It’s a rare thing to see a performance that manages to feel completely unexpected and, at the same time, utterly inevitable. Black Sabbath – The Ballet, which has returned to the Birmingham Hippodrome after its world premiere in 2023, manages both.
Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Artistic Director Carlos Acosta dedicated the opening night performance to the late, great Ozzy Osbourne: “This one’s for you,” he told the audience. In Sabbath’s hometown, this felt like such a poignant tribute and a chance for the city to continue honouring its most thunderous cultural export.
From the moment the curtain rose, it was clear this wasn’t just a clever experiment in mashing up heavy metal with high art. It was a genuine meeting of equals. Rock and ballet have brushed shoulders before – Peter Darrell’s Mods and Rockers in the Sixties, Robert Joffrey’s psychedelic Astarte, even a ballet spin on Tommy. More recently, shows like Rock the Ballet have fused pop soundtracks and classical technique. But none have landed with the sheer conviction of Black Sabbath – The Ballet. Doom-laden anthems and soaring pirouettes. Grit and grace. Instead of cancelling each other out, it was like they have long been waiting to be paired together.
The production itself is hypnotic. Sabbath’s music, reimagined and reorchestrated, still roars with monumental weight, but here it collides with the lyricism and discipline of the dancers. What could so easily have slipped into gimmickry becomes a conversation: the crunch of Iron Man against the lift of a jeté, the menace of Paranoid set against the aching stillness of a pas de deux.
The dancers are uniformly outstanding. This is not a show where you can pluck out a single star; the whole company moves as one, carrying the raw energy of the music with both muscle and finesse. They tell the story of working-class lads while somehow rendering it all strangely otherworldly. Threaded in the score were the voices of Sabbath themselves – interview snippets that swung from wry humour to aching sadness. These echoes of the band’s own words grounded the spectacle, reminding us that behind the loud riffs stood four young men who grappled with fame, loss and laughter.
Throughout the evening, guitarist Marc Haywood bridged the gap between stage and orchestra pit, his playing providing a constant pulse. And then for the finale, Tony Iommi stepped into the light to play live – a proper homecoming for the founding Sabbath guitarist as the audience surged to its feet. This production isn’t just an artistic experiment. It’s a love letter to Birmingham, if you will. A bold challenge of what ballet can be, and proof of the universality of rock, whether filtered through pointe shoes or a distortion pedal.
Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Black Sabbath – The Ballet runs at The Birmingham Hippodrome until Saturday September 27. For tickets and more information click here.
