The last major ballet performance was Swan Lake on March 12. “It’s like seven months of pent-up energy, excitement to develop further,” Marcelino Sambé, a principal dancer from Portugal, told. “This is what we did all that training for - to perform, to share this art.

And to not have been doing that for so long, it really causes a lot of distress, really, and it’s incredible that we get to be back on this glorious stage,” he said. “Frankly, it really is a really bad situation for the Opera House,” said Kevin O’Hare, director of the Royal Ballet. He said the ballet have to perform. ‘We’ve lost, I think, three in every five pounds’.

The Royal ballet director said precautions have been taken appropriately right from the costume to social distancing backstage and dancing couples working. “It is probably the longest time, other than injuries, that dancers may have had, that we’ve all been away from our daily routine and our training as we know it and performing on stage,” said Anna Rose O’Sullivan, first soloist.

“All of our classes were via Zoom. So we were looking at a laptop and, you know, the postman would walk by and think, that’s ... what’s she doing in there, while I was doing my daily class and training.” 500 attendees can be allowed to see the live performance. 500 is mostly family members, key workers, students and other supporters.

“The fact that we’ve been away from it for so long has made us hungry and more resilient and appreciate it as well - what we do and how much we enjoy performing,” O’Sullivan said.