 December 2025).
A celebration: Sir Peter Wright Centenary will take place at the Birmingham Hippodrome on Wednesday 18 February 2026 when Sir Peter will be in his 100th year (he turns 99 in November 2025).
Meanwhile, Carlos Acosta’s Ballet Celebration features highlights from the repertory of Serge Diaghilev's troupe of rebel dancers, musicians and designers who fled Russia to set a new standard in creativity that inspires and resonates across the world of dance to this day.